Guest Artists Space Foundation Residency. Lagos, Nigeria

Phase 2 of my Project on Restitution and Repatriation:

In 2022, I was awarded as Guest Artists Space Fellowship at G.A.S. Foundation to further my research , expanding into the areas of Technoheritage and Digital Archives. During this period, I visited various archives, cultural and memory institutions across Lagos with the aim of experiencing firsthand the ease/ difficulties of accessing these spaces and examining the state of archives. These visits gave me an opportunity to engage in conversations with various artists, curators, creatives, designers and cultural workers in these spaces.

Through my visits, it became clear that various heritage and public cultural institutions are in great need of attention as archival materials in some institutions were in a bad state. While private and contemporary cultural institutions are also in need of support, they have built a cultural ecosystem supporting one another through synergies and collaborations with each other.

At the end of my research residency, I curated an exhibition titled "Artefacts (Re)Connecting ... Can you sense them?"

The mixed media Installation was a visual summary of my conversations with artists, curators, cultural workers, designers, architects etc., experiences, research and work created during my residency.

Through the exhibition, I question the state of our archives, the assumed neutrality of the digital, as well as the impacts of 'digital restitution' on the ongoing process of restitution as a whole. The exhibition invited visitors to consider the philosophy of Pan-Africanism and what it means to be Pan-African today with the hope to encourage them to question and share what they feel and think should become of the returned artefacts.

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https://www.guestartistsspace.com/News/meet-gas-fellowship-resident-sarafadeen-bello

https://www.guestartistsspace.com/News/exhibition-artefacts-reconnecting-can-you-sense-them

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