The 20th century can be read as a formative ecotonal space—an unsettled, generative borderland where networks fractured and reformed, collaborations ignited, and tensions gave way to new modes of relation. Within this compressed terrain, distinct ecologies of African and Afro-diasporic thought and practice took shape, producing postcolonial libraries and archives that carried with them emergent aesthetic and epistemic registers—unfinished, insurgent, and alive with possibility.  

In June 2025, Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation, in partnership with the Yinka Shonibare Foundation (Y.S.F.), launched The Short Century Intensive, a fellowship designed to support artistic and scholarly inquiry into the cultural and political histories of the mid-to-late 20th century.  As part of the second chapter of Re:assemblages, a dynamic, multi-year programme designed to foster collaboration and experimentation across postcolonial art archives and library collections, the intensive is anchored by Okwui Enwezor’s seminal 2001-2002 exhibition The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945–1994, which examined the intersections of art and politics during a period of intense struggle and transformation across Africa. Taking this archive as a provocation, the intensive asks: what forms of relation, refusal, and repair remain possible in the afterlives of this compressed century?

The 20th century can be read as a formative ecotonal space—an unsettled, generative borderland where networks fractured and reformed, collaborations ignited, and tensions gave way to new modes of relation. Within this compressed terrain, distinct ecologies of African and Afro-diasporic thought and practice took shape, producing postcolonial libraries and archives that carried with them emergent aesthetic and epistemic registers—unfinished, insurgent, and alive with possibility.  

In June 2025, Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation, in partnership with the Yinka Shonibare Foundation (Y.S.F.) announced the 2025–26 edition of Re:assemblages, a dynamic, multi-year programme designed to foster collaboration and experimentation across postcolonial art archives and library collections. This ambitious initiative reimagines the stewardship and activation of African and Afro-diasporic art archives, and will result in a rich constellation of international convenings, symposia, micro-publications, and a research intensive.

From June 19th to 21st, 2025, G.A.S. Lagos hosted AfterImages, an exhibition of moving image installations and accompanying screenings interrogating the coloniality of archival film. Curated by Monangambee, AfterImages was presented as the culminating exhibition of Art Exchange: Moving Image, a curatorial professional development programme delivered by LUX, Yinka Shonibare Foundation, and Guest Artists Space Foundation, with support from the British Council. Focusing on Cameroonian cinema and broader film traditions from the Global South, the featured works used experimental and archival techniques to reflect on what remains after colonialism and how memory, history, and absence are expressed through film.

From June 9th to 13th, 2025, G.A.S. Lagos hosted the inaugural edition of the Ìmòra Arts Intensive, a week-long programme designed to equip early-career visual artists with the tools, knowledge, and mentorship needed to strengthen their professional practice. Through a series of dynamic and insightful sessions, participants explored topics such as artistic research, project development, commercial representation, negotiation, and strategies for presenting their work. Each day brought together the 10 selected cohort and experienced facilitators, ranging from curators and cultural workers to writers, artists, and creative entrepreneurs, for hands-on learning, critical reflection, and peer exchange. 

Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu, a Zimbabwean writer, scholar, and curator, joins G.A.S. Lagos for a six-week residency as the 2025 curatorial recipient of the G.A.S. Fellowship Award supported by Deutsche Bank. His expansive practice spans printmaking, installation, curating, research, and literature, with a strong focus on the intersections of African literary histories, archives, and visual culture. At the core of his approach is an interest in how fiction can function as a tool for critical inquiry, activating narratives, reworking found materials, and challenging dominant cultural and institutional frameworks.

G.A.S. is pleased to partner with the Finnish Cultural Foundation to provide two fully funded, eight-week residencies, which will be awarded to Finnish or Finland-based artists, curators, or writers. The selected residents will primarily be housed in Lagos, with the possibility of spending a shorter time at the G.A.S. Farm House in Ijebu. The opportunity is open to practitioners across various career stages, working in the visual arts, literature, curatorial practice, or intersecting disciplines, who engage with themes of material culture, ecology, and archives within a dynamic transnational context. 

On 27 May 2025, the Yinka Shonibare Foundation convened a Private View and guided tour for patrons and alumni at The Africa Centre, London, spotlighting the latest iteration of the travelling exhibition 'in transit under another sky'. The event marked a significant moment in the trajectory of a project that emerged from Art Exchange: Moving Image, a dynamic curatorial development programme dedicated to amplifying the voices of early-career curators from Sub-Saharan Africa. The event also formed part of the British Council’s UK/Kenya Season of Culture 2025, situating the exhibition within a wider transnational arts ecology. A post-tour conversation between exhibiting artists SCARLETTMOTIFF and Larry Achiampong further deepened the discursive space of the evening, foregrounding themes of mobility, identity, and cinematic practice across diasporic and continental African contexts.

The 2025–26 edition of Re:assemblages marks a dynamic new phase in fostering collaboration and experimentation across African and Afro-diasporic art library collections. This ambitious milti-year programme reimagines the stewardship and activation of African and Afro-diasporic art archives, culminating in a constellation of international convenings, symposia, micro-publications, and a research intensive.

We are pleased to announce the 2025–26 edition of Re:assemblages, a dynamic, multi-year programme designed to foster collaboration and experimentation across African art library collections. This ambitious initiative reimagines the stewardship and activation of African and Afro-diasporic art archives, and will result in a rich constellation of international convenings, symposia, micro-publications, and a research intensive.