G.A.S. Fellowship Award 2022

Laeïla Adjovi

Senegal | May 2023

Laeïla Adjovi is a Beninese-French multidisciplinary artist based in Dakar, Senegal. Photographer, visual artist and researcher, her favorite themes relate to culturel hybridity, multi-layered identities, visible and invisible borders, and the African cultural heritage. Her work has been exhibited in Senegal, Ethiopia, Morocco, Benin, France, South Africa, the UK, the US, and Cuba.

In 2018, she was the recipient of the Leopold Sedar prize for her poem and photographic series Malaïka Dotou Sankofa, done in collaboration with French photographer Loïc Hoquet. In 2019, thanks to an artistic residency in Benin with the Zinsou Foundation, she started her ongoing project The Roads of Yemoja about African spirituality in Nigeria, Benin and Cuba. In 2020, she received a grant from the Musagetes foundation to pursue this work, and in 2021, she started a Phd titled The Roads of Yemoja: Nomad spirituality, oral transmission and cultural resistance. 

Femi Johnson

Nigeria | Jun - Jul 2022

Olorunfemi Johnson is a Director and Producer working in fields of arts and culture and its future in the context of the Digital Adoption moving into a web3.0 meta world. He has worked with numerous cultural initiatives documenting and researching African identity and culture.

In terms of technology, he is an active advocate of adoption of Blockchain Technology in Western Africa, being a tutor for Binance in 2021, the largest crypto exchange in the world, he has worked with local art initiatives to build workshops and tutoring lessons for educating artists on NFTs and the public on the fundamentals of blockchain.

Tobi Onabolu

Nigeria | April 2023

Tobi Onabolu is a storyteller who exists at the intersections between the conceptual, audio-visual, written, and experiential arts. His ikigai is to advocate cultural pan-Africanism through collaboration, storytelling, and healing. 

Interrogating topics of identity, space, time, and spirituality, Tobi creates works which celebrate African and Diasporic cultures, and his award-winning short film, Dear Black Child, speaks directly to these themes.

His work has been featured across exhibitions, billboards, and in publications such as Dazed, artnet, gal-dem, AFROPUNK, and GQ. Tobi divides his time between West Africa and London.

Uzor Ugoala

Nigeria | Jun - Jul 2022

Uzor Ugoala (b. 1995) is a self-taught Nigerian conceptual photographer who creates visually stimulating and introspective images that explore the human psyche in relation to the nuances of our existence; understanding patterns governing the self which may be reinforced by culture and society. Through his imagery, he attempts to provoke thought in the viewer by employing deliberately composed elements comprising of hand-fabricated props together with a generalized aesthetic of muted colours that whisper ‘pause and reflect’.

He views conceptual photography as a curious means of soul-searching and draws a rich blend of inspiration from downtempo trance music, nature, sculpture, surreal paintings and photographs, introspection, real life experiences, psychology literature and conceptual animation.