On 20th May, Yinka Shonibare Foundation Managing Director, Belinda Holden, will be joining an exciting panel of speakers in Dusseldorf for Between Passion and Mission, an international symposium on the public relevance of privately funded art institutions hosted by Rhineland Independent. 

The call-out for the inaugural G.A.S. Fellowship Award was announced in February 2022 in tandem with the local launch of Guest Artists Space. The fully supported opportunity was open to emerging creative practitioners across all disciplines living within the West African region and initially offered three one-month residencies across our sites in Lagos and Ikise.

The judging panel was impressed by both the talent and breadth of creative disciplines. Following a review of all 160 applications submitted via the open call, they decided to increase the number of opportunities from three to seven fully funded residencies.

It is with great pleasure that we present the first cohort of G.A.S. Fellowship Award recipients.

The first TURN2 resident to arrive in Lagos is Berlin based Lynhan Balatbat Helbock, a curator and researcher at SAVVY Contemporary, where she is part of the participatory archive project Colonial Neighbours. Ahead of her residency, which commences in May 2022, Lynhan discusses her practice and her hopes for the trip.

TURN2 is a programme developed by the German Federal Cultural Foundation to facilitate artistic co-creation between Germany and African countries. The TURN2 Residencies were devised to facilitate research for emerging curators and cultural practitioners with curatorial experience based in Germany and on the African continent with ambitions to make them the starting point for more international collaborations and knowledge-sharing opportunities.