In November 2025, Guest Artists Space Foundation (G.A.S.) and Yinka Shonibare Foundation (Y.S.F.), partnered to launch the Finnish-Nigerian Peer Mentoring Residency Programme at Villa Karo’s centre in Grand-Popo, Benin. The programme provides an immersive cross-cultural experience where Finnish and Nigerian visual artists live, work, and learn together, offering two fully funded, eight-week residencies to G.A.S. alumni based and actively working in Nigeria.
The selection process was made through a closed-call via our Nigerian alumni network in which ten candidates were identified based on the strength of their practices and their alignment with the objectives of the programme. The candidates were subsequently invited to submit applications for final consideration. Final selections were made by Belinda Holden, CEO of Yinka Shonibare Foundation (Y.S.F.), and Moni Aisida, Executive Director of Guest Artists Space Foundation (G.A.S.).
Today, we are pleased to announce the recipients of this opportunity: Adewale Kolawole John, an Ibadan-based visual artist and Nengi Nelson, a Lagos-based freelance photographer and visual storyteller.
Over the course of the programme, the selected participants will be paired with a Finnish artist, with both undertaking the residency together at Villa Karo. They will engage in facilitated sessions, informal studio exchanges, and joint activities with other residents, with opportunities for workshops, excursions, and local networking. Throughout the residency, each artist alternates between mentor and mentee roles to foster mutual growth. The programme will conclude with a public presentation of their work through an exhibition, talk, performance, or other event offering audiences a window into the outcomes of the residency.
This initiative reflects G.A.S. and Y.S.F.’s ongoing commitment to supporting and engaging their alumni through international exchange, residencies and collaborative opportunities.
About the Recipients
Adewale Kolawole
Adewale Kolawole John is a visual artist born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. His practice is rooted in an exploration of Yoruba traditional music, with a particular focus on juju and its cultural legacies. Through painting, he creates rich, textured portraits that often depict Yoruba musicians in traditional clothing, capturing not only their likeness but also the spirit and atmosphere of the sounds they produce. Adewale’s work is deeply informed by archival research and personal encounters with music, record sleeves, and performance histories, which he translates into layered compositions on canvas. By drawing inspiration from Yoruba soundscapes, he situates his practice at the intersection of memory, heritage, and contemporary visual expression.
Photo of Adewale Kolawole. Image courtesy of L.Ogunde photography
Nengi Nelson
Nengi Nelson is a Lagos-based freelance Photographer and visual storyteller. She explores identity, choice, vulnerability and social acceptance in her works. For her, identity serves as a means to introspect and question ‘’being’’ beyond social norms, especially in African spaces. She explores choice, how humans decide who they become and the factors that permit identity in individuals.
Photo of Nengi Nelson. Image courtesy of G.A.S. Foundation.
About Villa Karo
Located in Grand-Popo, Benin, Villa Karo has established a reputation as a vibrant Finnish-West African cultural hub that fosters cross-cultural exchange and co-creation among creative professionals across disciplines. Villa Karo provides accommodation, communal spaces, a museum with an exhibition space, a lively cultural programme and professional support to artists in residency. The activities take place in a calm rural setting ideal for intimate, sustained creative exchange.
Villa Karo’s location in Grand-Popo enables meaningful exposure to the rich cultural heritage of South Benin and its local communities. It offers opportunities for residency artists to explore one of the largest animist religions in the world, the vodun, that is a deeply rooted, complex spiritual system with profound cultural and social significance in everyday life of Grand-Popo. The worldview of vodun culture sits in sharp contrast with the modern industrialised ways of life, with its intimate links to ancestors and nature. Its ritual symbolism offers rich inspiration for visual artists seeking to explore questions of identity, cosmology and even new definitions of progress.
