A Evening Sharing Works In Progress By Current G.A.S. Residents Kush Badhwar, Okwei Odili, Oluwasemilore Delano, And Yoma Emore.
On May 30th, 2026 G.A.S. Lagos hosted Underwater Ave, an evening bringing together works in progress by then residents Kush Badhwar, Okwei Odili, Oluwasemilore Delano, and Yoma Emore. As their residencies came to a close, the artists shared unfinished ideas, footage, fragments, prototypes, tests, and experiments developed during their time at G.A.S.
The evening opened with remarks from Kush Badhwar, who reflected on his time in residence and introduced a selection of rushes, which are raw, unedited footage captured during the production of a film project he developed while in Lagos. Speaking about his research process, Kush described spending time observing and learning from the city, engaging closely with its diverse environments and communities as a way of understanding the social and cultural dynamics that informed his work.
This was followed by a presentation from Okwei Odili, whose contribution took the form of a computer-based installation displaying footage and documentation from her time at the G.A.S. Farm House in Ikiṣẹ. Through these moving-image fragments, she shared moments from her residency experience, reflecting on observation, place, and the rhythms of daily life that shaped her research.
Oluwasemilore Delano spoke about working across multiple modes of practice and how her time in residence prompted a shift in medium. Rather than focusing on painting, she became increasingly interested in printmaking, using the residency as an opportunity to experiment with monoprinting and other print-based processes. Through a display of prints created during her residency, alongside works produced during her earlier public programme, Șé òrûn jé ârâ – is the sky skin, she reflected on how this transition opened up new ways of thinking within her broader artistic practice. Audience members were also invited to take home selected prints created during the workshop.
Yoma Emore concluded the presentations with a display of materials from her studio practice, including pieces of velvet and embroidered textiles. She spoke about her interest in reusing remnants from previous projects, transforming leftover materials into new works that extend the life of earlier ideas and processes. Yoma emphasised that these materials were not taken from completed artworks, but rather from surplus fabric and other unused elements generated during production.
Following each presentation, audience members engaged the artists in conversation, asking questions about their research, methods, and experiences in residence.
Event Details
Date: 30th May, 2026
Time: 4:00pm - 9:30pm
Location: 9b, Hakeem Dickson Drive, off T.F. Kuboye Road, Oniru, Lagos
About the Presenters
About Kush Badhwar
Kush Badhwar works across filmmaking, artistic and urban research as ongoing processes of being with ideas and places over time. He has been exploring the gradual making of counter-narrative around rapid and drastic changes in uses of water and land around urban peripheries.
Okwei Odili
Okwei Odili is widely regarded as one of the most compelling contemporary voices in Afrobeat. Building her career between Lagos, Nigeria and Salvador, Brazil, her music reflects deep transatlantic dialogue. In 2013, she received an art grant from UNESCO and the Sacatar Institute in Brazil, where she co-founded IFA Afrobeat. Their debut EP earned the prestigious Caymmi Music Award for Best New Revelation. She later formed the Aweto Band and released her debut solo album Òsùmàrè in 2021, a collaborative project uniting Brazilian and Nigerian musicians. She is currently recording her forthcoming work, River Niger, continuing her exploration of sound as a vessel for cultural exchange and healing.
Photo of Okwei Odili. Image courtesy of Mmaburuzo.
About Oluwasemilore Delano
Oluwasemilore Delano, from Ogun state, Nigeria, is a London,Lagos-based artist whose practice explores memory, lineage, and Black spatial consciousness through drawing and sculpture. Her practice continually returns to the question of what it means to depict the figure, not just as form, but as a site of perception. She is interested in what it means to look, especially when looking is shaped by materials that push back and have their own histories, contexts, and attitudes. Her work engages with materials like charcoal, concrete, oil, and textured black surfaces to interrogate themes of time, self/communal referencing, and cultural inheritance. Delano began her formal art education with a foundation year at the Royal Drawing School, followed by a BA in Architecture at King’s College, University of Cambridge. She later completed an MFA at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, supported by the Black Academic Futures and Penny Freer Scholarships.
Photo of Oluwasemilore. Image courtesy of the artist.
About Yoma Emore
Yoma Emore (b. 1997, Nigeria) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores personal and collective memory, lineage, and material history through research-led textile and material experimentation. With a background in fine art and visual studies, Emore engages with personal and collective histories, often centering familial archives as a means of interrogating the residues of displacement and transnational connection, and using processes such as embroidery, hand-felting, printmaking, and the reworking of waste materials. Across different bodies of work, Emore treats material as a site of continuity and transformation, allowing past narratives to resurface and shift through making. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including recent presentations in Los Angeles, Miami, and Lagos, where she continues to develop bodies of work that blur the boundaries between art, documentation, and speculative geography.
Kush Badhwar's residency is realised in collaboration with the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Okwei Odili's residency is supported by G.A.S. Foundation. Oluwasemilore Delano's residency is generously supported by Adegbola Art Gallery, while Yoma Emore's residency is generously supported by Deutsche Bank.
