Earlier this month, we welcomed New York-based writer, curator and critic Folasade Ologundudu to G.A.S. Lagos as a recipient of the 2026 G.A.S. Fellowship Award. Her practice spans research and curatorial work, investigating contemporary art through Black and African diasporic experiences, the universal human condition, power structures and cultural forces.
During her four-week residency, she aims to develop new frameworks for her curatorial practice through writing, research and engagement with the Nigerian art community. She looks forward to conducting research on the pre- and post-independence Nigerian art from the 1940s onwards, with particular interest in Ife and Oshogbo. She plans to visit artists, scholars, universities and research institutions in Lagos, Ife and Ibadan, building connections and engaging with archival and research resources relevant to her work. Folasade will also make use of the G.A.S. Library and Picton Archive, alongside university archives and research institutes including the National Archives and the Institute of French Research in Africa (IFRA). Her residency will culminate in (Re)Casting the Canon, a three-day critical writing workshop for Lagos-based writers, researchers and cultural practitioners, exploring how Nigerian and Black artists have been framed within the Western art historical canon and how these narratives might be reframed through contemporary African and Black voices.
Folasade's residency is generously supported by Deutsche Bank. To find out more about supporting G.A.S. Foundation, click here.
Photo: SMUG MUG.
What is the current focus of your creative practice?
I am currently interested in an area of focus that requires me to see the world from outside the frame of a white capitalist structure. It means questioning and investigating the things I was taught to believe and learning about the world from different perspectives. One of the biggest features is a way of thinking that is less hierarchical and more nuanced. One that includes the voices of women and resists binary conventions. I'm drawn to a practice that allows me to live more freely, yet with more discipline. As well, I'm encouraged to develop a creative practice that supports my long-term health, well-being, and forms of collective care.
What drew you to apply for this residency and how do you think it will inform your wider practice?
Being half Nigerian, I was deeply drawn to Nigeria as a site of inquiry. But also a place that might offer the opportunity for radical unlearning. My interests stem from my Yoruba heritage and the time and research I can conduct to learn more about its ideologies and cosmologies.
Photo: SMUG MUG.
Can you give us an insight into how you hope to use the opportunity?
I hope to use this time to read, reflect, and discover authors, artistic forms of expression, schools of thought, and cultural movements that are deeply embedded in Nigerian culture and heritage but not necessarily investigated or celebrated in mainstream and popular culture. In addition to this, I'm deeply passionate about a pan-African identity and African perspective of the world that is rich, inclusive, and culturally diverse.
About Folasade Ologundudu
Folasade Ologundudu is an independent writer, curator, and critic investigating contemporary art through Black/African diasporic experiences, the universal human condition, power structures, and cultural forces. Her criticism, essays, and interviews have appeared in ArtForum, Frieze, Vogue, and Essence, highlighting practices engaging history, memory, and materiality. She previously led communications and storytelling for the Bed-Stuy based arts non-profit The Laundromat Project. Moving across commercial and institutional spheres, Ologundudu’s writing charts how art reimagines contemporary life and envisions radical futures. Her essays interrogate the structures shaping who is heard, what gets seen, and how ideas are collected, remembered, and disseminated.
As the founder of the creative studio Light Work, she hosts the podcast Everything Is Connected, facilitating intellectual discourse on art and society. Light Work extends and reflects her commitment to bringing arts writing and critical discourse beyond the page and into the real world where culture takes form and shape.
Headshot of Folasade Ologundudu. Photo: Laurent Chevalier.
