about

The Re:assemblages Symposium is jointly presented by Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation and Yinka Shonibare Foundation (Y.S.F.) within the framework of the second edition of the Re:assemblages programme, which unfolds across 2025-26 through a convening series, a research intensive, collaborative publishing experiments, symposia, and the activation of the African Arts Libraries (AAL) Lab and Affiliates Network.

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The symposium is framed by four conceptual currents of the edition: Ecotones, which engages with transitional zones as sites of relation and renewal; The Living Archives, which explores archives and libraries as active, future-shaping forms of practice, Annotations, which attends to gaps, silences, and margins in the archive; and The Short Century, which revisits Africa’s twentieth-century histories of independence and cultural production.

 

It asks what it means to think with African and Afro-diasporic art archives as living, contested, and generative spaces; how these sites might be read not as sealed enclosures but as ecotonal formations; what forms of care, friction, and futurity emerge in their silences and transitional zones; and how publishing ecologies within them can disrupt extractive knowledge regimes and nurture situated ways of learning.

 

The symposium convenes the African Arts Libraries (AAL) Lab and Affiliates Network with archivists, curators, scholars, artists, libraries, and publics to develop collective vocabularies and practices of archival thinking across Africa and its diasporas, and beyond.

 

Re:assemblages is curated by Naima Hassan, with contributions from Maryam Kazeem, Ann Marie Peña, and Jonn Gale. The programme advisory committee comprises Dr. Beatrix Gassman de Sousa, Natasha Ginwala, Dr. Rangoato Hlasane, Serubiri Moses, and Dr. Oluwatoyin Zainab Sogbesan.

speakers and committee

The symposium features contributions from leading and emerging voices across archives, literary, and curatorial practice, alongside a dedicated planning and advisory committee. Through conversations, presentations, and interventions, participants engage with the symposium’s four interwoven themes: Ecotones, The Living Archive, Annotations and The Short Century.

venue

Alliance Française de Lagos

 

The Re:assemblages Symposium will be hosted at Alliance Française de Lagos. Our programme will take place across its facilities, including the auditorium, dance studio, library, classrooms, and amphitheatre, which regularly host lectures, concerts, screenings, and other large-scale gatherings.

 

INQUIRES: info@guestartistsspace.com | ADDRESS: Alliance Française de Lagos / Mike Adenuga Centre, 9 Osborne Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria

Eric Kayser

 

Located within Alliance Française de Lagos, Eric Kayser is a French-style boulangerie and café offering freshly baked breads, pastries, and a selection of meals and beverages. With both indoor and outdoor seating, it provides a convenient option for meals and breaks during the symposium without leaving the venue.

 

tickets

Attend the Re:assemblages Symposium by securing your ticket today. Tickets are available for Nigerian nationals, African nationals, international participants, and students. Participants can choose to attend one or both days of the programme.

 

Limited discounted tickets are available for students and those based in Nigeria.

 

faqs

acknowledgements