Curators Announced for Lagos Biennial 5th Edition

The Akete Art Foundation is delighted to announce curators for the 5th edition of the Lagos Biennial, which will be open to the public from 17 October to 18 December 2026. The curators, drawn from diverse backgrounds, interests, and nationalities, all have a common intrinsic passion for dissecting structural frameworks. Furen Die (China) and Sam Hopkins (Kenya) bring to the fore their sensibilities as practising artists who continually question the historical art cannons into which they are co-opted. Chinyere Obieze (Nigeria) will be exploring historical presentation formats from across the continent.

“The Museum of Things Unseen aims to bring together and exhibit rarely or never before seen artworks, examining the factors (imbalanced global art canon shaped by cultural bias, financial power, political influence, curatorial priorities, and conservation concerns, etc.) contributing to their unseenness. The intention is to open up the current bounding structures of these artworks and inquire into the invisible labour, evolving identities, and concealed market forces shaping our cultural landscape. Contemporary artists will be invited to reinterpret and reimagine the works on display, questioning the invisibility of these works, rewriting the narratives within the context of a speculative museum, and offering new perspectives that illuminate the unseen dimensions of these pieces.”

The curators will engage critically and dialogically with museums, institutions, and artists, co-developing The Museum of Things Unseen for the 2026 edition of the Lagos Biennial.

Furen Dai

Furen Dai (b. Changsha) is an artist whose work explores the origins of language and how categorization structures and systems function within a broader social and political context. Anchored in sculpture, her practice challenges these very notions and expands across film, publishing, drawing, fresco painting and photography, taking into account the exploration of material, display, lighting, architecture, and text. She is the co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Art New York, a pioneering artist-led organization dedicated to publishing and the advancement of artist’s books.

Recent exhibitions and commissions include Offworlds at YveYang gallery, the New England Triennial, Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, the National Art Center, Tokyo, and the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston. She is currently preparing her solo exhibition at the Broodthaers Society of America. Dai has received fellowships at MacDowell, the Center for Art and Urbanistics, Berlin, International Studio and Curatorial Programs, and Art OMI. Her work has been featured in Artforum, LEAP Magazine, The New York Review, Boston Globe, and Boston Art Review. She has also contributed her own writing to Asia Art Archive and Best!: Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts published by Paper Monument.

Dai holds an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and a BA in Russian Language and Literature from Beijing Foreign Studies University. She is currently a lecturer at Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York and previously worked as the Director of Programs and Collections at Asia Art Archive in America.

Chinyere Obieze

Chinyere Obieze is a curator and cultural producer who investigates the material negotiations of knowledge systems across nature, culture, and economy. Their curatorial practice interrogates how these interconnected forces shape and inform artistic production, with a focus on fostering critical thinking, new critical practices and inclusivity in contemporary art spaces.

Her work actively engages with artists to co-create spaces of dialogue and empowerment, challenging conventional narratives while opening new avenues for cultural and artistic expression. She is currently building frameworks to understand Africa’s evolving presence in digital environments.

Obieze designed and produced Butterfly Conversations with Parresia Publishers. They are curating Klub der Weishet KDW at the Didi Museum. They also served as a curatorial assistant for Lagos Biennial 2024: Refuge. Currently, they are working on Kedu Lagos, an upcoming exhibition set to take place at The Old Nigerian Printing Press.

Sam Hopkins

Sam Hopkins is an artist, researcher, and educator whose work navigates the intersections of media, narrative and collaboration, exploring how representations are constructed within different socio-political contexts.

Sam’s projects frequently engage with specific communities to co-produce counter-narratives that resonate both inside and outside institutional spaces. His recent inquires into issues of restitution and artistic research are shaped by questions of positionality. Central to this approach is his idea of a Networked Practice—which emphasises the expertise produced across different geographies, bodies, and minds. Networked Practice explores the potential of collaborative communities, such as Slum TV, and the International Inventories Programme (IIP), to interrogate, reveal and reshape power dynamics and to enable new forms of representation.

Sam has exhibited in international biennales such as Lagos, Dakar, Poznan, and Moscow, at institutions like the Dortmunder U, Kunsthaus Bregenz and galleries like the Goodman Gallery and Richard Taittinger. His work is held in collections including the Smithsonian, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald, and the Abteiberg Museum. In addition to his artistic practice, Sam is invested in education, currently working as Assistant Professor at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. His teaching aspires to foster critical thinking, a collaborative sensibility and interdisciplinary exploration.