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The Lagos-born independent curator, writer, and researcher Bukola Oyebode opens up about her research-driven curatorial practice, writing as a curatorial tool and her critical position towards this year’s Venice Biennale. 

“Who came before us?” is a question that runs deeply throughout Bukola Oyebode’s curatorial research. Over more than fifteen years in the contemporary art scene, she has developed a strong awareness of historical continuity and has made highlighting marginalised narratives a fundamental aspect of her practice. Working across Nigeria, Europe, and Asia, her projects perfectly combine writing, research, publishing and exhibition-making. Conscious of the responsibility curators hold towards artists, Oyebode’s work actively challenges forms of institutional hierarchy and erasure that so often manifest within the current global art system.

In 2020 you were recognised with the Apollo 40 Under 40 Award. Apart from the recognition itself, do you reckon this award has helped shed more light on your curatorial practice, perhaps giving it greater visibility?
Absolutely. But I would like to say that this award mostly relates to my work in the editorial field, publishing about contemporary African art in the TSA Magazine, and my active involvement in the African art scene, which began in Nigeria and expanded across Africa and the diaspora. That’s what the award was really highlighting. Beyond feeling recognised, it also motivated me to keep working and to push the magazine’s vision further, despite the limited resources available to us. In a sense, it led to some of the things we did between 2020 and 2023, in particular the Collector’s Series: Artists & Cities, which focused on artists and artist collectives from six cities in Africa and a few from the diaspora. We did our best to make it a selection of artists based in those cities, although you cannot always draw a fine line between those living on the continent and those based in the diaspora, because artists occupy multiple urban spaces, and we were conscious of the continent’s migratory history. However, although it was not directly linked to my curatorial practice, I have always considered my editorial work from a curatorial perspective. If you remember, I was part of the Curatorial Studies program in 2017, and prior to that, I had been interested in curating and exhibition-making, so I often borrow methodologies from the field for my work as an editor. I do not consider them completely separate practices. But indeed, the recognition must have motivated me to keep working, knowing it contributes meaningfully to artistic practices on the continent.

Do you feel like writing really helps articulate the ideas that you then encapsulate in the space? Since you said that the two practices are connected in some way?
The curatorial practice is more intellectual, or, let me say, it’s an ideological practice in which you are constantly thinking, formulating your own ideas, engaging with the ideas of others, and transforming these ideas into presentations that people experience, the publications that accompany them, and the critical dialogues too. Writing is a crucial part of that process. Thinking and writing. You don’t just stop at having the idea; you have to do research, write proposals, and pitch them. Writing is how you eventually connect the idea and the art, and how you translate or communicate that to the world. Writing mediates how the public encounters your thoughts about that project. So, in a sense, you cannot exclude writing from this work.

Regarding writing, I’d like to ask a bit more about the magazine. You said it’s an amazing contribution and an important platform for contemporary African artists. Since it has, in a way, come to an end, I was wondering if you have been able to find other spaces where you can express yourself. 
Yes, I have. I think that when the magazine started to slow down, I began to see my work transform and to consider independent publishing in a format other than a magazine. With the magazine, I worked with a small team and a group of contributors, focusing on editing, so I did not always write the articles. I was also handling management and strategy development while constantly looking into how we could raise funds. But as that came to an end, I found myself working more on the creative or conceptual side and felt inclined to work directly with artists. After closing the TSA magazine, I went on to publish the monograph of Nigerian-German artist Ngozi Ajah Schommers, Tracings of Time and Place, and worked with Okhiogbe Omonblanks Omonhinmin, a multifaceted creative, to publish Kids from the River. He had written a memoir that combined poems, essays, and family photographs on the transformative power of loss and grief, as well as the redemptive nature of devoted love and responsibility, which needed thoughtful editorial work and publishing guidance.

And then what happened?
From here, the magazine transformed into TSA Ideas Lab, which I have been using to experiment and think differently. It also aligns with how I work to fill what I consider gaps in the African art ecosystem. Of course, within the global art ecosystem as well. How can I enrich what is there already from another perspective, or from where I stand? And where I stand can be from Nigeria or Africa, or as a woman, or as an international professional. Also, I am not just organising programmes. I am careful about what I am organising, where, and for whom. For example, last year, I co-organised a one-week Listening Academy workshop in Lagos as part of The Listening Biennial’s third edition. Typically, the Listening Academy is nomadic and has been held in places such as Hong Kong, Brazil, the UK, and various cities in Europe. In Lagos, the one-week workshop was called “Go-Slow: Engaging the Imperceptible”, where we looked at what it means to slow down in a city that is fast-paced and encourages hyperactivity, and people are always in a hurry. But the gathering went beyond slowing down in relation to time to looking at hidden experiences, which we examined through the concepts of the ‘imperceptible’ and the ‘inaudible’. 

And what about the other projects you’ve worked on?
I also curated a satellite exhibition for the biennial called Wind Chimes, Gongs and Bells. For whom is this call? a multisensory installation of video and sound works and live actions engaging with ideas of interdependence, relationality, and ways of co-existing that continue to escape us in the present. The underlying question was: how can we be attentive to the realities of others? The different projects brought together multidisciplinary artists, emerging sound artists, performance artists, researchers, and curators into one space and into an uncommon way of learning, being together and exchanging. We invited scholars and artists who use alternative pedagogies and are from diverse art fields to facilitate different sessions of the program. Likewise, between the end of 2023 and 2025, I contributed to online exhibitions by Textile Culture Net as a guest curator. TCN has a network that extends across Europe, Asia, Africa and the US, and the curatorial process disrupts the traditional model of authorship. I have to say I enjoy seeing my work manifest in these different ways: from online to offline, from the magazine to publications to exhibition-making and organising, and in transnational conversations. It’s not a closed way of working, and I enjoy that malleability.

THE CURATORIAL PRACTICE ACCORDING TO BUKOLA OYEBODE

Going back to the gaps that you mentioned, I would like to know how that relates to women. And how do you find a way to highlight their work without overpowering their voices, considering African women are often spoken over in that way?
This is an interesting question. The art world is a place where we say there are no hierarchies, but there are hierarchies. Things are often organised top-down, and we are always juxtaposing entities, right? Ironically, artists occupy central positions within this flow (they are at the very centre of the work that we do), but often have the least power or autonomy. Because I am aware of this, I make conscious efforts to work collaboratively. My work is shaped by seeing others as equal to me, or equal in what we can bring to the project, even when the scale of input is not the same. It is important that we complement each other. I think that because I did not enter the art world through an academic background or an institutional setting, I formed a horizontal relationship with artists. I do not come to artists feeling I have authority over their work or how they want to present it to the world. Making direct interaction with the artist front and centre of an exhibition was one of the reasons I enjoyed the Tavola Aperta feature of the 2017 Venice Biennale. And there’s a quote by the late Koyo Kouoh that comes to mind now. “I’m an exhibition-maker who completely depends on the knowledge of the artist.” Although I do not fully see myself in this way, I recognise where it comes from. When I started out in the art world, I learned a lot from artists through studio visits. I showed up at many art shows and had discussions with various artists. These interactions formed the foundation of my passion for this field, alongside my first job at an art gallery. I had many questions that I felt only artists could answer, long before I turned to books, critical discourse and art history. Thus, I am always conscious that, though my role may involve presenting the art and the artist, it does not speak for them. Emphasising their voice or their message is crucial to the success of our work together. But how that is designed shapeshifts depending on the project.

What stance, then, should a curator adopt so as not to overshadow the artist’s voice and vision?Though the curatorial text is essentially the curator’s voice and it is where you shine, you cannot shine if your ideological framework silences the art and artists you are translating to the public. To overpower their voice is to silence the impact your work can have. And because I am a woman, an African woman, I know a lot about silencing and erasure, and I would not like to replicate that in my work. I pay extra attention to how I’m translating or transmitting another woman’s voice. I would not want to directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, erase another woman’s voice because I want my idea to shine. So, for me, that is more important. I am careful about how I present women artists and artists in general. I am also wary of the strange erasure that’s going on in the art world, particularly in art media and publicity. For example, how we are over-pushing the ‘first this and that by a Black or an African artist or curator’ stories that essentialise their identity and their work and erase our collective efforts. When I come across such narratives, I always ask myself, “Is this really the first person from this community to be here or to do this?” Are we erasing someone in history for this momentary applause? I know this form of publicity began as part of the demand to restructure representation within cultural institutions and to redistribute power and positions, but the way it is eventually delivered changes little structurally and comes at the expense of erasing some of the work and success that marginalised people have achieved in the past.

It’s interesting what you said about not wanting to erase precious history, especially relating to African women. So, I wanted to understand a bit more your methodological approach to research and history, since it’s not always easy to trace who came before us and who did something before us. 
In Poland, when it became clear that I would curate one of the collateral exhibitions for the 18th International Triennial of Textile, alongside my role as co-curator of the main exhibition and that it would focus on women artists from Africa, I started to think that somebody in the media would use the “First time women artists from Africa are presenting works in Poland” thing. I said to myself, “No, that’s not going to happen” (she laughs, ed.). You are going to show me somewhere in your archive who has been here from Africa, regardless of what capacity. So, imagine my joy when I discovered Madame Zo had shown at the triennial twenty years back.

What makes Madame Zo’s work so important?
Remembering Madame Zo, who recently passed away, was important within this context. I had turned to her work not so much to include it in the show but to highlight her presence in the institution’s history. And this took an interesting turn when the museum confirmed she was an artist in the 2007 edition, and they have the records in their archives. Including the homage to her also enriched Rhizomatic Portals in other ways. It expanded the show’s intergenerational dialogue, and some of the older artists already had contacts with her work. Amina Agueznay, from Morocco, spent time researching Madame Zo’s work in Madagascar during a residency there. Bringing them together in this show was a beautiful coincidence, one that aligns with my agenda of continuity. Madame Zo’s work deserves greater recognition, as the retrospective exhibition by Fondation H in Madagascar shows. The work Madame Zo presented at the 2007 triennial marked her transition from a textile designer or craftswoman to a contemporary textile artist. She had challenged herself to reconsider the notion of fibre and turned to her environment for inspiration, working with found materials while still using traditional weaving techniques. As such, she holds an important position in African art history as one of the foremost women artists in textile practice, working from a contemporary perspective. The homage was placed in a part of the exhibition space where it was in dialogue with the other artists, rather than in a way that would overshadow the other works. The archival presence gave meaning and context to rethinking history and traditional knowledge systems, which were among the ideas present in the other artists’ works.

How did you interact with the institution on that occasion?
At first, the museum and triennial leadership wanted the collateral exhibition to be an African art show, but I felt that was too broad, so I said no until we narrowed the focus to women. This made sense to me because of the connection we could make to the museum’s history and to Łódź in general. The museum used to be a textile factory, and textiles are closely connected to women’s labour. This created a solid background to lay the groundwork for an exhibition emphasising women’s knowledge systems, experiences and other narratives, not as a site of new discovery, but rather within a continuous agenda and framework.

BUKOLA OYEBODE’S APPROACH TO HISTORY

It’s really fascinating how you keep asking yourself, “Who came before us?”. It feels like you really emphasise historical continuity over the rhetoric of a ‘first time’.
I had been asking this question since I was invited as co-curator of the main show. I first checked who has been shown at the triennial in recent times and, for example, discovered that Karo Akpokiere, a Nigerian artist based in Hamburg, was presented in the 2022 edition. I was also keen about the history of artists from Africa in different art institutions across the country. Although African artists are still not regularly represented in Poland, I recalled that TSA magazine had published an article about Bob-Nosa Uwagboe from Nigeria, who was stuck in Gdansk at a residency program during the pandemic. Senegalese artist El Hadji Sy had been shown at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in 2016. It wasn’t for nothing that I wanted to be aware of this history; questions about this came up during press conferences for the triennial. It is important for us to correct the perception that whenever someone from Africa shows up somewhere, it is the first time. This notion is very wrong, especially in the twenty-first century. I guide myself and my work with questions like this often: Who was here before me, what did they do, and how can we or I not participate in erasing that? And that’s where the reference came from. I always try my best not to erase precious history because, though it might be hidden, it is still significant, right? Not being aware of something does not mean it doesn’t exist, and once you become aware, it should become an empowering foundation to build on, whether through direct connection or by proximity. 

Staying on the textile topic, it’s clear there’s been a rise in the use of textiles in the contemporary art scene, especially in recent years. How do you hypothesize this way of research is going to develop in the next few years?
It’s a beautiful thing to see textile art practices or art integrating textiles become prominent and enjoy central displays at larger international gatherings, notably biennials that typically favour contemporary media and political discourse. I think this is because textile practices are no longer seen solely as craft and technique but as relevant to querying and reconstructing history and material memory, among other things. It has also advanced significantly from its initial position as a women-based practice to one that represents resistance and increasingly takes on political messages, as seen in some of the works in the 18ITT Deconstruction/Reconstruction exhibition. Sometimes, the political message emphasises softness, or radical softness, and at other times it goes so far as to address topics such as labour exploitation, war, conflict, migration, and repatriation. Additionally, it is now more emphasised how textiles relate to identity, and how artists from non-Western regions are using this to reclaim their heritage, traditional practices, and history. But, by hypothesising, I’m sure you are asking me to predict how things will evolve. Naturally, in the art world, trends always recede, and other forms of artistic expressions will surface and overtake our attention for another block of time. I imagine this will be the case. Ultimately, the current focus will take a back seat. But this itself is not new. Textile art has enjoyed multiple spotlights in the past. We can trace one of these moments to the late 1960s and 1970s, when it became part of the radical expressions of feminist art practices.

You are now based in China, even though you continuously move across continents. How has working from different places influenced you and your curatorial practice? 
Working from different locations and spaces enriches my life and work significantly; from a short stay in Venice to living in Tehran for almost three years, then Amsterdam for five years, and now Southern China. Being present in these places exposes me to how art is organised there, and over time, I identify what the place can offer me, and vice versa. For example, it was in Tehran that I produced the special journal The Past in the Present, focused on Nigerian artists, which we took to Dakar in 2018. Being there offered me the quietness I needed to work and access to a good designer and high-quality printing at an affordable cost. You know, almost everyone who received the journal asked us, “Where did you print this, not in Nigeria, right?” I also discovered the exhibition An Introduction to the Art of Black Africa, a result of an exchange between West Africa and Iran in 1977, the same year as FESTAC ‘77. I arrived at this history and the photos from different exchange trips between West African and Iranian artists in the archive of the famous Iranian artist Mr Parviz Tanavoli, because I was present in Tehran and had built a network that opened up conversations about art in the country before and after the Islamic Revolution. Just being present at a particular place offers something. The Collector’s Series was produced in Amsterdam alongside three other publication projects. It was there that I explored the intersection of contemporary art, image history, performance and opera, and I was invited as a guest teacher at re:master Opera at Sandberg Institut. Being part of re:master Opera was how I came to understand and properly appreciate William Kentridge’s work as a fusion of multiple art disciples and techniques, and see him as the master artist that he is. I also want to say that when I was in Amsterdam, my work was not limited to the Netherlands. I worked on the publication for MOMENTUM 12 (Norway’s contemporary art biennial) from there, as well as most of the work for the textile triennial in Poland. It was my home and my base (and where I studied again), but my work was connected to other places in Europe and back home in Nigeria and Africa. In this sense, my career or practice has been kind of portable. It comes with me everywhere I go, and wherever there is internet, I can connect with the rest of the world.

Do you reckon living in China will help you further develop your curatorial work or maybe shed light on new perspectives?
I think that China will be beneficial to me in that way, too. It gives me the opportunity to explore another world, especially as I am disenchanted with Europe and its politics right now. My outlook here is to be present in the wider Asian art scene, because language and knowledge of local art history play significant roles in the different local art hubs. Regarding carrying out my work here, time will reveal what is possible, and I will be happy to share it then.  

BUKOLA OYEBODE’S PERSPECTIVE ON THE VENICE BIENNALE

Regarding the current Venice Biennale, earlier you mentioned a quote from the late Koyo Kouoh. I was wondering if you consider her a mentor. Also, are you planning to attend this year’s edition of the Biennale?
Indeed, I considered the late Madame Koyo a mentor, although she did not directly mentor me. To me, she was a paramount example of the kind of leadership needed to galvanise and inspire new thinking in the African art ecosystem and to build new institutions. I wrote on Instagram to thank her for her leadership when she passed away. She, like the late Bisi Silva, paved the way for some of us to dream and explore differently in the sphere of curatorial and critical dialogue. But, to be candid, I will not be attending the Venice Biennale this year. I will honour her work and carry on this essential message of dreaming differently elsewhere, maybe here in Asia. I increasingly find it uninspiring to put myself through the dizzying performance we do in the opening week, and with all the current developments around this year’s Biennale, it does not seem necessary to visit in the next six months. The Venice Biennale is becoming or has become an apparatus that is no longer what it was and does not know what it should be. It must first acknowledge its death or collapse before it can live again. The international art exhibition section, meant to stage manifold voices, show us contemporary artistic expressions, and facilitate critique, dialogue, and discourse on current world events, has significantly lost its role and charm due to various factors. Although this development is not recent, it is now clear to all. Likewise, the biased politics around the national pavilions are infuriating. Because of the excessive spectacle, I feel we are losing touch with the poetical and transcendental aspects of art within this context.

What changes do you think would be necessary?
The Biennale should no longer enjoy its privilege and high status if it cannot openly and unconditionally condemn countries involved in war and conflict, allowing them to be in the same space where it invites artists to address the injustice of the past and present. When the Biennale claims to be a neutral ground for truce in the name of art, culture, and artistic freedom, whose voices, oppressions, and emergencies are being amplified or silenced? We need to rethink and further decentralise how we gather and where we gather. Especially for all those who were initially marginalised and had to fight their way into this place. Is this what we fought to be part of, a problematic site of ‘art extravaganza’?  We must ask ourselves what this Biennale really stand for today and how that aligns with one’s views as a human and as an art professional? Also, we need to reconsider the pinnacle, or the most significant moment of the artistic and curatorial profession and redistribute the power that is still concentrated in a place and a gathering like this. So far, the resignation of the award jury has been one of the best things to come out of this year’s program, along with the art against genocide protests by ANGA. The internal fault lines of this entity can no longer be managed; we should all demand and negotiate something new. Madame Koyo’s response to COVID-19’s social distancing problems and the global protests in 2020 birthed the Radical Solidarity summit. For me, this is an example of the kind of gathering we need today and should continue to aim for in the foreseeable future. We are fully in a state of crisis.

Giada Libero

Bukola Oyebode