Jelili Atiku is a celebrated Nigerian performance artist and sculptor whose work confronts the overlapping forces of colonialism, globalization, neoliberalism, nationalism, and environmental degradation. Educated at Ahmadu Bello University (BFA) and the University of Lagos (MFA), he has developed a distinctive practice that foregrounds indigenous knowledge and political activism, evolving from his sustained commitment to the development of decolonial artistic strategies. Atiku’s performances often incorporate Yoruba spiritual traditions, ritualistic movements, and symbolic materials to challenge social, political, and environmental issues. He uses his body as a medium to express resistance, resilience, and healing, addressing topics like human rights, environmental degradation, and social injustice. His notable works include “Ejìwàrò: The Unearthly” and “Festival of the Earth,” showcased at prestigious venues like the Venice Biennale. Atiku’s artistic approach is deeply rooted in Yoruba cosmology and mythology, often incorporating elements of Ifa divination, Orisha worship, and ancestral reverence. He believes in the power of art to transform and heal, using his performances to spark dialogue, raise consciousness, and inspire collective action. His groundbreaking contributions to performance art and social advocacy have earned him international recognition, including the Prince Claus Award in 2015. Atiku’s work continues to inspire audiences globally, solidifying his position as a leading voice in contemporary African art.

Taiwo Aiyedogbon is a Lagos based contemporary visual and performance artist whose multidisciplinary practice investigates the historical, political, socio-economic, cultural, and spiritual systems that shape the lives, labor, identities, and agency of women. Working across performance, installation, sculpture, sound, moving image, and performative drawing, she approaches artistic practice as a critical mode of inquiry through which Indigenous knowledge systems, historical memory, and contemporary realities are questioned, negotiated. She has participated in exhibitions and performances including "AFRICAN TIME RESTAURANT" at the Lilith Performance Studio, Malmo Sweden 2015, "Ipele"(phase) a t the National Museum Lagos, Nigeria 2017, "Threshold" as part of the inaugural Lagos Biennial Lagos, Nigeria 2017, "Flip" at Perfocraze International Artist Residency (PIAR) Kumasi, Ghana2019. "Gelede, The Project" at (Frissland) Copenhagen, Denmark 2022, "Fragile Space" at (7a*11d) Toronto, Canada 2022, "The Journey Through The Womb" at Hive (Goa) India (2022), and "The New Black" at the Rencontre Internationale de l'Art Contemporain (RIAC), Congo Brazzaville 2023. "Guest Artist Lecturer" HFBK, Hamburg, Germany 2025/2026. She is the founder of 1-98 Art Studio, an independent artist-led space in Lagos dedicated t o artistic production, collaboration, and contemporary discourse. Taiwo Aiyedogbon graduated from the Department o f Fine Art at the Yaba College of Technology in Lagos, Nigeria, where she majored in Sculpture (2016). She subsequently earned her Master of Visual Arts (MVA) from the University of South Africa (UNISA) in 2026.

Tolulope Ami-Williams is a Lagos-based multidisciplinary artist and art educator whose practice spans performance, installation, text, printmaking, film, and sound. She holds an MA in Contemporary Performance from Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, and a Higher National Diploma in Art from Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Nigeria. Her works explore identity, ancestrality, and empowerment through the use of body, media, methods, and materials. Her autobiographical practice draws from lived experiences, cultural memory, and personal vulnerabilities to investigate identity formation and negotiation, intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships, and the intersections of culture, society, and philosophy. She engages with sociopolitical issues, often using layered juxtapositions o f metaphors and symbols to create spaces for introspection, healing, and social transformation. Her ongoing exploration of charcoal considers its potentialities at the intersection of destruction and regeneration. Tolulope is a Chevening Scholar (2023-2024) and recipient of the Prince Claus Fund Seed Award (2023) and Z-Arts Seed Fund (2024).

Critic, poet, curator and academic Akin Oladimeji works across various forms. In the third year o f his PhD a t University College London -for which he was awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council studentship- his dissertation examines Nigerian performance art. It argues that the contemporary artists in the project - Jelili Atiku, Wura-Natasha Ogunji and Zina Saro-Wiwa negotiate between local notions of performativity and Euro-American performance art traditions to transform the medium into a site of cultural reclamation and resistance against injustices in Nigerian society. His art criticism has appeared in Aperture, Third Text Online, MousseandPhotomonitorwhile essays have appeared inThird Text Online, PAJ: A journal o f Performance and Art, Burlington Contemporaryandeflux.com. He delivered a paper -Streaming the ritual: Jelili Atiku's use o f social mediaas an artistic counter-archiveat the Theatre and Performance Research Association UK's conference in 2026.

Jumoke Sanwo is a practice-led researcher, curator, and cultural producer whose work interrogates the politics of memory, archival silences, and the colonial structures that shape knowledge production. She is Founder/Creative Director o f Revolving Art Incubator (RAI), widely regarded as Africa's first art incubator. Grounded in decolonial inquiry and post-Western epistemologies, her interdisciplinary practice challenges the authority of dominant historical narratives, exploring alternative modes o f remembering, knowing, and historicising. Drawing on Yorùbá knowledge systems, oral traditions, material culture, and urban memory, she approaches the archive not as a fixed repository of the past but as a living, contested space o f cultural negotiation. Working across exhibitions, film, immersive technologies, and public interventions, Sanwo explores how marginalised histories might be recovered, reimagined, and transmitted beyond conventional institutional frameworks, advancing curatorial practice as a means of reclaiming narrative agency and imagining alternative futures.

Chief Babaláwo Ifámúyìíwá Akínwùmí Awóníranis the Babaloja of Mongaji, Oyo, a renowned Babalawo and custodian of deep sacred knowledge of Ifa. As President of Ofun Ajitena Solution Temple International and Founder of Omo Yoruba Niwa Organisation (Nigeria and Diaspora), he bridges ancestral wisdom with contemporary scholarship. Son of the revered Oluawo of Iseke Land, he holds a National Diploma in Ifa and Yoruba Studies (Ifa Heritage Institute), a First Class Upper in English Education (EKSU), and is currently pursuing a Masters in Linguistics and African Studies at the University of Ibadan. He is a Global Ambassador of Emmanuel Alayande University, Oyo, and a leading voice on Ifa divination, spirituality, and indigenous knowledge systems.

Oyindamola (Fakeye) Faithful is a Learning and Participation Producer, Curator and Consultant working to improve cross cultural collaboration, champion wellbeing through the arts and improve learning outcomes through aesthetic education. She has worked on various curatorial projects, including 'Identity: An Imagined State' (2009), Lagos Biennial || 'How t o Build a Lagoon With Just a Bottle o f Wine' (2019), 'Passengers in Transit' as part o f the 60th edition o f La Biennale de Venezia collateral projects (2024) and the 14th edition of the Recontres de Bamako "Kuma: La Parole" (2024). Oyindamola is the Director of the Asikò Art School, a roving Pan-African residency and learning programme, and Associate Executive Director of the Global Arts in Medicine Fellowship, a virtual training program for art and healthcare practitioners. Oyindamola i s the Managing Director of Res Artis, the worldwide professional body for artists' residencies, working with a network of 700 residencies globally to support place based, lifelong learning. She previously served as Executive and Artistic Director o f the Centre for Contemporary Art, (CCA) Lagos, where she worked t o advance curatorial practice, pedagogy, and archival research within contemporary African art discourse.