A convergence of cohorts, facilitators and flash mentors at the first residency organised by Kokopelli Art Foundation signals a beautiful symphony of African voices that could shape the next chapters of visual art history, writes
Yinka Olatunbosun
A quiet room in the serene Banana Island neighbourhood of Lagos was briefly interrupted by an important virtual call, occasional laughter and the click of camera shutters. On Friday, August 28, the doors of the Once Upon A Time (OUT) residency opened to a select group of journalists, offering a first glimpse into the inaugural residency organised by Kokopelli Art Foundation, the non-commercial arm of Kokopelli Gallery.
Marking the gallery’s fifth anniversary, the residency brings together five artists from Ethiopia, Ghana, Benin Republic and Nigeria. With eight facilitators and five flash mentors, the programme began on August 24 and runs until September 6, with participating artists given an additional week to complete works that will subsequently be exhibited.
Themed Epignosis, the residency is conceived as a creative retreat for artists of African origin and heritage whose practices are still in active formation, specifically those with between two and five years of professional practice.
From two weeks of studio practice to facilitated sessions and field research, each artist is expected to produce a single resolved work. Collectively christened the “OUTliers”, the cohort has engaged in conversations and sessions including “Sustaining the Practice” with Qudus Onikeku; “African Artist’s Signature and Unique Voice” with Seun Alli; “Materials and Methods” with Ato Arinze; “Iconography” with Prof. Abiodun Akande; “Research Methods” with Victor Ehikhamenor; and “Writing Your Practice: Copywriting and Artist Statements” with Belinda Doubara Yanga.
Expectedly, the residency is anchored in the mind, body and soul. The mind is the seat of intellectual work, critique and argument. The body, in this context, encompasses the physical work of the studio and engagement with the city, while the soul speaks to the relational dimension of communal living and mentorship.
Indeed, the residency is built around the need to address an infrastructural gap in the African art ecosystem. Rather than merely offering a period of retreat, it gathers Estifanos Solomon Gashaw (Ethiopia), Putin Bempong (Ghana), Falhone Ogoun (Benin Republic), Victor Anachuna (Nigeria) and Vurzie Kimnaton (Nigeria) for an intensive period of studio practice, structured exchange, mentorship and research.
Herald Dare, Director of Kokopelli Gallery and the Kokopelli Art Foundation, framed the initiative in terms of institutional infrastructure and the power of narrative ownership.
“African artists have never been short of talent or stories,” he declared. “What has been scarce is the infrastructure – the access, the mentorship, the opportunity – that allows those stories to become practices, careers and legacies.
“Talent without infrastructure produces individual careers. Infrastructure produces a generation. Once Upon A Time is the formula that opens a story told aloud. It signals that what follows is not a record but a telling, and that a telling has an owner. Our Story First names the position this edition takes on that ownership.”
Other facilitators include Titilope Mustapha, who discussed “Legal: Copyright, Contracts and Protecting Your Practice”, and Taiwo Adeyemi, who examined “Personal Branding for Artists”.
Senior artists also served as flash mentors. Each hosted a resident within their own practice as part of the Flash Apprenticeship, a concentrated placement in a working Lagos studio. The mentors include Duke Asidere, Ayoola Gbolahan, Akinbode Adebiyi, Kelani Abass and Juliet Ezenwa.
The young artists also explored selected heritage sites across Lagos during field research sessions. Their excursions took them to Lagos Island and the Brazil Quarters; Jaekel House and the Nigerian Railway; the Old Secretariat and Marina; and Badagry.
The closing exhibition will be preceded by a private view on Friday, September 11, before opening to the public on Saturday, September 12. It will run until November 8.
Titled Epignosis I: Our Story First, the exhibition pairs a solo body of work by Ayoola Gbolahan with the five works produced during the residency.
Kokopelli Gallery is a contemporary art gallery devoted to artists for whom storytelling is a discipline and a form of knowledge rather than ornament. Founded in Lagos in 2021, its programme platforms artists and griots whose narratives cross conventional borders, sustaining a culture of dialogue and memory. This conviction takes physical form in the Grotto, the gallery’s immersive space, conceived as a literal roomful of stories.
For Estifanos Solomon Gashaw, who works in painting and printmaking, the Lagos experience has been “amazing”. His practice confronts society’s failure to protect its most vulnerable, particularly children, in a world shaped by individualism, consumerism and instant gratification. He approaches art-making as a form of resistance against apathy, injustice and systems that place profit and ego above empathy and care.
Drawing on stories from his community and the media, his work exposes the quiet and often unseen harm caused by neglect, both personal and institutional.
Victor Anachuna is a contemporary painter whose work explores how individuals navigate systems of power, social hierarchy and political instability. Working in realism, he depicts Black figures in compositions informed by the visual language of the Renaissance, using dramatic lighting, controlled gestures and layered symbolism to stage scenes in which composure coexists with conflict. His practice moves between scales, from intimate works centred on gestures of tenderness and solidarity to broader interrogations of narrow expectations of Black identity and masculinity.
“I was born here in Lagos, and my entire practice has been in Lagos. I am getting to see how similar we are in Africa and the little differences we have, even within the same country,” he remarked.
Putin Bempong works across painting and installation, at the intersection of folklore, environmental transformation, material experimentation and speculative futures. His encounter with colonial infrastructure in Lagos resonated with his Ghanaian experience. Evoking nostalgia and a sense of shared identity, the field research has proved an eye-opener, deepening his curiosity about unconventional materials.
The French-speaking Falhone Ogoun is a self-taught artist working across drawing, painting and installation. Her practice explores the tensions between appearance and essence, surface and depth, placing the natural world at the centre of its reflection. An heir to Yoruba and Nago cultures, she returns continually to the portrait.
“I find this experience exciting because it is going to change a lot in my artistic practice. It is my first time in Lagos. People take art seriously in Lagos; the way we are treated and stimulated, I like that a great deal. The way we are being taught to be responsible and to tell our own stories through our art is not like any residency that I have attended before,” she enthused.
Vurzie Kimnaton, a photographer who has spent most of her life in Northern Nigeria, is intrigued by changing seasons, markets, festivals and the people who move through them. Her work is built on duration and attention, on the routines, gestures and encounters that reveal a place slowly.
Supported by Story Patron, The Igiehon Museum Project, Qoray Mobility through Cabzero, as well as Macallan, Rujo and Dala, the OUT residency represents Kokopelli’s first substantial intervention in nurturing emerging African artistic voices.
For all its talk of infrastructure, however, the residency’s more intriguing proposition may lie in something less tangible: the possibility of five young artists discovering that their individual stories, when placed alongside those of their peers, form part of a much larger African narrative still being written.