Artist Residencies in Nigeria
A curated guide to residency programs, production spaces, and research-based initiatives supporting contemporary art in Nigeria.
In Nigeria, residency activity is closely tied to the conditions of contemporary art production rather than to a large formal network of permanent programs. Around Lagos, where much of the country’s contemporary art infrastructure is concentrated, residencies often operate through independent foundations, artist-led spaces, and hybrid educational models that combine studio time with mentorship, public conversation, and critical exchange. This gives artist residencies in Nigeria a particular role: they help artists work through material, spatial, and research constraints in a context where galleries, museums, and production facilities do not always provide sustained developmental support. Programs connected to Lagos-based initiatives such as CCA Lagos and its Àsìkò model have been especially important in framing residency-like learning as a space for experimentation, curatorial thinking, and pan-African artistic dialogue.
At the same time, the Nigerian residency landscape is not only urban. The emergence of production-oriented spaces beyond central Lagos, including rural or semi-rural models linked to research, ecology, craft, and local communities, has expanded how contemporary art residencies in Nigeria can function. These settings allow artists working in residence to move between studio practice, site-specific research, archival inquiry, and public engagement, often in dialogue with local histories and social structures. Compared with the more market-facing energy of galleries in Nigeria, residency programs tend to slow down the rhythm of artistic circulation, creating time for process rather than immediate visibility. Their significance lies less in quantity than in their ability to connect Nigerian artists, international practitioners, curators, and researchers through forms of production that are embedded, experimental, and structurally attentive to place.
Selected Artist Residencies in Nigeria
A curated selection of residency programs supporting contemporary art production, research, and international exchange.
Guest Artists Space Foundation
Guest Artists Space Foundation is a Nigerian non-profit residency founded by Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, operating across Lagos and the G.A.S. Farm House near Ijebu. Its awarded residencies host artists, researchers, and curators, combining live-work facilities with public programmes, knowledge exchange, and research-led production within Nigeria’s expanding contemporary art infrastructure.
One of Nigeria’s most internationally connected residencies, it links urban Lagos, rural research, and transnational artistic exchange through sustained public programming.
The R2 Space - Rele Arts Foundation Residency
The R2 Space is Rele Arts Foundation’s visual arts residency for mid-career African and diaspora artists, curators, writers, and researchers. Based in Lagos, it supports independent creative and research projects from conception to presentation, offering time, space, and the possibility of gallery presentation within Rele’s broader contemporary art ecosystem.
It extends Rele’s gallery infrastructure into production and research, supporting artists beyond exhibition circulation and strengthening Lagos as a residency base.
Kòbọmọjẹ́ Artist Residency
Kòbọmọjẹ́ Artist Residency is an international residency programme in Ibadan for artists, critics, writers, curators, and scholars working across visual art, photography, multimedia, curatorial projects, and art-historical research. Its model connects studio time with workshops, fellowships, local resources, and engagement with Ibadan’s cultural and architectural histories.
It gives Ibadan a structured residency platform, extending Nigeria’s contemporary art infrastructure beyond Lagos-centered production networks.
Àsìkò Art School
Àsìkò Art School is CCA Lagos’s itinerant programme structured as part art workshop, part residency, and part art academy. Designed for visual artists, curators, writers, and cultural producers from Africa, it emphasizes methodology, critical thinking, curatorial inquiry, research, and conceptual development rather than conventional studio training alone.
It remains one of Nigeria’s most influential residency-based educational models, linking artistic production with curatorial discourse across African contexts.
This is a curated selection of residency programs. Explore the broader contemporary art ecosystem of Nigeria.
Back to Nigeria overview