We are delighted to share recent achievements from G.A.S. alumni, who continue to make significant contributions across the global arts landscape. From Kosisochukwu Nnebe’s ambitious textile-inspired installation at UNFAIR Amsterdam, to TK Smith’s curatorial projects exploring diaspora and belonging, to Tobi Onabolu’s recognition with the 2025 Aesthetica Art Prize, these updates highlight the breadth of practices and critical dialogues being shaped by our community.
Kosisochukwu Nnebe Debuts Adire-inspired installation at UNFAIR Amsterdam
2023 G.A.S. Fellowship Awardee Kosisochukwu Nnebe recently debuted her new installation, Guaranteed Nigerian Adire Eleko – Available by the Yard!, at UNFAIR Amsterdam’s Post-Tropical Imagination exhibition, curated by artist-curator Serana Angelista. In this ambitious work, Nnebe examines the social and cultural life of Nigerian textiles, staging the beginnings of a fabric store where handmade adire cloth is offered “by the yard” to underscore how textiles circulate, create kinship, and generate new forms of community through practices like Aso-Ebi. Building on her earlier explorations of adapting adire processes into photographic work, Nnebe re-creates archival images that foreground the political significance of dress codes in Nigeria’s history—particularly the central role of women and the wrapper garment in landmark protests such as the 1929 Aba Women’s War and the 1949 Abeokuta Women’s War. Other designs in the project trace the cassava used in adire production back to its Indigenous Taino origins in the Caribbean and South America, weaving unexpected histories of migration, knowledge exchange, and resistance. At once playful and critical, the title and branding of the installation reference the dominance of Dutch wax print in African markets while aligning with current efforts to revitalize Nigeria’s textile industry. Through this layered investigation, Nnebe positions fabric not only as material culture but also as a powerful site of memory, protest, and transnational connection.
TK Smith Curates Carried Over at ISCP, New York
2023 G.A.S. alumnus, TK Smith continues to shape the contemporary art landscape, curating exciting new projects such as Carried Over, a new group exhibition exploring the layered meanings of diaspora, opening on Tuesday, September 9. This exhibition features the work of three ISCP alumni, including Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, who also underwent a residency at G.A.S. Foundation as the 2022 Art X Diaspora prizewinner. Belinda is exhibiting alongside Braxton Garneau (Canada), and Remy Jungerman (The Netherlands/United States). All three artists have African and Indigenous roots, and live and work around the world. The exhibition explores how cultural materials, practices, and symbols are intentionally preserved, reinterpreted, and transformed as people migrate across geographies and historical contexts. Incorporating painting, photography, sculpture, installation, and text, the artists’ practices each grapple with what is carried forward and what is cast off, telling profound and unresolved stories of place and displacement, resilience and resistance. In Smith’s curatorial framing, diaspora is not only a dispersal but also a process of cultural negotiation, where meaning is interrogated, celebrated, and reshaped. Together, the works invite audiences to reflect on the complexity of belonging and the enduring power of cultural memory. Over the summer, TK also curated the Mississippi Museum of Art’s 2025 Invitational, "Call Home," which was on view from June 28, 2023, to September 7, 2025.
Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, Alífábẹẹtì ní àgọ ara mi (In my Body an Alphabet), 2023, C-print on aluminum Dibond, 40.5 x 27 in. (103 × 69 cm).
Tobi Onabolu Wins 2025 Aesthetica Art Prize for Danse Macabre
2023 G.A.S. alumnus Tobi Onabolu has been awarded the 2025 Aesthetica Art Prize for his single-channel film Danse Macabre, selected as the winning work from a shortlist of 24 and now on view at York Gallery, York, until January 2026. The film, developed in collaboration with Ejiro “4STRINGSZ” Sowole-James, Wenceslas Chabi Biaou, Nic Wassell, Ifebusola Shotunde, and Gildas Adannou, was supported by FLAMIN, Artsplit, Legacy Arts Foundation, and Dr. Nadine Siegert. Alongside this major recognition, Onabolu recently contributed to a symposium in Aarhus, Denmark, held in conjunction with the exhibition From the Ground Up at Galleri Image (on view through October 12), and will soon take up a residency at Purple Mountain Arts in South Africa. Looking ahead, he is preparing for the second edition of Lọpọ Lọpọ, Grand Popo’s Contemporary Art Festival, running January 7 through February 27, 2026.
Danse Macabre (2023), Film Still, Tobi Onabolu.