Sustainability and Spirituality Reign Supreme at Art X Lagos

Every November, the dry harmattan wind blows across West Africa, bringing with it a blanket of reddish brown dust from the Sahara desert that marks the end of the rainy season, but in Lagos, November is art season, and the city, host to the 2025 ART X Fair, is in full bloom.

Founded in 2016 by Nigerian entrepreneur and art collector, Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, the ART X Lagos Fair has since become a showcase of the most exciting African and diasporan art. Overseen by five curators — Missla Libsekal, Jumoke Sanwo, Fikayo Adebajo, Lanre Masha, and Tega Okiti, the theme for ART X 10 is Imagining Otherwise, No Matter the Tide, In response, artists and gallerists from across Africa and beyond have taken over the grounds of the Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, each with their own unique interpretations.

How Will You Change Your World/City/Future/Self/Present/Community/Story? is the question posed at the Speaker’s Corner where the audience is invited to write down their hopes and dreams on delicate handmade paper and attach them to the branches of The Mangrove Tree. Before glass and concrete buildings filled up the city’s skyline, mangrove trees were abundant in the Lagos ecosystem. The one on display here is a sculpture woven from water hyacinth by artisans at MitiMeth, a Nigerian social enterprise that has made a mission out of turning environmental waste into eco-friendly handcrafts. Curated by Fikayo Adebajo, and in concert with A Third Space, at designated times throughout the exhibition’s run, the space plays host to pop-up readings and conversations featuring authors Dipo Faloyin and Molara Wood, fashion designer Bubu Ogisi, and other speakers.

Temitayọ Ogunbiyi’s independent project Where There Is Life, There Is Hope: B’á ò kú, ìṣe ò tán is a two-part installation – the first half, You Advocate For What You Believe, an indoor installation featuring chocolate wrapped in katemfe leaves and placed against raffia tapestry is a campaign for abandoning plastics and returning to plant-based packaging. Overlooking the Lagos Lagoon, its outdoor counterpart, You Will Find Playgrounds Among Palm Trees doubles as a playground for young children. Nearby, Dennis Osadebe’s MASS (Devotion), a circular arrangement of fibreglass chairs, each with its own stained glass centre, stands watchful, like an otherworldly guardian.

Back inside, at Affinity Art Gallery’s Booth 9, South African artist Buqaqawuli Nobakada’s mixed media work is an invitation to rest. Depicted at leisure and placed in luxurious settings, her subjects contrast the overrepresentation of black women in menial and tasking work. Her blend of soft tones on hand-prepared lace paper conjure associations of wealth and femininity and it all ties into the ‘soft life’ aesthetic.

Among Lagosian socialites, the soft life aesthetic, popularized by Nigerian influencers, centers on work-life balance and self-care to achieve happiness and is exemplified by the fashion brand Dye Lab. They’ve set up a pop-up shop close by featuring their signature multi-coloured, hand-dyed kaftans. Together with batik print and tie-dye, clothes made from hand-woven textiles like aso oke are popular with the fashion set here, in contemporary designs that blend African heritage with fashion-forwardness. On opening night, I spot the Accra-based Gambian curator Zahra Faye sashaying past in a floor-length Éki Kéré dress affixed with a raffia skirt and ekpiri seeds as buttons. Talk about wearable art. Also paying homage to tradition is Kofi Agorsor’s DHA KRISO (POSITIVE EMOTIONS) at Ghana’s Gallery 1957 (Booth 3). The central figure in the sculpture, carved from African tropical wood, oversees a circle of humanoid heads in the manner of a divine ancestor or spirit protecting devotees.

Painter and Printmaker Bruce Onobrakpeya at The Library. Photo courtesy of Art X Lagos 2025.O’Da Gallery (Booth 1) is exclusively devoted to Deborah Segun’s Echoes of the Wind. The harmonious blend of warm and cool tones in her abstract figurative pastel work and acrylic paintings simplify the experiment of shapes and colours that have been a defining feature of her work since her 2023 solo exhibition Where is My Mind?

At the Invisible Foundations group exhibition at Yenwa Art Gallery (Booth 14), earth tones dominate Victoria Oniosun’s impasto paintings of black women while fellow exhibitor, the Zimbabwean textile artist Shalom Kufakwatenzi’s combines wool, hessian fabric, tobacco twine, and wire into colourful family portrait-style tapestries.

Walking from booth to booth, it’s not hard to run into scores of chaperoned schoolchildren taking in the exhibits. Art X has been very intentional about incorporating activities for children in its programming, and there is a designated Kids’ Corner set up. On display are artworks from the winners of the ART X Lagos Schools’ Programme Competition. On the opposite wall are prints created under the supervision of art educator Tolulope Ami-Williams using stamps created from rubber slippers. Who knows? Amongst them could be the next Bruce Onobrakpeya, Nigeria’s foremost printmaker, who was also seen visiting the fair.

ART X Lagos is open to the public from 8 to 9 November 2025 at the Federal Plaza Hotel, 6-8 Ahmadu Bello Wy, Victoria Island, Lagos 101241, Lagos, Nigeria.

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