YSMA, SMO to Unveil Chika Okeke-Agulu’s ‘Freedom Bird’ Exhibition, Exploring Nigeria Political History | ClipTV Online

The Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art (YSMA), Pan-Atlantic University, in partnership with SMO Contemporary Art, is set to present Chika Okeke-Agulu: Freedom Bird, a major exhibition exploring Nigeria’s political history, migration, memory, and the pursuit of freedom through the works of Nigerian artist and scholar Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu.

The exhibition will run from November 1, 2026, to January 31, 2027, at YSMA, Pan-Atlantic University, Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.

Curated by Iheanyi Onwuegbucha, with Sandra Mbanefo-Obiago as associate curator, the retrospective will feature paintings, drawings and sculptures. These arts spanning more than three decades, alongside selected poems, diary entries, photographs and archival materials. They document the personal, political and intellectual contexts of the artist’s practice.

The exhibition will explore how Okeke-Agulu’s artistic expression has evolved alongside Nigeria’s political history, from the military regimes and democratic struggles of the 1980s and 1990s to questions of civic responsibility, displacement, migration and belonging.

According to the organisers, the title Freedom Bird draws on a recurring motif in the artist’s visual and poetic vocabulary. It reflects freedom as an aspiration continually negotiated through political struggle, personal memory, and artistic expression.

Okeke-Agulu’s artistic practice emerged during a period of political turbulence in Nigeria, engaging themes of repression, civic life, and the role of artists and intellectuals in society. His subsequent migration to the United States introduced further explorations of exile, displacement, and the search for belonging.

His works have featured in solo, collaborative and group exhibitions across Nigeria, the United States, Europe, Africa and Asia. It further include presentations at the National Museum in Lagos, Goethe-Institut Lagos, Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, the first Johannesburg Biennale and the Newark Museum.

Currently the Robert Schirmer Professor of Art and Archaeology and African American Studies at Princeton University, Okeke-Agulu also serves as Director of the university’s Africa World Initiative. His work spans artistic practice, art history, criticism, curating, poetry and education.

He has authored and co-authored influential studies on artists including El Anatsui, Yusuf Grillo and Obiora Udechukwu. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2022 and served as Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford in 2023.

The Director of YSMA, Dr. Jess Castellote, said the exhibition aligns with the museum’s educational mission of encouraging audiences to engage with art through research, critical inquiry, and dialogue.

“YSMA was conceived as a museum where art is not simply seen, but studied, questioned and understood,” Castellote said, describing Freedom Bird as an opportunity to connect the artist’s work and intellectual contributions with important conversations about Nigerian and African art.

He added that the exhibition would enable students, researchers, artists, educators and members of the public to examine the historical questions that have shaped Okeke-Agulu’s practice.

For Onwuegbucha, an assistant professor of African and Caribbean Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Cambridge, the exhibition represents the culmination of sustained scholarly engagement. With the artist and the history of the Nsukka School, it formed part of his doctoral research at Princeton University.

He said the exhibition would allow audiences to encounter Okeke-Agulu first as an artist, beyond his widely recognised contributions as a scholar and curator.

Onwuegbucha previously served as guest curator for YSMA’s inaugural exhibitions in 2019 and has curated exhibitions in Nigeria, Europe and the United States. He as also worked with Samuel Fosso: Affirmative Acts at the Princeton University Art Museum.

The exhibition is co-presented by SMO Contemporary Art, which has worked to promote modern and contemporary African art to local and international audiences.

The organisation has also contributed to the preservation and presentation of Nigerian art heritage. These include the conservation and curation of more than 80 large-scale modernist artworks at the refurbished National Theatre between 2021 and 2024. Additionally, the art brand was involved in creating an archive of historic objects dating back to FESTAC ’77.

Sandra Mbanefo-Obiago, founder and creative director of SMO Contemporary Art, noted that the exhibition would encourage reflection on nation-building. She added that it will reflect freedom, social justice and collective responsibility.

She further described Okeke-Agulu’s decades-long journey as an artist and social critic as particularly relevant to contemporary discussions about leadership, civic responsibility and Nigeria’s political future.

Supported by sponsors, including African law firm TEMPLARS, Freedom Bird will also feature a specially curated public programme of conversations examining Nigeria’s political and cultural history and the role of artists as witnesses and participants in public life.

The organisers said the exhibition would offer audiences an opportunity to reflect on how art documents history, shapes collective memory and contributes to conversations about Nigeria’s identity and future.