LAGOS, Nigeria — The Yemisi
Shyllon Museum of Art (YSMA), Pan-Atlantic University, in collaboration with SMO Contemporary Art, will present Chika Okeke-Agulu: Freedom Bird, a major exhibition exploring art, memory, migration and Nigeria’s political history.
The exhibition, curated by Iheanyi Onwuegbucha, with Sandra Mbanefo-Obiago as associate curator, will run from November 1, 2026, to January 31, 2027, at YSMA, Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.
It will feature paintings, drawings and sculptures alongside selected poems, diary entries, photographs and archival materials spanning more than three decades of Okeke-Agulu’s artistic practice.
The exhibition examines themes of military rule, democratic struggle, civic life, exile, displacement and belonging, reflecting Nigeria’s postcolonial experience and the artist’s personal journey.
Okeke-Agulu is an artist, art historian, critic, curator and poet. He is currently the Robert Schirmer Professor of Art and Archaeology and African American Studies at Princeton University, where he also directs the Africa World Initiative.
According to YSMA Director, Dr. Jess Castellote, the exhibition aligns with the museum’s educational mission of encouraging audiences to engage with art through research, critical inquiry and dialogue.
Onwuegbucha, an assistant professor of African and Caribbean Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Cambridge, said the exhibition provides an opportunity to engage with Okeke-Agulu primarily as an artist, rather than only through his widely recognised scholarship on African art.
Sandra Mbanefo-Obiago, founder and creative director of SMO Contemporary Art, described the exhibition as timely, noting its engagement with questions of freedom, social justice, nation-building and civic responsibility.
Supported by sponsors, including law firm TEMPLARS, Freedom Bird will also feature a specially curated public programme of conversations on Nigeria’s political and cultural history and the role of artists in public life.
The exhibition will be open to the public at the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, Pan-Atlantic University, from November 1, 2026, to January 31, 2027.
