5th Lagos Biennial explores The Museum of Things Unseen

THE Àkéte Art Foundation has announced ‘The Museum of Things Unseen’ as the title of the 2026 edition of the Lagos Biennial.

A statement from the Foundation explained that the fifth  edition, from October 17 to December 18 2026, will “reflect on the thematic and socio-political dimensions of museology, heritage circulation, and art collection, exploring new visions of museum-making and upturning redundant canons.”

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It added that the inauguration of the Àkéte Collection, the first public international collection of contemporary art in Africa, will accompany the Biennial.

The Foundation further disclosed that curators Furen Dai, Chinyere Obieze, and Sam Hopkins are initiating a conceptual museum that brings together various never-or-rarely exhibited works from art collections and museums worldwide.

They invited artists to engage with the works, reinterpret them and thus question the narratives inscribed in them.  “The artistic inventions are intended to create new perspectives for existing understandings and interpretations of these works and to explore and sharpen the (supposedly) (in)visible.”

They added that as part of the fifth Biennial,  theÀkéte Art Foundation will create the Àkéte Collection, assembling diverse artworks globally to create the first public international collection of contemporary art in Africa.

The Foundation noted that the collection comprises works from past editions of the Biennial and will collect broader modern and contemporary works worldwide. The collection will be domiciled in Lagos, Nigeria and shown to the public for the first time in October 2026.

An international colloquium will accompany the biennial events, convening academics and museum specialists worldwide to discuss pertinent issues related to heritage circulations, restitution, and the concept of the universal museum.