LAGOS
24 SEPTEMBER - 9 NOVEMBER 2025
A collaborative programme between Fondation H and the Guest Artists Space Foundation
As part of the collaborative residency programme between Fondation H (Madagascar) and G.A.S. Foundation (Nigeria), Malagasy artist Joey Aresoa has been invited for a research residency in Lagos from 24 September to 9 November 2025.
This initiative follows Yinka Shonibare’s carte blanche, Safiotra [Hybridités/Hybridities], presented at Fondation H, and draws inspiration from one of the artist’s major works, The African Library.
A poet, slammer and self-taught multidisciplinary visual artist, Joey Aresoa develops a practice in which words — spoken or written — intertwine with visual forms to explore memory, transmission and archiving.
Her installation AntsaAngano — presented in the collective exhibition Memoria: récits d’une autre Histoire [Memoria: accounts of another History] at Fondation H in 2024 — conceived as a living library where stories and memories take shape through eggs, figurines and augmented reality, resonates closely with the concerns raised by The African Library.
During her residency in Lagos, she continues her research on the circulation of knowledge, forms of storytelling and new approaches to restitution, and takes part in Re:assemblages, a G.A.S. Foundation symposium dedicated to libraries and archives of African art.
This residency marks a significant step in the dialogue between the two institutions, which share a common commitment to documentation, archiving and the reappropriation of African and Malagasy narratives in the construction of a historiography rooted in the present and oriented towards the future.
It offers the artist a context conducive to experimentation and exchange with other artists and researchers, while contributing to ongoing reflections on cultural memory and editorial practices on the continent.
A public presentation will be held in Lagos at the end of the residency, followed by a presentation in Antananarivo upon her return.