A Discussion Hosted by Aisha Seriki and Joy Labinjo with Mobolaji Ogunrosoye and Amaize Ojeikere
Join us at G.A.S. Lagos on April 30th, 2025 for Unearthing the Archive, an evening of discussion focused on the role of archives in contemporary artistic practice. Current residents Aisha Seriki and Joy Labinjo will be in conversation with Joy Labinjo, artist and G.A.S. alumna Mobolaji Ogunrosoye, and Amaize Ojeikere, a photographer, writer, and son of the legendary J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere. Each panellists engage with archival materials as a core aspect of their work, drawing connections between personal and collective histories.
During their time at G.A.S. Lagos, Aisha and Joy have explored the ways in which artists revisit the past to build new narratives and sustain cultural memory. Their conversations with peers have revealed how archives can serve as a method of inquiry, a space for reflection, and a means of recontextualising historical material. This event will offer a platform to consider how artists engage with the archive through documentation, reinterpretation, or as a source for developing new bodies of work. The panel will reflect on what initially led them to archival materials, how those materials continue to inform their practice, and how they envision the future of the archive in artistic contexts. The evening will also include a presentation of work by British-Nigerian visual artist and G.A.S. alumnus Karl Ohiri and Lagos Studio Archives, and Nigerian artist Kelani Abass, offering an additional perspective on how artists engage with documentation and history.
Event Details
Date: 30th April, 2025
Time: 4:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Location: 9b, Hakeem Dickson Drive, off TF Kuboye Road, Oniru, Lagos.
While this event is free to attend, it is essential to RSVP in order to secure your spot, as space is limited.
About the Facilitators
Aisha Seriki
Aisha Olamide Seriki is a Nigerian multi-disciplinary artist based in London, specialising in fine art photography and sculpture. Seriki works from a canon of personal histories which splice contemporary realities. Her practice is holistic and embodied, subverting formal photographic traditions. Cosmological systems such as the Yoruba Spiritual Tradition have informed the multisensory approach Seriki has to documentation, communication and creation. Through optics and trickery, she challenges the rigid imagination of self, creating space in the archive for a wider definition.
In 2023, she was awarded the Frank Bowling Scholarship and completed the Photography MA programme at the Royal College of Art, and in 2024 she completed her MFA in Fine Arts and Humanities. Aisha’s project Orí Inú received the RCA’s New Photography Prize, the SW Darkroom Award and the inaugural JM Finn Graduate Artist Award (2023). In May 2024, Aisha won the V&A Parasol Foundation Prize for Women in Photography.
Joy Labinjo
Joy Labinjo’s large-scale figurative paintings often depict intimate scenes of historical and contemporary life, both real and imagined and often based on figures appearing in personal and archival imagery that include family photographs, found images and historical material. She has explored themes including but not limited to identity, political voice, power, Blackness, race, history, community and family and their role in contemporary experience.
Her work presents fresh and arresting compositions of colour, pattern, and motifs—key signatures of Labinjo’s work. Fundamentally, at the heart of Labinjo’s practice is a bold interest in storytelling and, ultimately, people’s lives. Labinjo’s aesthetic comprises an eclectic visual vocabulary and mixed painterly techniques that echo her experience of multiple identities—growing up Black, British, and Nigerian in the 1990s and early 00s.
About the Speakers
Amaize Ojeikere
Amaize Ojeikere is a graduate of Business Administration and Management 1991 of Auchi Polytechnic Auchi, Edo State, Nigeria. After working for about 3 years, Amaize began his photographic career which has spanned over two decades. This began under the tutelage of his father, J. D ‘Okhai Ojeikere (one of Nigeria’s foremost photographer) of blessed memory who gave him his first camera (A Canon D70, 35mm SLR camera) as his graduation present. In Pursuant of his career, Amaize has sat in classes at different photo workshops organized by MR SUNMI SMART—COLE, (with whom he processed his first black +white film) The Goethe Institute, The French Cultural Centre and The British Council (Lagos, Nigeria), Mon. Giles Perrin and Philippe Salaun in Paris, France in 1997, 2000, 2001 and 2003 respectively.
Amaize continues to play a major role in the management of FOTO OJEIKERE, a photography company set up by his father, Mr J.D.’Okhai Ojeikere in 1975. The company is devoted to rendering high quality photo service to its customers. He is also saddled with the responsibility of overseeing the huge photographic archives that was left behind by his father. Amaize has participated in several group exhibition is a member of the International Freelance Photographers Organization, the Photographer’s association of Nigeria, the Depth of Field (DOF) and The Invisible Borders: 2009&2010. He lives and works in Lagos - Nigeria and he is happily married to Adeite.
Mobolaji Ogunrosoye
Mobolaji Ogunrosoye is a G.A.S. alumna and visual artist based in Lagos, Nigeria, working in the intersection of photography and collage. She utilizes these mediums to explore distortion and the nuances of contrasting emotions found within images of Nigerian and black women. In Portraits, Mobolaji creates multi-layer collages, incorporating a process of burning and cutting to create depth in revealing underlying layers of images. In 2022 -2023, she developed the 'Portraits' series, where she delved into incorporating coffee granules as an important element within each portrait. Mobolaji expanded on these explorations during a 5-week residency at The Noldor Residency in Accra, Ghana, in 2022. She is currently exploring the use of transparent materials as tools for collage.
Header image credit: Two Women Dancing, Lagos, 1976. Courtesy of Abi Morocco Photos and the Lagos Studio Archives.
Aisha's residency is generously supported by the Royal College of Art Association of Black Students, Alumni & Friends (RCA BLK) while Joy's residency is generously supported by Tiwani Contemporary.
