EMOWAA (Edo Museum of West African Art) Trust has announced the appointments of Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu, Nigerian art historian and Professor of African and African Diaspora Art and Director of the Program of African Studies at Princeton University and Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford University, as Senior Advisor, Modern and Contemporary Art, and Nigerian-British curator, Aindrea Emelife, as new Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Speaking on the need to support West African contemporary art as well as cultural heritage, EMOWAA Executive Director, Phillip Ihenacho, said, “One of the key challenges for museums and heritage institutions in Africa is relevancy to contemporary African society. We need to build infrastructure and programming to celebrate the rich traditions of the past, but also connect to the present arts scene and invest in the skills and knowledge that enable opportunities for contemporary creatives and heritage professionals.”

The appointments of Emelife and Okeke-Agulu support EMOWAA’s goal of creating a world-class museum, research, and education complex connecting West Africa’s ancient heritage to its thriving contemporary culture.

As EMOWAA’s Modern and Contemporary team, Okeke-Agulu and Emelife will focus on advancing the field of academic research in contemporary and modern West African Art, developing the collection strategy for EMOWAA, building the curatorial framework for the creative district EMOWAA is developing in the heart of Benin City,and generating new, multi-faceted narratives and interpretations of West African art and history.

Chika Okeke-Agulu is an artist, critic and art historian who specialises in indigenous, modern, and contemporary African and African Diaspora art history and theory. Born in Umuahia, Nigeria, Okeke-Agulu earned an MFA (Painting) from the University of Nigeria and a PhD (Art History) from Emory University. He has spent much of his career working at several institutions around the world and currently serves as the Robert Schirmer Professor of Art and Archaeology and African American Studies as well as the Director, Program in African Studies and Director, Africa World Initiative at Princeton University. He is also the current Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford University 2022/23.

Okeke-Agulu has co-organised a number of exhibitions, such as Samuel Fosso: Affirmative Acts at the Princeton University Art Museum (2022) and (with Okwui Enwezor) the travelling survey El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale at the Haus der Kunst, Munich (2019). His many other exhibitions include Who Knows Tomorrow (Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 2010); the Fifth Gwangju Biennale (2004); The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994 (Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, 2001); Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa (Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1995); and the Nigerian section of the First Johannesburg Biennale (1995). He is on the curatorial team of the Sharjah Biennial (2023).

Speaking on his appointment, Chika Okeke-Agulu said, “A project like EMOWAA is long overdue. It has become imperative that we find a way to study, appreciate and celebrate contemporary and modern art from the African continent, on the African continent. It is exciting to join EMOWAA and play a part advising on how we can develop new institutional infrastructure to support advanced knowledge and appreciation of the role of art and artists in connecting our rich cultural histories to who and where we are today.”

Emelife, prior to joining EMOWAA, studied History of Art to post-graduate level at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London. As a curator and art historian, she has led a number of high-profile projects with a focus on modern and contemporary art, dedicating her focus to questions around colonial and decolonial histories in Africa, transnationalism and the politics of representation.