A video still of Bisi Silva sharing insights on the growth of the curatorial profession across Africa at The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
Explore Bisi Silva’s vision for CCA Lagos and her lasting contribution to contemporary African art, artists, and curatorial practice.
BY KAZEEM ADELEKE, ARTCENTRON
Bisi Silva was one of the most influential curators in contemporary African art. As the founder of the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA Lagos), she helped build an important platform for exhibitions, research, education, archives, and critical debate.
Her influence reached far beyond Lagos. Silva worked across Africa and internationally as a curator, writer, educator, and institution builder. She challenged narrow ideas about African art and helped place contemporary African practices within global conversations.
The legacy of Bisi Silva and CCA Lagos remains important today. It reflects a major shift in the art world. African artists, curators, scholars, and institutions increasingly shape the narratives through which African art is understood.
Who Was Bisi Silva?
Olabisi “Bisi” Obafunke Silva (1962–2019) was a Nigerian curator and the founder and artistic director of CCA Lagos. She earned an MA in Visual Arts Administration, Curating, and Commissioning Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art in London in 1996.
Silva began her career as an independent curator. She also founded Fourth Dial Art, a nonprofit project in London that supported cultural practice in the visual arts. Her international career later included curatorial work at Dak’Art in Senegal, the Bamako Encounters photography biennale, the Thessaloniki Biennale, and other major art platforms.
Her work combined exhibition-making with research and education. She believed contemporary art needed strong intellectual and institutional frameworks. That conviction became central to her work at CCA Lagos.
The Bisi Silva biography at CCA Lagos documents her major curatorial projects and professional achievements.
Silva died on February 12, 2019. Her death marked the loss of one of Nigeria’s most important contemporary art voices. Her institutional and intellectual legacy, however, continues through CCA Lagos, its archives, and the artists and curators she supported.
What Is CCA Lagos?
The Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, known as CCA Lagos, is an independent nonprofit visual arts organization founded by Bisi Silva in December 2007.
CCA Lagos was created to support the development, presentation, and discussion of contemporary visual art and culture. Its program has included exhibitions, lectures, seminars, screenings, workshops, archives, and educational initiatives.
The institution has also given particular attention to photography, film, video, performance, and installation. These forms had often received less institutional attention in Nigeria. CCA Lagos sought to create audiences for experimental and contemporary practices while encouraging critical discussion.
The institution’s importance therefore goes beyond its physical exhibition space. CCA Lagos developed an ecosystem around contemporary art. It connected artists with writers, curators, researchers, students, and audiences.
Its archive is now an especially important part of that legacy. The CCA Lagos Archives preserve exhibition records, research materials, publications, interviews, documents, and other materials related to contemporary African art.
Why Was CCA Lagos Important to Contemporary African Art?
CCA Lagos emerged at a crucial moment in Nigeria’s contemporary art history. By the 2000s, Nigerian artists were gaining greater international attention. Yet the infrastructure for contemporary art remained limited. There were fewer independent institutions devoted to research, experimental exhibitions, curatorial development, and sustained public discussion.
Silva addressed that gap. She treated an art institution as more than a place where people displayed finished artworks. For her, an institution could become a place for investigation and debate. It could create knowledge as well as present it.
That approach helped distinguish CCA Lagos from a conventional commercial gallery. The center encouraged artists to experiment with different media. It also created opportunities for audiences to encounter difficult and complex subjects. These included politics, identity, gender, migration, memory, globalization, and social change.
This institutional model reflected a wider transformation in contemporary African art. Independent spaces across the continent were creating alternatives to traditional museum structures. They gave artists and curators greater control over how contemporary African practices were presented.
ARTCENTRON’s coverage of contemporary African art provides a broader view of this continuing transformation across African art institutions and artistic practices.
The Rise of Contemporary Art Institutions in Nigeria
Nigeria has a long and influential artistic history. Its cultural landscape includes the celebrated artistic traditions of the Benin Kingdom, Nigerian modernism, and the work of artists associated with institutions such as the Yaba College of Technology.
The contemporary period brought new challenges. Artists were working across photography, installation, video, performance, painting, sculpture, and digital media. Yet institutional support did not always grow at the same pace. CCA Lagos responded to this situation by developing a platform for contemporary practice.
Silva’s approach also resisted the idea that African art should be discussed mainly through tradition or ethnography. She emphasized the present. Her exhibitions explored the ideas, experiences, and formal strategies of artists working within contemporary society. That distinction remains important.
Contemporary African art is not a single style. It encompasses many practices and perspectives. Artists often move between local histories and global experiences. Their work can address colonialism, migration, technology, gender, ecology, popular culture, religion, and urban life.
ARTCENTRON’s coverage of Wole Lagunju’s contemporary reinterpretation of Yoruba culture offers another example of how Nigerian artists connect cultural history with contemporary visual language.
Her Curatorial Philosophy
Curating as Research and Knowledge Production
One of Silva’s most important contributions was her understanding of curating as research. She did not view an exhibition as a simple arrangement of artworks. Instead, she used exhibitions to ask questions. She created connections between artists, audiences, scholars, and wider cultural debates.
CCA Lagos reflected this philosophy through several types of programming:
- Research-driven exhibitions
- Artist talks and public conversations
- Lectures and seminars
- Workshops and educational programs
- Archives and documentation
- Publications and catalogues
- Experimental projects
- International collaborations
This model made the institution a producer of knowledge. CCA Lagos describes its mission in similar terms. The center supports critical work, cultural practitioners, and platforms such as exhibitions, lectures, seminars, screenings, and public programs.
Silva’s commitment to critical practice also extended into publishing. She edited the monograph J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, published by CCA Lagos in 2014. She also contributed to international art publications and served on editorial and advisory boards.
Supporting Artists and New Forms of Practice
CCA Lagos supported artists working across many media. Photography, video, installation, and performance received particular attention. This helped expand the range of practices that Nigerian audiences could encounter within an institutional setting.
Silva also curated exhibitions that brought contemporary issues into direct conversation with artistic experimentation. Her approach was not simply about identifying emerging artists. It was about creating contexts in which artists could develop and audiences could engage with their ideas.
Victor Ekpuk provides a useful example of the wider contemporary Nigerian context. His practice draws on Nsibidi and explores questions of communication, identity, and visual language. ARTCENTRON has examined his work in its article on Victor Ekpuk’s exploration of hairstyles and body markings. The example illustrates the kind of contemporary practice that complicates simplistic definitions of African art.
How CCA Lagos Changed African Curatorial Practice
CCA Lagos contributed to a larger shift in African curatorial practice. For decades, many international narratives about African art were produced by institutions outside the continent. African artists were often presented through frameworks shaped elsewhere.
Silva offered another model. She demonstrated that institutions based in Africa could produce research, organize international exhibitions, build archives, support artists, and influence global conversations. Her work also emphasized the importance of African curators.
Curators do more than select artworks. They help create the frameworks through which audiences interpret those works. They decide which questions an exhibition asks and which relationships it establishes between artists and histories.
Silva used that role to challenge simplified narratives. She did not present African contemporary art as a single category. Instead, she emphasized differences between artists, places, histories, and practices. That approach remains relevant as museums and cultural institutions reconsider how they collect and display African art.
Major Exhibitions and Curatorial Projects
Silva’s career included many important exhibitions and international projects. Her work at Dak’Art, the Bamako Encounters, the Thessaloniki Biennale, and CCA Lagos established her as an influential figure in African and international curatorial practice.
The Progress of Love
One of Silva’s most significant projects was The Progress of Love. The project was a transatlantic collaboration involving CCA Lagos, the Menil Collection in Houston, and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis. The exhibition examined love through contemporary artistic practices and explored subjects such as memory, intimacy, family, sexuality, and social relationships.
Silva curated the CCA Lagos presentation. Kristina Van Dyke curated the presentations at the Menil Collection and the Pulitzer Foundation.
The Lagos presentation of The Progress of Love examined romantic relationships through performance works by Nigerian artist Jelili Atiku and U.S.-based artist Wura-Natasha Ogunji, alongside installations by Temitayo Ogunbiyi (Nigeria/United States) and Ivorian artist Valerie Oka. The project expanded prevailing narratives around contemporary African art by looking beyond familiar themes of political crisis, conflict, and identity. At its center was a more intimate subject: love, presented as a complex and compelling field for contemporary artistic inquiry.
You can explore the exhibition through the The Progress of Love archive at CCA Lagos. The Menil Collection’s documentation of The Progress of Love also provides useful institutional context.
J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere: Moments of Beauty
Silva also worked extensively with the Nigerian photographer J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere. Her curatorial work around Ojeikere’s photography helped bring greater attention to his distinctive documentation of hairstyles, ceremonies, and Nigerian social life.
Her involvement with Ojeikere also demonstrates the importance she placed on documentation and historical memory. Photography could serve both as art and as a record of social change. J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere: Moments of Beauty is among Silva’s notable curatorial projects.
Co-curated by Aura Seikkula and Bisi Silva, with Antawan I. Byrd as curatorial assistant, Moments of Beauty was organized by the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, in collaboration with Foto Ojeikere. The exhibition was co-produced with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiasma, as an independent component of the broader ARS 11 exhibition in Helsinki, Finland, which was curated by Pirkko Siitari, Arja Miller, and Jari-Pekka Vanhala.
Identity: An Imagined State and Like a Virgin…
Her curatorial work also included Identity: An Imagined State, an exhibition that explored African identity through video art, and Like a Virgin …, which examined women’s bodies, sexuality, and the ways they are represented and perceived. The latter exhibition generated considerable discussion and controversy, particularly over South African photographer Zanele Muholi’s provocative images incorporating menstrual blood. The works sparked widespread objections and opened up a broader debate about art, gender, sexuality, and the boundaries of public expression.
International Curatorial Work
Silva’s influence was not limited to Lagos. She worked with international biennials and cultural institutions. In 2015, she served as artistic director of the 10th Bamako Encounters, the African Biennale of Photography in Mali.
She also worked with the Dak’Art Biennale in Senegal and served on international juries, including the Future Generation Art Prize and the 55th Venice Biennale. These roles demonstrate the international reach of her curatorial practice.
Silva did not need to leave African contexts behind to participate in global art conversations. Her career connected local institutions with international networks.
Àsìkò and Curatorial Education
Silva’s institutional legacy also includes Àsìkò, an innovative art school and educational program developed through CCA Lagos. The program responded to a gap in art education. CCA Lagos launched it in 2010 to address the need for stronger critical methodologies and histories within artistic practice in Nigeria and other African countries.
Àsìkò expanded the idea of what an art school could be. It brought together artists, curators, educators, and participants in different locations. The program encouraged experimentation and critical thinking.
The Àsìkò Art School archive at CCA Lagos provides further information about the program and its relationship to Silva’s curatorial work.
The importance of Àsìkò lies in its focus on people as well as exhibitions. Silva understood that sustainable art ecosystems require artists and curators who can question established systems.
That educational legacy remains one of the most important parts of her contribution.
Why Her Legacy Still Matters
African-Led Cultural Institutions
Curator Bisi Silva on Considering the Local and Global in Curatorial Practice. Pew Center Arts YouTube
The legacy of Bisi Silva is closely connected to the question of who produces knowledge about African art. CCA Lagos demonstrated that a locally rooted institution could participate in international art discourse without simply adopting external models.
The institution created its own programs and priorities. It also developed an archive and library that preserved material about contemporary artistic practice. This matters because archives shape art history.
Without documentation, exhibitions disappear. Conversations are forgotten. Artists can become absent from historical narratives. CCA Lagos’s archive addresses that problem by preserving institutional and curatorial records.
Women and Leadership in Contemporary Art
Silva’s career also matters in discussions about women and leadership in the arts. She held significant curatorial authority in an international field that has often been dominated by large Western institutions. She built an institution rather than waiting for an established institution to create a place for her ideas.
Her example demonstrates how women curators can shape not only exhibitions but also cultural infrastructure. Her leadership also created opportunities for younger artists and cultural practitioners.
Building Sustainable Art Infrastructure
Independent art institutions often face difficult financial and structural conditions. Their work may be ambitious, but long-term sustainability can remain uncertain. CCA Lagos highlights both sides of that reality.
The institution demonstrates what an independent platform can accomplish. At the same time, its history shows why archives, funding, education, partnerships, and institutional support matter. The lesson extends beyond Lagos.
African cities such as Accra, Dakar, Johannesburg, Nairobi, and Lagos have become important centers of artistic production and intellectual exchange. They should not be viewed simply as emerging art markets.
They are places where new ideas about art, identity, history, and culture are produced. ARTCENTRON’s coverage of Afropolitan: Contemporary African Arts at NOMA offers a useful example of how museums continue to rethink African art through contemporary and global frameworks.
CCA Lagos and the African Art Market
The international market for African art has grown considerably. Collectors and institutions now pay greater attention to artists from Nigeria and other African countries. However, CCA Lagos was not primarily a commercial gallery. Its contribution to the art market was more indirect.
By supporting research, documentation, exhibitions, artist development, and critical discussion, the institution strengthened the cultural infrastructure around contemporary African art. That infrastructure matters.
Artists need visibility. Collectors need information. Museums need research. Scholars need archives. Curators need networks. Independent institutions can help connect these different parts of the art ecosystem.
ARTCENTRON has explored this market development in its coverage of how Nigerian artists gained ground in the global contemporary African art market. The growth of the market should therefore be understood alongside the growth of cultural infrastructure. For a more market-focused perspective, ARTCENTRON’s report on the top contemporary African art sales at Africa Now provides additional context.
The Continuing Legacy of Bisi Silva
Silva’s influence continues through the institution she founded and the archival work surrounding her career. CCA Lagos provides access to both its institutional archive and the Bisi Silva Archive. These collections preserve exhibition materials, research, publications, interviews, documents, and other records of her work.
The continuing interest in her work also shows that her legacy is not simply historical. In 2025, CCA Lagos presented archival and commemorative projects connected to her life and influence. The institution continues to frame Silva as a pioneering figure in contemporary African art.
In 2026, CCA Lagos also presented Sharing “The Firsts”—Bisi Silva: A Portrait of Legacy, featuring a commemorative portrait by artist Sasha Huber. The work was unveiled during CCA Lagos’s 18th anniversary and reflects the continuing recognition of Silva’s contribution.
These projects demonstrate why archives matter. They allow later generations to revisit the ideas, relationships, and institutional experiments that shaped contemporary art.
The Enduring Legacy of Bisi Silva and CCA Lagos
The legacy of Bisi Silva extends far beyond the exhibitions she curated. Through CCA Lagos, she helped build an institution that treated contemporary art as a field of research, debate, education, and experimentation. She supported artists while creating opportunities for audiences to encounter new ideas.
Her career also challenged the assumption that important curatorial authority must come from established Western institutions. Silva showed another possibility. An institution based in Lagos could produce knowledge, preserve archives, educate artists, develop curators, and participate in international conversations.
That achievement remains central to understanding contemporary African art today. The questions she raised are still urgent. Who tells the history of African art? Who controls its institutions? Which artists enter the archive? How can independent art spaces survive? And how can African perspectives shape global art history?
CCA Lagos continues to engage with these questions. The enduring legacy of Bisi Silva is therefore not only the institution she founded. It is also the intellectual framework she helped create: one in which African artists, curators, researchers, and institutions have the authority to shape the stories told about contemporary African art.
Frequently Asked Questions About Bisi Silva and CCA Lagos
Why is Bisi Silva important to contemporary African art?
Bisi Silva is important because she helped expand the role of African curators and independent art institutions. Through CCA Lagos and her international curatorial work, she supported contemporary artistic practices and promoted African-led approaches to research and exhibition-making.
Is Bisi Silva’s legacy still relevant?
Yes. Her ideas about independent institutions, African-led curatorial practice, research, education, and cultural representation remain relevant to contemporary debates about museums and global art history.