The Museum of West African Art, based in Benin City, Nigeria, announced Thursday that it will officially open its campus to the public on Nov. 11.
First announced in 2020, the MOWAA campus is planned as a 15-acre complex housing a research and education institute (the MOWAA Institute), a contemporary art exhibition space (the Rainforest Gallery), a boutique hotel (the Art Guesthouse), and a performance space (the Artisans’ Hall), among other facilities. The full campus is projected to be completed by 2028, but this fall, visitors will get their first look at MOWAA.
In November, the Institute will open to the public alongside its inaugural exhibition, “Nigeria Imaginary Homecoming,” which will be spread across multiple buildings on the campus. Curated by Aindrea Emelife, an art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art at MOWAA, the show is something of a redux of Nigeria’s well-recieved pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, which Emelife also curated. Four new artists—Kelani Abass, Modupeola Fadugba, Ngozi-Omeje Ezema, and Isaac Emokpae—will join the original lineup. The exhibition will run through Apr. 26, 2026.
The Institute features 48,000 square feet of facilities for archaeological research, conservation, art storage, and public programs. MOWAA is planning a series of exhibition tours, talks, workshops, and neighborhood activations to celebrate the opening.
The launch will be preceded by a two-day slate of preview events—including a colloquium exploring “cultural, political, and artistic imaginaries across Nigeria, Africa, and its global diaspora,” guided exhibition tours, and a city-wide program of talks and workshops. Ongoing public programming, from film screenings to workshops and gallery tours, is scheduled through February 2026.
In a statement, Institute director Ore Disu called MOWAA “not just a museum” but an institution centered on transformation.”
“Globally, museums are increasingly being asked to justify their existence, whether it’s by way of funding cuts, restitution or falling visitor numbers,” Disu said. “What’s important for us at MOWAA is to be truly embedded in building contextually relevant practices, regenerating African cites and scholarship, and using art as a catalyst for real impact … We started this work five years ago at our inception, and we are proud to continue to show that Africa can provide new ways of thinking and doing as we open our doors this November.”
The grand opening comes one year after the institution held “Museum in the Making,” a two-day “hard-hat opening” for media and 250 invited guests accompanied by a slate of workshops and a tour through archaeological excavations on-site. (The campus is located atop the ruins of ancient Benin City, whose surviving walls, moats, and gates were excavated and incorporated into the new structures.)
Last year, Emelife told ARTnews in a feature on MOWAA that the team views the institution “as a blueprint, a convening point, and the center of outreach that helps grow and sustain museum infrastructure throughout West Africa, working with the living culture of Nigeria—our artisans, our local regional museums—and forging meaningful relationships and partnerships with museums in the West and globally.”
As part of the opening, MOWAA also announced the establishment of an Artist Council to ensure that the museum’s programming “remains artist led,” according to a press release. Among the major names on the council are Yinka Shonibare, Michael Armitage, Victor Ehikhamenor, Nengi Omuku, Odun Orimolade, and Kaloki Nyamai. Members will serve two-year terms, offering mentorship in education and residency programs and advising on exhibitions and research projects. Each was chosen, the institution said, with an eye toward their connections with other arts organizations across the continent.
“The impact of art institutions in Africa will depend upon our ability to work with other organizations across the continent. With this in mind, I look forward to developing the relationship between [Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute] and MOWAA as we grow our community between Kenya and Nigeria and broaden the reach of art on the continent,” Armitage said in a statement.
