Jumoke Sanwo

Storyteller/Placemaker/Cultural Producer

b.1977

Sanwo is a storyteller, place-maker, and cultural producer, whose artistic and curatorial interventions focus on the intersection of technology, innovation, materiality, and art. She explores the spatial and temporal experiences of the individual and the collective, highlighting the impact of colonial systems on, and within postcolonial societies.

Her artistic, curatorial, and cultural endeavours have garnered international recognition, gracing galleries, museums, and festivals in numerous corners of the globe. Notable venues include group exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; the New Museum in New York; the 56th Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy; the International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Brunei Gallery in London; Koppel Project Hive in London; and the Revolving Art Incubator in Lagos, among others.

As a storyteller, her creative expression spans photography, film, video art, and virtual reality. Her approach is grounded in the concept of "Global Localization" or "Glocal," which emphasizes a local engagement and storytelling style. In this methodology, the cultural, historical, and traditional aspects of the storyteller are localized and presented as distinct elements within the global narrative.

From 2009 to 2011, she ran the innovative concept store Bishops Cottage. This space served as a haven for creatives, hosting weekly "family dinner" gatherings where over 25 individuals, including creatives converged to discuss artistic productions, socio-cultural topics, and socio-political issues over dinner.

In 2011, she embarked on the Invisible Borders Trans African Photography Project led by Emeka Okereke. This venture involved a 45-day road trip from Lagos to Addis Ababa, traversing countries such as Cameroon, Chad, and Sudan. Her involvement continued as she became the project's director of administration from 2012 to 2015, contributing significantly to the collective's endeavours, including a transcontinental road trip from Lagos to Sarajevo, which was presented at the 56th Venice Biennale's "All the World's Futures" directed by the late Okwui Enwezor.

The year 2016 marked a new milestone as she founded the Revolving Art Incubator (RAI) in Lagos. RAI serves as an incubator space fostering inter, intra and trans-disciplinary engagement, with a focus on bridging gaps between creative disciplines. RAI's impact was highlighted in a 2019 New York Times article, recognizing it as "One of Lagos' sharpest artist-run spaces." RAI has showcased over 50 artists, in solo and group exhibitions, and impacted thousands of creatives in the city of Lagos and far beyond through periodic exhibitions, artist talks, workshops and other developmental projects such as its forthnightly event outSPOKEN.

Venturing into the realm of extended reality (XR) in 2017, she explored its potential as a tool for storytelling and digital conservation. Her participation in Electric South's New Dimension workshop, under the guidance of mentors such as Jessica Brillhart, Oscar Raby, Dan Emerson, and Caitlin Robinson, further fuelled her exploration of emerging storytelling techniques across Africa. In extending her interest in digital conservation, she was the project coordinator for the digital conservation project of the Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove by CyArk, Google Arts and Culture, and the Adunni Olorisha Trust.

In 2019, she directed Lagos at Large, an immersive non-fiction film, and "Ode to the City of Lagos," which premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and was nominated in two award categories IDFA Doclab award for Digital Storytelling and IDFA Doclab for Immersive Non-Fiction. Notably, "Lagos at Large" earned a spot on Forbes Magazine's list of top 50 Extended Reality (XR) experiences for 2019 and has been included in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) docubase, a curated database of people, projects,and technologies transforming documentary in the digital age. Lagos at Large has been showcased in many film festivals across the world, including the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), International Migration Film Festival (IMFF), Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival and the Festival Imersivo das Favelas-Brazil. Lagos at Large was included in the Electronic Literature Collection Volume 4, a collection of 134 digital-born literary works showcasing exemplary work of e-literature from 2016-2021.

In 2021, she co-curated the exhibition Untangling the Perils that Tangle Us by Kanbi projects at the Koppel Project in London, alongside Arthur Adeola Ayoola. In 2022, she was appointed the curator of the Access ARTX Prize, a prestigious platform for recognising, and nurturing emerging artistic talent from Africa and its diaspora.

In November 2023, she began a two-year artistic research project titled "Fabricating Adjacency: Encounters with Textile, Trade, and Terror," collaborating with esteemed partners including Anette Baldauf, Susanna Delali Nuwordu, Moira Hille, Sasha Huber, Janine Jembere, Abiona Esther Ojo, Mariama Sow, and Milou Gabriel, supported by the prestigious Austrian Science Fund-FWF, at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna,.

The FWF Arts-Based Research program (PEEK) funds innovative, high-quality research in the arts, and is renowned throughout Europe for its interdisciplinary approach, bridging the realms of art, science, and academia to explore new frontiers of knowledge. This approach exemplifies the convergence of artistic and scientific inquiry, pushing the boundaries of conventional understanding and fostering innovative arts-based research. During her time in Vienna, she will be teaching the "Story-Telling: West African Textile Art(ist)" class at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna for the summer semester of 2024.

Her remarkable journey has led to exhibitions spanning across many landscapes, in Africa,Europe,North/South America and the Middle East.

Between 2024 and 2025, she will be working alternately in Vienna and Lagos, Nigeria.