Nigerian curator and archivist Aisha Aliyu-Bima has been named the inaugural recipient of the Koyo Kouoh Fellowship, a new programme launched by Art Basel in collaboration with RAW Material Company to support emerging curators, writers, and cultural practitioners.
Aisha is a young, multi-talented creative whose work spans journalism, history, linguistics, photography, and visual arts curation. She has produced projects showcased in Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, and Budapest, and her writing has been published widely, including in Republic Journal, Za! Magazine, Alewa House, and Radr Africa.
Currently Director of Arts at the African School of Economics in Abuja, she has held curatorial residencies at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris and Angels & Muse in Lagos. In 2024, she curated the exhibition “Arewa?” at the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art in Lagos. She holds a medical degree from Hungary’s University of Debrecen.
The fellowship, established in memory of Koyo Kouoh (24 December 1967 – 10 May 2025), will take place during Art Basel in Basel in 2026. Kouoh was a Cameroonian-Swiss art curator who served as Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town from 2019 until her death in 2025, barely five months after being appointed artistic director of the 2026 Venice Biennale.
Art Basel is regarded as the world’s largest and most prestigious contemporary and modern art fair. Founded in 1970, it takes place every June in the Swiss city of Basel.
Read more here
