Victor Ehikhamenor has announced plans for the second edition of the Black Muse Art Festival, which will hold in Benin City from November 7 to 10.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ session in Lagos on October 23, the Nigerian multidisciplinary artist and founder of Angels and Muse said the festival is built around creating collaborative platforms for artists, writers, thinkers and cultural practitioners across Africa and its diaspora.
“The initiative aims to establish spaces where creative professionals can produce new work, exchange ideas, and reimagine future possibilities for African cultural landscapes,” he said.
Ehikhamenor added that the festival seeks to build sustainable infrastructure for artistic exchange outside major urban centres.
This year’s programme includes an open-air sculpture park exhibition curated by Esinam R. Damalie, featuring works by Jonathan Chambalin and Temitayo Badru.
Damalie joined the meeting virtually to speak on what she is working on, while Chamberlain and Badru gave everyone present a glimpse into what they are to expect.
The festival will also unveil the Azagba Pavilion, a collective architectural space commissioned annually from invited architects to encourage community engagement and dialogue.
Other highlights include an ecological workshop led by Tobiloba Akibo, a project presentation by Okha Okojie, a film, which trailer was screened, and the launch of a Glossary of Terms publication, which emerged from the 2026 curatorial intensive and was supported by participants Mary Onyemelukwe and Kenzel Okay.
The festival will also run a book drive distributing 1,000 creative books to children in Benin City.
Ehikhamenor and his team noted that cultural institutions have a wider responsibility to nurture knowledge, support learning and create opportunities for younger generations, alongside presenting contemporary art.
Explaining the curatorial vision, Roli O’tsemaye said the festival continues its tradition of anchoring each year’s theme in a literary work, following Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forest at the inaugural edition in 2025. This year’s theme, she said, “invites audiences to look beyond inherited limitations and positions artists not merely as makers of objects, but as producers of knowledge and custodians of cultural memory”.
The four-day event will deepen the links between contemporary art, indigenous knowledge, literature and education.
Ehikhamenor established Angels and Muse as a Lagos-based creative residency and gathering space in 2017.