In the heart of Benin City, Edo State—a cradle of ancient kingdoms and resilient spirits—Nigerian artist Victor Ehikhamenor is weaving a tapestry of art, memory, and renewal. On November 8–12, 2025, the city will pulse with the rhythms of the inaugural Black Muse Art Festival, a vibrant five-day odyssey organized by Angels and Muse, the non-profit Ehikhamenor founded in 2018. Titled Let the Forest Dance, this ambitious gathering builds on the momentum of the Black Muse Residency launched in 2024, transforming Ehikhamenor’s hometown into a global beacon for African artistic innovation. At its core lies the unveiling of the Black Muse Sculpture Park, an artist-led sanctuary where sculptures converse with sacred groves, inviting communities to reclaim their cultural and environmental heritage.
Ehikhamenor, a Nigerian-American multidisciplinary powerhouse born in 1970 in Udomi-Uwessan, Edo State, has long blurred the lines between visual art, literature, and activism. His practice—spanning painting, drawing, installation, sculpture, stained glass, and photography—interrogates the scars of colonial history, the glow of spiritual traditions, and the intersections of memory and modernity. Drawing from Edo iconography, Catholic symbolism, and fragmented ancient scripts, his works often emerge as luminous portraits of African resilience, challenging viewers to confront erased narratives. Ehikhamenor’s international acclaim is no accident: he represented Nigeria at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017, the first such pavilion for his country, and has exhibited at luminaries like the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Dak’Art Biennale in Senegal, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Yet, for all his global footprint, Ehikhamenor remains deeply rooted in Benin City, where he envisions art not as elite ornament but as a communal force for healing and foresight.
This vision finds its boldest expression in Angels and Muse, the non-profit that has become a “thought laboratory” for African creators. Founded amid Nigeria’s burgeoning art scene, the organization empowers artists, writers, curators, and interdisciplinary practitioners through residencies, exhibitions, publications, and cultural programming. With hubs in Lagos and Benin City, it bridges local experimentation with diaspora dialogues, hosting events like the recent Myriad Blues: Musings on a Blues People in August 2025, which explored sonic and visual improvisations. The Black Muse Art Festival represents Ehikhamenor’s most philanthropic leap yet—a free, inclusive platform positioning African art as a catalyst for conservation, collective memory, and renewal. “For years, I have carried the dream of a sculpture park—an open space where art, community, and environment could exist in dialogue,” Ehikhamenor reflects. “With the Black Muse Art Festival, that dream comes alive in Benin City, a place steeped in history yet ever ready to welcome new visions.”
A Theme Rooted in Ancestral Wisdom: Let the Forest Dance
Inspired by Wole Soyinka’s seminal 1960 play A Dance of the Forests—a prophetic critique of postcolonial Africa’s tangled legacies—the festival’s theme evokes the sacred groves of the ancient Benin Kingdom. These verdant sanctuaries, revered as abodes of spirits and biodiversity, symbolize a harmonious bond between humanity and nature, now imperiled by urbanization and climate crisis. In today’s context, Let the Forest Dance issues a clarion call: How can art and literature safeguard biodiversity, nurture communal ethos, and ignite creative continuity? The festival answers through immersive experiences that blend tradition with urgency, urging participants to “listen to the environment” and transform artistic practice into acts of preservation.
The Crown Jewel: Black Muse Sculpture Park and Its Architectural Heart
No element captures this ethos more vividly than the Black Muse Sculpture Park, the festival’s pulsating centrepiece. This expansive, artist-led public space—nestled amid Benin’s lush landscapes—fosters experimentation and intergenerational exchange, drawing from global models like Storm King Art Center while honoring local Edo rhythms. Its inaugural activation features an annual commissioned pavilion named Ázágbà, an Edo term for “compound,” evoking the communal courtyards where life unfolds in shared stories and sustenance.
Designed by Architect-in-Residence James Inedu-George, a Nigerian visionary born in 1981 and co-founder of the research-driven HTL Africa, the 2025 pavilion is a monumental bamboo edifice—sustainable, ephemeral, and alive with possibility. Inedu-George, known for his philosophy of “unfolding architecture” that integrates African environmental challenges with innovative forms, crafts a structure that breathes with the forest. Adorning its walls are Victor Ehikhamenor’s stained-glass panels, casting prismatic light that dances like ancestral spirits— a seamless fusion of Edo heritage and contemporary gleam. Inside, Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Somi Kakoma collaborates with Prof. Josephine Abbe on an audio performance and installation, weaving sonic threads of African interconnectedness through the space.
Encircling the pavilion, the park debuts with Today, Tomorrow, the Moon Will Still Be, a landmark sculpture exhibition curated by Kenyan independent curator Renée Akitelek Mboya. Mboya, a Nairobi-based writer, filmmaker, and storyteller whose practice excavates memory through autobiography and biography, probes the eternal question: “What is sculpture?” Her selection traces African sculptural lineages—from Benin bronzes and Nok terracottas to bold contemporary forms—featuring seven rising stars: Olanrewaju Tejuosho’s tactile explorations of urban decay; Osaru Obaseki’s ethereal installations; Ayobami Ogungbe’s narrative carvings; Uzor Ugoala’s kinetic bronzes; Kelly Omodamwen’s fiber-infused totems; Seidougha Linus Eyimiegha (aka Mr. Danfo)’s street-smart assemblages; and David Alabo’s monumental eco-sculptures. This ensemble not only honors historical endurance but propels sculpture into dialogues on materiality, migration, and moonlit futures.
A Tapestry of Experiences: From Screen to Stage to Table
The festival’s reach extends far beyond the park, weaving a multidisciplinary web that mirrors Benin’s vibrant street life. Film screenings spotlight contemporary African cinema alongside archival gems, unearthing forgotten reels of cultural resistance. Concerts and performances erupt with music, dance, and hybrid forms—think Afrobeat fusions echoing Soyinka’s dramatic calls. Culinary explorations treat food as an archive of memory, with tastings that blend Edo staples like pounded yam and bushmeat with innovative presentations on communal feasting.
Workshops and masterclasses, tailored for emerging artists, curators, and practitioners, demystify processes from stained-glass crafting to curatorial storytelling. Community gatherings—panels, readings, and fireside dialogues—invite locals and visitors to co-create, fostering the “harvest and sharing” spirit of the new Àkòròlé Residency. This annual program, housed at Àkòròlé House (an Esan term for planting, gathering, and eating), hosts four mid-career interdisciplinary talents for deep dives into local-global exchanges.
A pivotal partnership with the University of Benin’s Department of Fine and Applied Arts and Department of Theatre Arts bridges ivory towers and street-level practice. Students and faculty will stage plays, host readings, lead performances, and co-curate screenings, embodying the festival’s commitment to pedagogy as renewal. As one X post from the festival’s account buzzes, “The opening of the Black Muse Sculpture Park… is an act of remembrance—a summoning of ruins, residues, and echoes that transform decay into testimony.”
A Landmark for Africa and the Diaspora
In an era when African cultural exports—from Afrobeats to Nollywood—dominate global stages, the Black Muse Art Festival carves out space for introspection and rooted futurism. It arrives amid Benin City’s renaissance, where ancient walls whisper of the Oba’s grandeur while young makers remix it for tomorrow. For Ehikhamenor, it’s personal: a homecoming that honors his Edo upbringing and amplifies voices long sidelined.
As registration opens for exhibitions and residencies—echoed in recent social media calls like “Save the date and be part of the conversation!”—the festival promises not just events, but enduring infrastructure. The Sculpture Park will host annual commissions, while Angels and Muse’s residencies seed collaborations across borders. In Ehikhamenor’s words, it’s a dance where “art, community, and the environment could exist in dialogue,” ensuring the forest—and its stories—dances on.
More at angelsandmuse.org and @blackmuseartfestival on Instagram and X.
