MOWAA Listening Sessions

Over the coming months, MOWAA will host a series of Listening Sessions across cities and spaces in Nigeria, West Africa and the African diaspora. Conceived as a period of reflection and exchange, the programme invites the public to shape the future of the institution by lending their voices, ideas and critiques. It is grounded in a simple conviction: that museums are not built in isolation but through ongoing conversation with the publics they serve.

The MOWAA Listening Sessions emerge from a moment that has called for careful reflection. The incident at our preview event last November was a difficult and sobering moment for the institution, as well as for the artists, collaborators and communities who have engaged with our work over the past several years. It brought into focus the extent to which cultural practice is always entangled with history, politics and civic responsibility. Engagement with heritage often brings competing perspectives into conversation, and the debates that follow are part of the broader cultural landscape in which institutions operate. Moments such as this ask institutions not only to respond, but also to reflect on how they listen, how they learn and how they remain accountable to the communities they are built to serve. 

Through a series of conversations, workshops and exchanges, MOWAA’s Listening Sessions will take place from March through May, combining in-person conversations with accessible online engagement. These encounters will bring a wide range of voices into dialogue – from emerging and established artists to heritage practitioners, from committed art audiences to those who may never have visited a museum before. By gathering and interpreting the insights that emerge from these encounters, we hope to deepen our understanding of how custodianship might be imagined in a contemporary African context, and how cultural institutions can remain meaningfully embedded in civic life. 

As Phillip Ihenacho, MOWAA Director, notes: 

“The work of building cultural institutions, wherever they may be, is challenging, but deeply important. Museums have the potential to create spaces where history, education, culture and public life meet. Our commitment is to continue shaping MOWAA into an institution that listens carefully and grows in dialogue with the communities it serves.” 

The first activation of MOWAA’s Listening Sessions took place this past weekend in Lagos, Nigeria at the +234 Art Fair. Titled The Forum, we created an open platform for visitors to reflect on what cultural institutions can be, what they should represent and whom they should serve. Over the course of several days, hundreds of participants contributed their perspectives, in writing and through audio recordings, offering reflections that ranged from personal experiences of heritage and belonging to broader questions about access, representation and institutional responsibility. Conceived as an itinerant platform, The Forum will travel between cities as part of MOWAA’s broader Listening Sessions programme,  

As Ore Disu, Director of the MOWAA Institute, reflects:

“Museums are often understood as places where knowledge is presented to the public, but institutions are also shaped by the publics they serve. From its inception, MOWAA has sought to listen through workshops, conversations and collaborations with artists and communities. Every culture has its own way of listening, and transmitting ideas through storytelling, orality and acts of coming together. This iteration of the Listening Sessions embraces approaches intuited in our African traditions and builds on ourpast work of active listening, influencing how we learn as MOWAA continues to take shape.”  

For more information on upcoming sessions, including how to participate, please visit wearemowaa.org/listening-sessions

#MOWAAIsListening