Lagos Art Week brings its familiar circuit of fairs and exhibitions. But there are plenty of other encounters worth having, and other places where the city’s cultural life unfolds.

We asked the people behind Art Report Africa, myself included, to share the events, spaces and experiences they would recommend to anyone looking to experience Lagos beyond the usual Art Week itinerary. Their selections reflect different interests and ways of seeing the city: from the buildings we inhabit and the spaces artists work into theatre, dance, literature and the life of an archive. These are personal picks, not a comprehensive programme, but invitations to spend part of the season differently.

1. ‘Bootleg Architecture’

What has happened to the houses we live in, and what do they say about us? Writer Ada Kalu remembers the distinctiveness of Nigerian homes when she was growing up and the sameness she sees in them today. For Kalu, Bootleg Architecture, a discussion of architectural experimentation organised by Bootleg Griot in collaboration with Iwalewa Books, offers an opportunity to think about that shift. The question of how Lagos is built and inhabited is particularly pressing amid rising temperatures and frequent flooding. The programme offers a space to reflect on Lagos living through the city’s built environment and the homes that shape it.

Bootleg Architecture takes place on 7 November at 16/16, Kofo Abayomi Street, Victoria Island.

2. Ìjàpwá in Èkó!

For Sabo Kpade, Art Report Africa’s editor-in-chief, one alternative to the exhibition circuit is a trip to the theatre. Part of the multidisciplinary Lagos Fringe Festival, Ìjàpá in Èkó! brings the familiar Yoruba trickster tortoise into a contemporary Lagos setting. Kpade describes it as a “welcome alternative to the fairs, particularly for anyone interested in the city’s theatrical imagination”.

Ìjàpá in Èkó! plays at Freedom Park, Lagos Island, at 7pm on 7 and 8 November.

Poster for Ìjàpá in Èkó!, directed by Erioluwa Popoola. Photo: Veema. Courtesy Erioluwa Popoola.

3. Nola Ayoola’s THE SALON

Sunshine Alaibe, curator and director of Art Report Africa, picks up on Kalu’s interest in the spaces we inhabit. “It’s strange that we’re not being experimental with our spaces. It’s where we spend most of our time,” she says. For Alaibe, the artist’s studio offers another way to think about space: not as somewhere to live, but as an extension of the person who occupies it.

She recommends THE SALON, a studio experience at multidisciplinary artist Nola Ayoola’s studio, presented in partnership with Retro Africa at Eko Atlantic. Alaibe describes an artist’s studio as “the inside of an artist’s mind”. Unlike the carefully arranged, often formal setting of a gallery, a studio offers visitors an intimate encounter with an artist’s working environment and sources of inspiration. As she puts it, “It’s an unconventional space, but it’s the artist’s conventional space.”

From 5 to 10 November at 35 Glover Court, Ikoyi, the programme introduces visitors to Ayoola’s practice through private viewings and conversations with the artist.

Nola Ayoola, Waiting in the Garden, 2024. 21.59 x 30.8 cm. Woven: collage: acrylic, ink, oil pastel, yarn, pencil, archival paper. Courtesy Nola Ayoola.

4. Lagoonside Literary Sitout

Kpade also recommends spending an afternoon at the Lagoonside Literary Sitout, another Lagos Fringe Festival programme. He describes Freedom Park as an important cultural space and the literary gathering as a more “intimate, conversational experience”. It offers an opportunity to encounter the city through its writers, readers and literary culture.

The Lagoonside Literary Sitout takes place at Freedom Park, Lagos Island, at 3pm on 8 November.

5. Padà’s Pan-African Research Centre (PARC)

Not every cultural experience has to be an event. Following Kpade’s literary recommendation, Kalu offers another way to encounter Lagos: Padà’s Pan-African Research Centre (PARC), a library and research space on Boyle Street. She describes it as “so serene” and one of the more “necessary escapes” during the season, offering visitors a place to engage with history at their own pace. PARC is open until 4pm on 31 October. It presents an alternative to the constant movement of Lagos Art Week: somewhere to linger and spend time with books, history and ideas.

6. aiMe by Casa Mouda

Sunshine Alaibe’s interest in the relationship between art and the spaces in which it is made extends to how it is lived with at home.

She recommends aiMe by Casa Mouda, the newly renovated space at Eko Hotel, for its presentation of functional art and design. Chairs and tables appear both as works of art and as objects for everyday use.

For Alaibe, the appeal lies in seeing how these pieces can move from a curated setting into everyday life. The space offers a chance to see art in a controlled setting and consider “how you can take that art and live with it in your own home”. It is open until 6pm on 31 October.

7. Terrapolis

For those more interested in movement than objects on gallery walls, Kpade recommends Terrapolis, a performance by Qudus Onikeku and QDance Company. Presented as part of the Lagos Fringe Festival, the work offers another way to encounter the city’s contemporary cultural life through choreography.

Terrapolis plays at 7.30pm on 7 November and 7pm on 8 November at the J. Randle Centre for Yorùbá Culture and History, Onikan.

Nola Ayoola, The Morning Didn’t Rush, 2025. 83.82 x 154.94 cm. Woven: Canvas, organza, oil pastel, silk screen ink, dye, pencil, acrylic paint, thread, woven bags. cotton. spray paint. Courtesy Nola Ayoola

8. MOWAA’s Cover Stories

My pick is Cover Stories, a series of public programmes that brings the DRUM magazine archive into Lagos this November, organised by the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA). You could describe the project in any number of ways: lively, textured, vivid, eclectic. It moves between print, public space, fashion and conversation. There is a public poster campaign across the city, an installation featuring the Nigerian edition of DRUM at Mbari Kola: The Arts Society, and A Place for Dreams, a garment by designer Abiola Olusola developed in response to a 1958 DRUM feature.

DRUM is a lot more than a record of an influential magazine. Its pages offer a window into Nigeria’s literary and cultural life, preserving the writing, photography and public conversations that show how generations of Nigerians made sense of their changing society. The accompanying public talks, supported by the Ford Foundation, bring these histories into conversation with questions of identity, media and cultural memory.

Cover Stories is presented in partnership with DRUM Archive and Mbari Kola, and unfolds across Yaba, Victoria Island and Ikoyi from 2 to 3 November.