In April 2011, Yinka Shonibare visited the Nigerian city of Lagos following an invitation from celebrated curator Bisi Silva, who’d invited the London-based artist for a talk about his practice and to host a show. There was no space to mount the show Silva and Shonibare had envisioned, but the trip ended up being formative in a different way.While in Lagos, where he grew up, Shonibare realized that although the city had an abundance of artistic talent, there was no corresponding infrastructure to foster it. In 2019, in an effort to help fill that gap, Shonibare started the nonprofit Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation in Nigeria. (The foundation developed out of the Guest Projects initiative founded in 2008 by Shonibare in London.)In 2022, after construction and delay caused in part by the Covid-19 pandemic, the local launch was held and the G.A.S. Fellowship Award, an annual initiative in collaboration with the Yinka Shonibare Foundation to support mid-career artists and curators across Africa was announced. Winning the award was “very affirming [and] validating… It felt like the work I was doing was recognized,” said 2024 honoree Amanda Iheme, citing the somewhat familiar experiences of artists not getting grants, awards, or residences that they apply for—especially in a climate when one’s fame and one’s artistic concerns can influence who ultimately wins out. She added that she liked that it was a local residency—she’d been wanting to participate in a program located in the place where her work is focused.During her time in residency, Iheme gave herself “the opportunity to try something different for my career, to expand beyond what I typically do” as an architecture photographer. Though she had already worked as a scientific researcher, she said the residency allowed her to expand her research skills as an artist.“The residency gave me a chance to expand my career beyond just photography and to see my artistic work as a practice. I think that the residency at G.A.S. has really helped me not just think of myself as a creator but also think of myself as a knowledge creator—a person who makes art but also at the same time contributes and expands the knowledge that exists around the subject of focus.” Describing itself as being “dedicated to facilitating international artistic exchange,” the foundation has two facilities. Its main building, G.A.S. Lagos Residency, has spaces for accommodation, events and studios, hosts residencies and programs that support research and practice developments of art and design practitioners from Africa and the world. The foundation also owns the G.A.S. Farm House residency on a 54-acre plot in Ijebu in Ogun State; the farmhouse produces crops including cassava, tomatoes, maize, pawpaw, and pepper, and supports transdisciplinary research and practice in areas including agronomy, food sustainability, and architecture. G.A.S. Foundation welcomed its first resident, curator and researcher Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock in 2022, and has since hosted close to 100 emerging to established artists and curators, including Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Portia Zvavahera, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Emma Prempeh, Joy Labinjo, Evan Ifekoya, and Osei Bonsu for up to three months in Nigeria.G.A.S.’s building in Lagos.Photo Andrew Esiebo/©G.A.S. FoundationThe foundation is funded by both patrons and Shonibare himself, who directs money from the sales of his art to G.A.S. Foundation. “I always support the running of the residency,” Shonibare told ARTnews. “I give them a certain amount of money every year so we can keep the foundation going.”His work was one of the first things visitors saw at last year’s Venice Biennale, and last year, he had an acclaimed show at London’s Serpentine Galleries. He’s been nominated for the Turner Prize, elected a Royal Academician, awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). Now, he is having an exhibition at Fondation H in Madagascar, in what is being billed as his biggest solo show to date in Africa.Does he think of what he is doing with the G.A.S. Foundation as giving back, given his position as an established artist?“Absolutely!” said Shonibare with the conviction of someone who finds fulfilment in being able to support artists in Nigeria, across Africa and its diaspora. “It’s about giving back to society [because] nobody’s successful on their own.”Already, Shonibare’s foundation has significantly helped artists based in countries whose art scenes are still growing. Later this year, for example, the multidisciplinary Malagasy artist Joey Aresoa will be in residency at G.A.S. Foundation in Nigeria. It’s her first international residency, and a direct result of a partnership Shonibare established with Fondation H. Considered the first private contemporary art foundation in Madagascar, the foundation was established by French-Malagasy collector and businessman Hassanein Hiridjee.Aresoa will be able to access the “amazing library that they have at the [G.A.S.] foundation, and will interact with the most interesting and challenging people so she will be changed forever,” Margaux Huille, director of Fondation H, told ARTnews. “And she already knows it. She already expresses the fact that she knows this experience is going to change her.”The G.A.S. Foundation is related to Shonibare’s sculptures and installations, which explore history from the viewpoint of Africa. He’s known for artworks adorned with Dutch wax print fabric such as The African Library (2018), the large installation of 6, 000 books wrapped up in the material. The work highlights individuals including those who helped shape postcolonial Africa like Dr Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Nelson Mandela (South Africa), Patrice Lumumba (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Thomas Sankara (Burkina Faso.) Now part of Fondation H’s permanent collection and featured in Shonibare’s exhibition, on view through February 28, 2026, at the foundation’s revamped colonial era building in Antananarivo, the work is supplemented by a digital interface with biography of these personalities in languages including Malagasy. “What he’s done in relation to narrative has been enormously important. In terms of actually helping us to craft a detailed understanding of our past and who was there to try to shape it and defend it,” Gus Casely-Hayford OBE, director of London’s V&A East and the former director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, told ARTnews. “But additionally, accumulatively, his body of work is an incredibly cathartic thing. To have work that speaks so powerfully to a past that was so denied that they actually constructed whole philosophical approaches to try to negate is just so uplifting and deeply inspiring. And then of course, there’s its sheer lyrical beauty, which just adds to it.”Shonibare’s Fondation H exhibition in Madagascar.Courtesy Fondation HShonibare’s art is the most public-facing part of his work, but according to Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi, an art historian and a curator in the Museum of Modern Art’s painting and sculpture department, it’s only one portion of his practice.Nzewi called Shonibare “one of the most perceptive artists” of the 21st Century and said that he has done “quite a lot as an artist. But even more so, I think his legacy will be that of giving back through the G.A.S. Foundation where he’s trying to help stimulate the ecosystem on the continent by being able to create this cultural dialogue that connects the context of Nigeria and Africa with the rest of the world,” Nzewi told ARTnews. “And he’s doing that in a very robust way. Doing it in ways that can parallel any institution elsewhere. And I think that is really important. We need this critical infrastructure on the continent, working at a very international standard.”Since it was established, G.A.S. Foundation has conducted initiatives such as Re: assemblages, a multiyear cultural development program focused on the preservation and creative potential of African art libraries in collaboration with archivists, librarians, artists, curators and cultural institutions. Programming for this year’s edition includes the launch of the African Arts Libraries Lab, an initiative to foster intra-African and global collaboration on African and Afro-diasporic library collections, and a two-day symposium on November 4 and 5 during Lagos Art Week.In partnership with the Yinka Shonibare Fondation, G.A.S. Foundation collaborated on Art Exchange: Moving Image with LUX, a UK arts foundation supporting and promoting visual artists working with moving image. The collaborative, cross-cultural initiative was launched in 2023 to support the professional development of early to mid-career curators from the continent working in the medium. Shonibare’s G.A.S. Foundation is one of many independent art spaces that have sprung up in West Africa in the past couple decades, building on ones such as Bisi Silva’s Centre for Contemporary Arts, Lagos, Koyo Kouoh’s RAW Material Company in Dakar, Senegal and Ibrahim Mahama’s Red Clay Studio and the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts in Tamale, Ghana.All of these spaces have helped to expand their respective art scenes, and now, G.A.S. looks to do something similar and beyond. It has already inked partnerships with Goodman Gallery, South London Gallery, Tiwani Contemporary, University of the Arts London and ART X Lagos on various projects and initiatives. And though G.A.S. is relatively new, some said its activities had already been key. Huille, the Fondation H director, said Shonibare’s contributions, both through his art and the G.A.S. Foundation, are “gigantic.”