Peju Layiwola

Peju Layiwola is an artist, professor of art history and head of the Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos. She works in a variety of media and focuses on personal and communal histories in which Benin is centralized as both an ancient kingdom and a contemporary city. Her various art projects include the solo show, Benin1897.com: Art and the Restitution Question, Lagos/Ibadan (2010);, Whose Centenary? Benin City (2014): Return, Raw Spot Gallery, Grahamstown, South Africa, (2018). She has been the recipient of many fellowships and several grants. Some of these include, US Consulate Grant (2017) Goethe Resident Artist Grant, Kunstsammlung Noldrhien Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany (2017), Raw Residency, Rhodes University, 2018, and Terra Foundation Grant for American Art, 2019. Some of her articles  which deal with Benin contested patrimony are Benin Massacre; Memories and Experiences’, Benin Kings and Rituals, Court Arts from Nigeria, Museum of Ethnology, Vienna, (2007),Making Meaning from a Fragmented Past: 1897 and the Creative Process, Disturbing Pasts: Memories, controversies and Creativity, Open Arts Journal, The Open University UK, (2014) and ‘Resurrecting the Disappeared: A Recontextualisation of 1897’, Benin 1897.com: Art and the Restitution Question, Ibadan,  2014.