Lagos Biennale Announces 2nd Edition of OFFish

The Lagos Biennial has announced a call for submissions for the second edition of its OFFish exhibition, scheduled to take place from October 17 to December 18, 2026.

Premiered in 2019, OFFish is a parallel off-site space that houses the Biennale’s curatorial framework beyond its primary exhibition.

The second edition of OFFish will take place within the fifth edition of Lagos Biennale, themed ‘The Museum of Things Unseen’, and will feature a responsive and dialogical initiative housed in pavilions overlooking the central Biennale’s exhibition. Although spatially adjacent to the main exhibition, OFFish maintains its independence as an anamorphic counterpoint which distorts, contorts, squashes and squeezes the primary curatorial frame to reveal what might otherwise remain peripheral or unseen.

Interested artists are invited to submit their applications by January 30, 2026. Artistes whose work proposals are accepted will create works to be exhibited at the OFFish site throughout the duration of the 2026 Lagos Biennale.

Established in 2017 by the Akete Art Foundation, the Lagos Biennale is a biannual international art exhibition that centres Lagos as a site for the production and exhibition of avant-garde contemporary art narratives, and specifically engages architectural sites in the city. It is both a gathering of artists and a work of art in itself.

The first edition was held at the running shed of the Nigeria Railway Corporation, Lagos, which was built in 1955. The second edition took place at Independence House, Lagos, a 25-storey abandoned building located in the heart of Lagos. The third edition was held online amid the COVID-19 pandemic and took place following a series of multidisciplinary teams that responded to an open call process on the theme of Refuge. The latest edition, titled ‘The Museum of Things Unseen’, will be hosted in the new venue being developed by Akete Art Foundation as a permanent pavilion and museum space for the art collective.