Black Muse Art Festival

Angels and Muse proudly presents the inaugural edition of the Black Muse Art Festival, scheduled to take place from November 8 to 12, 2025, in Benin City, Edo State, under the theme “Let the Forest Dance.” Drawing inspiration from Wole Soyinka’s seminal play A Dance of the Forests, the festival positions art as a transformative lens through which to explore conservation, community, and cultural continuity.

A central highlight of the festival will be the long-anticipated unveiling of the Black Muse Sculpture Park, conceived as a landmark cultural environment and a living space dedicated to public art, dialogue, and communal gathering. Complementing the Sculpture Park launch, the festival program includes artist talks, workshops, masterclasses, and theatre performances.

Angels and Muse also extends its congratulations to Osaru Obaseki (@_osaruobaseki), recipient of the inaugural Black Muse Patrons Art Prize, supported by the Osahon Okunbor Foundation (@theosahonokunbofoundation), for her contribution to the Sculpture Park exhibition curated by Renee Akitelek Mboya (@reneeakitelekmboya).

Obaseki’s practice, rooted in her cultural heritage and lived experiences, is represented through a sculptural diptych titled Coat of Many Lines, accompanied by a supporting infrastructural installation titled The Anthill. Cast in bronze with a radiant gold-toned patina, the paired busts embody quiet symmetry and contemplative dialogue. Their elongated necks and stylised features summon ancestral portraiture while simultaneously engaging contemporary abstraction.

Intricate surface markings—suggestive of scars or inscriptions—invoke memory and reflect how histories, identities, and inheritances become inscribed into form. The gold patina imbues the work with ritual resonance, evoking sacredness, dignity, and transformation.