Since its inception in 2017, Art Bridge Project has provided a platform for collaboration, community building, experimentation, and research. Through strategic partnerships with art institutions and artists, we facilitate dynamic art-related programs and create opportunities for artists to explore new mediums and ways of thinking.
Art Bridge Project was established as a forum of learning and exposing artists to the complexities of the contemporary art landscape, whilst responding to the shortcomings of educational systems on the continent and challenging the commercial-oriented gallery environment of Nigeria and other African cities. Amid the changing cultural landscape, technological advances, and globalisation, Art Bridge Project creates a space where ideas intersect and radically inspire artists to produce ambitious works informed by their local realities.
We adopt a peer-to-peer learning ethos to equip artists with the skills and knowledge to nurture their creativity and exercise their artistic freedom through diverse workshops, mentorship programs, open studios, symposiums and exhibitions. During our formative years from 2017 to 2018, we focused on organizing studio visits and interactive sessions between art students and renowned artists. These visits featured students from the University of Lagos, the Yaba College of Technology, and the Federal College of Education Akoka. We invited professional artists such as Olu Amoda, Victor Ehikhamenor, and Gerald Chukwuma to share insights into their creative process and the realities of navigating the art world.
Art Bridge Project is a community-based art organisation working at the intersection of artistic exchange, creative knowledge production, and curated projects with a mandate to educate artists and stretch the breadth of their practice.
Over the years, we have developed artistic intervention programs for early to mid-career artists by fostering an environment for cross-pollination of ideas through intensive workshops, networking and exhibition opportunities. In 2021, we launched Beyond The Canvas as a platform for artists to come together, share ideas, and expand their artistic oeuvre. The program features emerging artists in dialogue with established artists, envisioning new artistic possibilities. Previous guest artists include Ndidi Emefiele, Peter Uka, Abraham Oghobase, Nengi Omuku, and Obi Okigbo, who have mentored young artists.
Our curated projects and exhibitions merge experimentation and exploring new artistic frontiers with the process of artmaking rather than the final outcome. We design our exhibitions as a way of researching histories, ideas, and contexts through collaborative efforts with artists and spectators. This approach shifts from merely staging an exhibition to consciously engaging in critical reflection on the world around us. It encourages new ways of thinking and sensing the world, becoming an arena where knowledge is negotiated and new realities are elaborated.
Meet the Team
Anthony Ogochukwu Agbapuonwu | Founder
Anthony Ogochukwu Agbapuonwu (b. 1995, Lagos, Nigeria) is a curator, writer and strategy consultant whose cultural practice explores the intersections of heritage, indigenous knowledge systems, the human psyche, urban studies and socio-political histories.
Agbapuonwu is the founder of Art Bridge Project, a community-based visual art organisation committed to artistic exchange, critical inquiry, and the nurturing of creative ecosystems through research-led exhibitions, writing, public programmes, and a mandate to educate artists and stretch the breadth of their practice.
His curatorial practice and writings engage African philosophies and contemporary lived realities to examine questions of belonging, movement, and the transformative power of art. His projects trace how histories, bodies, and geographies intersect, while foregrounding artistic practices that engage material and immaterial worlds, ancestral memory, and the politics of space.
Over the past decade, he has worked extensively within Nigeria's cultural landscape with global institutions such as ART X Lagos and Art Twenty One on exhibitions, public programmes, art fairs, live music sessions, and interdisciplinary projects. He currently serves as Residency and On-Site Program Manager at Kọ̀bọ́mọ̀jẹ́ Artist Residency in Ibadan, which contributes to his mission of advancing experimental artistic practices and strengthening locally rooted cultural spaces and infrastructures in Nigeria.
In 2025, Agbapuonwu curated Anyanwu: The New Light at the National Museum, Lagos—a landmark exhibition engaging Igbo cosmology and the broader cultural matrix of Nigeria. He recently completed a curatorial residency at Cité internationale des arts, Paris, under the RESONANCE programme by Cité internationale des arts, ART X Lagos, and Institut français du Nigeria, where his research examined how artists and marginalised communities create alternative cultural infrastructures and ethical tactics, placing Lagos and Paris in conversation.
Contact Us
T: +234 (0) 909 041 7280
E: contactartbridgeprojects@gmail.com