The ancient city of Ibadan, long celebrated as a city of writers, intellectuals, artists and cultural memory, is set to become the meeting point for a compelling gathering of photographic voices as Everyday Life 2026, a photography exhibition curated by Nseabasi Akpan, opens at the National Museum of Unity, Alalubosa, GRA, Aleshinloye, Ibadan, on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, at 4:00pm.

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger!

Everyday Life photography exhibition runs until September 2, 2026, the exhibition brings together a diverse group of established and emerging photographers whose practices are deeply connected to the environments they inhabit, the people they encounter and the seemingly ordinary moments that make up everyday existence.

At the heart of Everyday Life 2026 is a simple but powerful idea: that there is poetry in the familiar. Life does not always announce its significance. Sometimes it is found in a face looking through a window, a street after the rain, a fisherman returning from the water, a quiet domestic moment, a busy marketplace, a landscape shaped by human activity or a fleeting encounter that might otherwise disappear into memory.

Photography gives these moments another life.

The exhibition therefore turns its attention away from the spectacular and towards the everyday, inviting audiences to reconsider what is often overlooked. Through different photographic approaches, the participating artists document, interpret and reimagine their environments, revealing how geography, culture, history, identity and personal experience influence the way we see the world around us.

Among the participating photographers are Abel Oluwole, Ademola Bamigbẹlu, Antonio Aragon Renuncio, Caleb Ishaya Oseshi, Jacqueline Dersjant, Jude Hindan, Juliet Ebute, Katarina Radovic, Laurence Moorcroft, Maingaila Muvundika, Rob Godfried, Asamoah William, Silvia & Massimo, Stan Lafleur, Thadeus Adeyemi Omotoyinbo, Filip Wierzbicki-Nowak, 
Kitty Vlaanderen and Victor Oluwayoju

Their different backgrounds and photographic perspectives create a conversation that extends beyond individual images. Together, they present a visual reflection on contemporary life and the environments that continually shape our understanding of ourselves and others.

For curator Nseabasi Akpan, Everyday Life is also an opportunity to place photographers at the centre of conversations about society, culture and visual storytelling. The exhibition recognises photography not merely as a means of recording reality, but as a way of thinking, questioning and preserving experiences.

The choice of Ibadan is particularly significant.

Known historically as a major centre of scholarship, publishing and intellectual exchange, the city has nurtured generations of writers, academics, artists and cultural thinkers. Its relationship with literature and storytelling makes it a fitting setting for an exhibition concerned with the stories hidden within everyday life. In Ibadan, where the ordinary can carry the weight of history, photography finds a natural home.

Everyday Life 2026 also reflects the expanding landscape of African photography, where younger practitioners increasingly stand alongside established voices, bringing fresh perspectives to familiar realities. Their cameras become instruments of observation, memory and interpretation, capturing Africa not as a distant idea but as lived experience.

The exhibition is sponsored by the African Culture Fund and offers audiences an opportunity to encounter photography as both documentation and visual poetry.

From Nigeria to other parts of Africa and across international borders, the participating photographers demonstrate that although environments may differ, the human impulse to observe, remember and tell stories remains universal.

Everyday Life 2026 ultimately asks us to slow down and look again.

In the ancient city of Ibadan, Everyday Life 2026 presents photography as a celebration of precisely those moments and reminds us that sometimes the most extraordinary stories are hiding in plain sight.

Everyday Life 2026, curated by Nseabasi Akpan, opens on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, at 4:00pm and runs until September 2, 2026, from 10:00am to 5:00pm daily, at the National Museum of Unity, Alalubosa, GRA, Aleshinloye, Ibadan. The exhibition is sponsored by the African Culture Fund.

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