Amaya Loubeau - Traveling to culturally significant locations: 6 Points

 

    Returning to Lagos, Nigeria after being invited by the Guest Artists Space Foundation to attend the Reassemblages Symposium felt like a full-circle moment in my academic and creative journey. Through my internship, my cohort and I conducted research on Pan-African cultural festivals such as FESTAC '77, and seeing our work featured within the symposium’s annotation programming pushed me to recognize myself not just as a student, but as a contributor to ongoing cultural discourse. What stood out to me was how GAS functions as an incubator for diasporic artistic production, supporting fellows whose research evolves into exhibitions, archives, and new forms of storytelling that actively reshape how African and diasporic histories are understood. Attending Art X Lagos further expanded this perspective, as I was able to witness the scale of Nigeria’s contemporary art scene in real time. Reimmersing myself in this environment and seeing the culmination of both my cohort’s work and the work of artists across the continent deepened my understanding of the power of research as a living, collaborative practice. This experience affirmed my commitment to engaging with diasporic narratives through both scholarship and creative production, and pushed me to think more intentionally about how my work can exist within global, rather than solely Western, art contexts.

                                                                    -Amaya Loubeau