The 2026 Lagos Biennial, titled The Museum of Things Unseen, explores overlooked artworks, silenced histories, and the cultural, political, and economic forces that shape visibility within the global art world. Through a speculative museum and the launch of the Àkéte Collection, the Biennial, curated by Chinyere Obieze, Furen Dai, and Sam Hopkins, seeks to challenge traditional art narratives, expand access to underrepresented works, and reimagine how art, history, and cultural heritage are collected, preserved, and presented.
Tides of Trepidation, presented this year by Peter Uka at the Biennial, uses the overloaded rear of a mammy wagon as a metaphor for the uncertain and often perilous journeys we navigate throughout life. Through the accumulation of bodies and belongings, the work explores the physical and emotional burdens we carry, our desire to control circumstances beyond our reach, and the sacrifices we make in pursuit of a better future. Balancing anxiety and hope, Uka invites viewers to reflect on what we hold onto, what we must let go of, and the weight of everything we carry along the way.
With this work, Uka explores what we understand as “burden”: the weight of the things we could have let go, the massive load we insist on carrying, and the essential lightness we must achieve by shedding what no longer serves us. The chaotic stack of possessions and bodies within the vehicle reflects our profound inability to exert total control over our circumstances.
Tides of Trepidation invites visitors to peer into this suspended balance of anxiety and hope, confronting the precarious loads we choose to bear and the dangerous concessions we make in the pursuit of arrival.
