Olukemi Lijadu



Spring 2026 
(March 15 - June 16)Based between London, UK, and Lagos, Nigeria, Olukemi Lijadu’s research-based practice explores diasporic sound, inheritance, and the complexity of affect as it travels across geographies. Working across performance, moving image, and the sonic, she examines how musical forms function as vessels of memory—carrying histories of migration, rupture, and return. Her recent work traces the legacy of West African music within electronic music cultures, investigating looping not simply as a formal device, but as a structure of collective memory and (dis)connection—where repetition becomes both continuity and fracture.

Lijadu’s research moves across sites central to Black cultural production—from Chicago music festivals to the beaches of Lagos and the layered African-Caribbean histories of Bristol—mapping how sound operates as both archive and infrastructure. During her time in Toronto, Lijadu extends this inquiry into the city’s diasporic sonic landscapes, asking how local histories of migration and Black cultural formation reverberate within contemporary electronic and performance cultures.

Lijadu’s solo exhibition Feedback is currently on view at Spike Island, Bristol. She has also presented work at V.O Curations and performed at major festivals and live art contexts across the UK and internationally.She was the winner of the 2025 CIRCA Art Prize and a recipient of ICA London’s Image Behaviour grant. In 2018, she completed a Master’s degree in Philosophy at Stanford University, where her thesis research focused on African philosophical systems—an intellectual foundation that continues to inform the conceptual rigour and theoretical grounding of her artistic practice. 
This residency was made possible with the generous support of:

401 Richmond Anjli Patel & Parambir Keila Art Metropole Partners in Art Nia Centre for the Arts   




SITE Events: The Sounds That Move UsSITE InterviewsSITE Editions: Meeting in Badagry

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