Tiwani Contemporary

Founded in London in 2011 by Maria Varnava, Tiwani Contemporary exhibits and represents artists from Africa and its diaspora. Varnava, who grew up in Lagos, established the gallery on the encouragement of her friend and mentor, renowned Nigerian international curator Bisi Silva. Silva proposed the name Tiwani — which loosely translates from the Yoruba language as “ours” or “it belongs to us” — as an encapsulation of the gallery’s intentions: to provide a safe and inclusive space for dialogue that thrives on nuance, context and the multiple dimensions of identity, being and belonging.

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