Written by Fortune Ibeh
Curated by Dara Shonubi, the two-day exhibition brings together Phillip Udeka, Johaan Martins, Z4, Ayomide Popoola, Daevees, Nathaniel Goodnews and Laila Shuaib around ideas of uncertainty, experimentation and renewal.
In a creative landscape where uncertainty can easily become part of the job description, “We Go Again” makes a simple but weighty proposition: keep making.
The group exhibition, curated by Dara Shonubi in collaboration with MSVmag, brings seven emerging artists together at DIDI Museum in Lagos on August 29 and 30. Phillip Udeka, Johaan Martins, Z4, Ayomide Popoola, Daevees, Nathaniel Goodnews and Laila Shuaib will share work around persistence, play, experimentation and renewal, reflecting the realities of young artists trying to build meaningful practices while navigating an often unpredictable creative environment.
But “We Go Again” is not framed as a celebration of persistence in the abstract. Its title carries the exhaustion that can sit behind the decision to continue. For young artists, ambition exists alongside uncertainty: changing opportunities, limited resources, questions about visibility and the pressure to keep creating even when the conditions around the work are constantly shifting. The exhibition takes that reality and turns it into its central question: what does it mean to begin again, even when you are not entirely sure what comes next?
That question also gives the exhibition room to embrace different forms of artistic expression. Rather than asking the seven artists to arrive at one unified aesthetic, “We Go Again” brings their individual practices into conversation. The result is intended less as a fixed statement about where emerging Nigerian art is and more as a snapshot of artists experimenting with where it could go next.
There is an important distinction here. Going again does not necessarily mean returning to the same place. The exhibition’s emphasis on play, experimentation and renewal suggests movement rather than repetition. Persistence can mean changing direction, trying something that might fail, rethinking an existing practice or finding another way into an idea that did not work the first time.
The collaboration with MSVmag extends that idea beyond the physical exhibition. Alongside presenting the artists, the publication will document the people, ideas and stories behind the show, creating a record of this particular creative moment. In that sense, “We Go Again” becomes both an exhibition and an attempt to preserve the conversations surrounding a generation of artists figuring things out in real time.
For an exhibition lasting only two days, that archival instinct gives the project a longer life. The works may occupy the museum for a weekend, but the stories around their making, the uncertainty behind them and the decision to continue despite it all become part of a wider record of Lagos’ emerging art community.
Ultimately, “We Go Again” is less interested in presenting persistence as a polished success story than in acknowledging what it takes to keep showing up. It is a room full of artists at different points in their practices, brought together by a shared willingness to experiment, reflect and try again.
Despite the fatigue. Despite the uncertainty. Despite whatever changed between the first attempt and the next one.
We go again.
WE GO AGAIN
Curated by Dara Shonubi in collaboration with MSVmag
📍 DIDI Museum, 175A Adetokunbo Ademola Street, Victoria Island, Lagos
📅 August 29–30, 2026
Artists: Phillip Udeka, Johaan Martins, Z4, Ayomide Popoola, Daevees, Nathaniel Goodnews and Laila Shuaib.
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