PEJU ALATISE: I WILL BELONG TO ONLY ME
November 20 – May 31, 2026
The Claude Worthington Benedum Gallery, 2nd Floor
TICKETS ON SALE NOV 6 @ 10:00AM
Titled after a line from her own writing, I Will Belong to Only Me marks the first U.S. solo survey of Peju Alatise (b. 1975 in Lagos, Nigeria). A defining figure in contemporary African art, this exhibition brings together two decades of her work across sculpture, installation, text, and film. Anchored by her celebrated installation Flying Girls (2015–16), I Will Belong to Only Me embodies Alatise’s artistic prowess, conceptual depth, and multidisciplinary command across architecture, painting, sculpture, and storytelling. Merging Yorùbá cosmology with poetic form, Alatise builds spaces where imagination is resistance and African girlhood is centered, protected, and celebrated.
So first tell me, whose idea is it that you fly and why?
“It’s my idea,” Sim said “So I can be free…”
Do you know what it means to be free?
“Yes! I will own myself. I will belong to only me.”
-Peju Alatise
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Peju Alatise (b. 1975, Lagos) is a Nigerian interdisciplinary artist, architect, and author whose practice spans sculpture, installation, painting, film, and fiction. She lives and works between Lagos, Nigeria and Glasgow, UK. Trained in architecture at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Alatise began her career balancing architectural work with studio practice. Her art engages themes of gender, power, spirituality, and African identity, often grounded in Yoruba cosmology and narrative traditions. In 2017, she was one of the artists selected for Nigeria’s historic debut at the 57th Venice Biennale, where her installation Flying Girls received international acclaim. That same year, she won the FNB Art Prize. Her work has since been exhibited globally, including at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2020), Frieze Sculpture (London, 2022), and is held in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Chazen Museum of Art at University of Wisconsin, and the August Wilson African American Cultural Center.