AFROPOLIS will return to Lagos from November 22 to 30, setting the stage for a dynamic gathering of African contemporary artists and audiences.
Now in its fifth edition, the festival continues to grow as a space for critical dialogue, cross-cultural exchange, and bold experimentation. This year also marks the debut of The Afropolis, a new annual journal that will document the festival’s vision, debates, and evolving conversations around African art and thought.
The 2025 theme, Other Worlds, draws from jazz pioneer Sun Ra’s call to tune into unseen realms. It invites artists and audiences to confront the legacies of colonialism, respond to the climate crisis, and also engage with histories of displacement. At its core, the festival seeks to expand the possibilities of African imagination, reclaiming traditions erased or forgotten, challenging fixed narratives, as well as envisioning futures rooted in self-determined perspectives.
The program unfolds through four pathways inspired by Yorùbá cosmology. AIYE addresses life on Earth, focusing on migration, belonging, and also the relationship to land. ORITA explores the crossroads where survival meets resistance and creative innovation. ORUN reconnects with ancestral wisdom, ritual practice, and myth as tools for planetary healing. EGBE looks forward, imagining speculative futures and building alliances that cross generations, species, and geographies.
AFROPOLIS embraces all mediums, from painting, sculpture, and photography to poetry, film, choreography, sound, and digital works. The call for submissions is open to artists across Africa and the diaspora, encouraging both established voices and also emerging creators to bring fresh visions into conversation.
Entries close on August 15, 2025, and details can be found at afropolis.org/2025.
