Biography

Tobi Onabolu is a London-born interdisciplinary artist based in Grand Popo, Benin Republic, who approaches art as a living process beyond the production of isolated objects.

He describes his work as moving across four interconnected states: feeling, dreaming, sensing, and living. These are expressed through performance and writing, photography and moving image, installation and objects, and the development of long-term cultural platforms, respectively.

Across these modes, Onabolu draws from African cosmologies, psychology, and embodied knowledge to examine the relationship between interior experience and collective structures. His works often take the form of immersive environments or relational encounters, inviting sustained attention and a heightened awareness of presence.

He is the founder of Finding Etherea, an artist retreat, and the artistic director of Lọpọ Lọpọ, a contemporary art festival – both based in Grand Popo. These platforms extend his interest in how art can function beyond representation, as a shared process.

Onabolu was awarded the Aesthetica Art Prize in 2025, and his exhibition and performance history includes, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art; Dakar OFF Biennale; Videotage, Hong Kong; Fondation Zinsou, Ouidah; Cinedans, Eye Filmmuseum; and the Royal Albert Hall, London.

He holds an MA in African Studies from SOAS, where he wrote a thesis on his great uncle, Chief Aina Onabolu, the founding father of modernism in Nigeria. Onabolu is a Film London (FLAMIN) Fellow, and a G.A.S. Foundation Fellow. He served as a guest curator at ART X Lagos and as an Artistic Advisory Board member for Culturescapes, Basel.