Introducing the 2026 Advisory Board

ARAK Collection is proud to introduce its 2026 Advisory Board.

This exceptional group of curators, artists, researchers, and art professionals brings a wide range of expertise and experience from across the globe. Drawing on their knowledge of contemporary African art, modern and historical practices, and the broader art ecosystem, the Advisory Board offers guidance and strategic insight to the ARAK Fellowship and other initiatives. Their contributions provide valuable perspectives that help enrich our programs, support ongoing projects, and foster dialogue across curatorial and artistic practice.

Introducing 2026 Advisory Board Member Olivia Anani

Olivia Anani (b. 1987, Côte d’Ivoire) is a Beninese-French curator, writer, and art market expert based in Paris and Cotonou. With experience at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips, she has worked on sales of modern and contemporary masterpieces and contributed to the re-evaluation of African artists including Iba N’diaye, Souleymane Keïta, N’Guessan Kra, Aboudramane Doumbouya, Younousse Seye, and Tina Meledge. She is a Board member of Friends of Palais de Tokyo, heads its Young Patrons initiative, and has supported acquisitions and fundraising for the Louvre and Louvre Abu Dhabi. She has worked with the Dakar and Taipei Biennales, the Cinefondation at Cannes, Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Centre Pompidou, Fondation Gulbenkian, and Columbia University (Reid Hall, Paris). Anani has contributed to four major monographs and was named one of France’s 100 Femmes de Culture in 2021.

Introducing 2026 Advisory Board Member Thembinkosi Goniwe

Thembinkosi Goniwe is an artist and art historian whose work engages contemporary African visual arts, postcolonial critique, and Black radical thought. He trained in Fine Art at the University of Cape Town and in History of Art at Cornell University. Goniwe has lectured at UCT, Wits, Fort Hare, and Vaal University of Technology and currently lectures on Art History and Visual Culture at Rhodes University. He has curated exhibitions in South Africa, the United States, Venice, and Edinburgh, and published extensively on African art.

Introducing 2026 Advisory Board Member Lifang Zhang

Lifang Zhang is an art historian and writer based in Beijing, currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences (TIAS). She earned her PhD in Art History from Rhodes University, South Africa. Her research focuses on contemporary African art and Afro-Asian artistic exchanges. Zhang has curated and co-curated research-based projects including Viable Visions: Retrospective of Martin Abasi Phiri in Lusaka and If These Walls Could Talk in Harare.

Introducing 2026 Advisory Board Member Heba El Kayal

Heba El Kayal is a curator, writer, and advisor from Cairo, specialising in modern and contemporary art from the Middle East and North Africa. She holds a BA in English & Comparative Literature (American University in Cairo), an MA in Modern Art History & Curatorial Studies (Columbia University), and is pursuing an LLM. Her career spans Dubai, Beirut, New York, and London, working with auction houses, collectors, and artists. She served as Chief Curatorial Consultant at the Norval Foundation, curated the Generations section at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair 2025, and holds advisory roles with ArteEast (USA), Strauss & Co (South Africa), and the ARAK Collection.

Introducing 2026 Advisory Board Member Bernard Akoi-Jackson

Bernard Akoi-Jackson is a Ghanaian multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and lecturer. His work employs ‘disturbed methodologies’ to interrogate post- and decoloniality through painting, performance, installation, text, and video. He explores quotidian interactions, bureaucratic vestiges of colonialism, and linguistic experimentation, creating immersive and absurdist interventions. Akoi-Jackson has co-curated exhibitions with blaxTARLINES KUMASI (The GOWN must go to TOWN, Cornfields in Accra, Orderly Disorderly), curated Galle Winston Kofi Dawson: In Pursuit of something “Beautiful”, perhaps… at Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art, and co-curated the inaugural Stellenbosch Triennale. He holds a PhD in Painting & Sculpture (KNUST) and leads the performative lab eX-para-Mental. He is a member of the Ghanaian artist collective Exit Frame.

Introducing 2026 Advisory Board Member Suzana Sousa

Suzana Sousa is an art curator and researcher focused on developing narratives and producing knowledge from the Global South through collaboration and experimentation. Her work explores contemporary African art, cultural politics, and the construction of nationalisms through culture and visual arts. She has also engaged with feminist curatorial practices and African women artists. Sousa is completing a PhD at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa on nation-building processes in Angola within museums and visual arts since 1975 and serves as a research fellow at the Centre for Humanities Research. In 2022, she received the Next Generation Social Sciences for Africa Doctoral Scholarship and the Ivan Karp Research Award. She currently has the exhibition O poder de minhas mãos at SESC, São Paulo, Brazil (Aug 2025–Jan 2026).

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