Art & Country 2026

Where Is Dadiyata? is the 2026 edition of Art & Country, an ongoing initiative of the Goethe-Institut Nigeria that engages artists and cultural practitioners in reflecting on the relationship between artistic production and the socio-political realities that shape public life.

This edition takes as its point of departure the unresolved disappearance of Abubakar Idris, widely known as Dadiyata. Years after his abduction, the question of his whereabouts remains unanswered, continuing to echo across public discourse as both a demand for accountability and a marker of absence within Nigeria’s civic space.

Rather than seeking to resolve this absence, the project approaches it as a condition to be engaged—through writing, visual production, and public intervention. Bringing together a group of writers, artists, and designers, Where Is Dadiyata? explores how language, image, and material forms can hold, circulate, and sustain a question that resists closure.

The project unfolds across multiple formats: text-based works that examine memory and silence; visual and graphic responses developed through collaborative processes; and wearable objects that carry fragments of these reflections into everyday life. A travelling installation—conceived as a corner-shelf boutique—extends this engagement into public space, presenting the works alongside a curated selection of books and sound, and moving across cities to invite new encounters and conversations.

At its core, Where Is Dadiyata? is not only a question about an individual, but about the broader conditions that allow such a question to persist. It asks how art can remain attentive to absence without reducing it, and how creative practice can contribute to sustaining public memory, critical reflection, and the ongoing demand for accountability.

Through this project, Art & Country continues its commitment to supporting artistic work that engages critically with contemporary realities—foregrounding the role of culture as a space for inquiry, expression, and civic imagination.