Get Guardian on Google….. Festival gets new date
Carnival of Stories has appointed Ndubuisi Ahanonu, popularly called Nduwhite, one of Nigeria’s leading curators and cultural managers, as Lead Curator of its inaugural edition.
The festival, originally scheduled for December 1-5 2026, will now take place in March 2027, with dates to be announced in the coming weeks. According to the organisers, the revised timeline will allow the team to further develop the hand-built clay city, refine the visitor experience and ensure the cultural stories informing its design are represented with care.
Ahanonu brings more than two decades of experience in curatorial practice and cultural management to the role. He is curator of the Atrium Gallery at Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja, where he explores the role of art and culture in cultural diplomacy.
He is also founder of the International Institute for Creative Development (IICD Centre), a multidisciplinary art space and residency programme that fosters creative exchange between Nigerian and international artists.
His recent curatorial work includes serving as Assistant Curator of ‘PASSAGE: Art and Heritage from West Africa’, the ECOWAS 2026 Summit Exhibition in Sierra Leone, and curating the 2025 West African Economic Summit Art Exhibition, which featured 13 artists from across the region. In collaboration with the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, he also initiated Abuja Open House, an arts festival that creates opportunities for audiences to engage with the city’s creative community.
As Lead Curator, Ahanonu has shaped the clay city as a journey rather than an exhibition. The design draws its logic from the Dagin Arewa, the interlaced knot that loops through itself endlessly without breaking, reflecting the visible and invisible threads that bind Nigerians together.
Visitors will begin at the Zaure, a space of welcome, before moving through the Grove of Ancestors, the Durbar Court and the Court of Masks, and ending in the communal centre of the Garden of Food.
For Ahanonu, Carnival of Stories is an expression of the nation’s identity and the relationship between people, culture and the environment.
”The festival is not a traditional festival, nor is it a static exhibition. It is a living, breathing Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), an expression of the soul of our nation, rooted in an understanding of culture as a living exchange between people and the earth. It is a metaphor for the stories we carry and pass down, handed over at a doorway, expressed through the rhythm of a drum and told beneath the moonlight,” said Ahanonu. This vision extends to the exhibition’s multidisciplinary approach, where art, architecture and space come together to shape the visitor experience.
”The exhibition brings different art forms into meaningful spatial connections and interactions, creating an emotional and psychological journey through separation, initiation, communion and return, where art is the architecture and architecture is the story,” he added.
Welcoming Ahanonu’s appointment, CEO of JT Agency, Bayo Omoboriowo, expressed confidence in his contribution to the festival’s vision and emphasised the importance of taking the time to fully realise it.
”I am excited to welcome Nduwhite Ahanonu into this journey. He understands the power of culture as something that must be interpreted, experienced and continually reimagined. And as ambitious as this undertaking is, we are in no hurry to sacrifice its depth for speed. The move gives us the room to build with the care this vision demands. After all, we are not just putting up a city; we are giving form to the many stories that make us a people.”
Created under the theme “This Is Nigeria: Chapter By Chapter,” Carnival of Stories invites visitors to experience the country’s many stories within a single walkable city. In the months leading up to the festival, audiences will also be able to follow the city’s development, gaining insight into the traditional knowledge, craft skills and cultural influences behind its construction.
Further details on the festival dates, programme and experiences will be announced in the coming weeks.
