By Joy Onuorah

There is a specific kind of audacity required to look at the logistical maze of Lagos, a city that waits for no one, and decide it should host one of the world’s elite art circuits.

For decades, the narrative of the Nigerian creative was a story of departure. To be taken seriously, you had to leave. You needed the London stamp, the Paris nod, the New York gallery.

Tokini Peterside watched this pattern from the halls of LVMH and saw a systemic leak. Music and fashion were breaking out internationally while visual artists, with just as much mastery, had no local platform strong enough to carry them the same distance.

“I wanted the world to come to us,” she says, “instead of us always having to leave our powerbase.”

One Trip to Venice Changed Everything

The Art World Said Lagos Wasn't Ready, Tokini Peterside Built ART X Lagos Anyway

The shift did not happen in a boardroom. It happened in 2015 at the Venice Biennale. Standing inside that architecture of global cultural prestige, Tokini saw exactly where Africa sat within it; respected, yet peripheral. She returned to Lagos not with a mood board but with a business plan.

Not an art world insider, but an MBA wielding strategist with a passion for collecting and patronising the arts, Tokini understood that for art to survive and grow in Nigeria, it could not just be beautiful. It had to be infrastructure.

“The concept of ART X Lagos seemed like a necessity to me before it was a fleshed-out plan,” she recalls. “Suddenly, I was the one responsible for bringing it to life back home.”

Eighteen months after that plan was written, ART X Lagos opened.

No Infrastructure? Sell The Vision Anyway

The Art World Said Lagos Wasn't Ready, Tokini Peterside Built ART X Lagos Anyway

What makes ART X Lagos worth studying is not just what hangs on the walls. It is the refusal that worked.

Tokini used her LVMH background to speak the language of luxury to sponsors who, until then, had treated art as a pastime rather than a serious investment.

She used her relationships in the Lagos art world to build credibility no external credential could have manufactured. And her insistence that ART X was cultural infrastructure, not just a sales event, changed every conversation she walked into.

“Sponsors saw it wasn’t just about sales. It was cultural impact.”

But the road ran through genuine scepticism. International galleries looked at Lagos and saw traffic, power outages and a lack of ready-made systems.

“Early on, international galleries doubted Lagos could sustain a fair like this. That groundwork is what made the structure possible, but it’s the part outsiders often miss,” she says.

Her job was beyond selling art. It was to convince people to invest in the possibility of Lagos before the infrastructure was even ready.

“There is a communal sense of knowing that what we are doing is bigger than us,” she says, “which gives purpose to the work.”

The Lagos Curriculum

The Art World Said Lagos Wasn't Ready, Tokini Peterside Built ART X Lagos Anyway

Lagos, of course, has its own way of teaching.

The city did not let her wait for perfect conditions or support. Every challenge, from logistics to partnerships, raised her standards.

“I learned resilience because I had to. The city taught me to make decisions that could handle whatever was thrown at me, the successes and the pressure.”

She grew up here. She learned from her parents “the need to be creative in my thinking and entrepreneurial in my actions,” and Lagos tested both, without sentiment or apology.

Lagos gave her the curriculum. ART X Lagos was the exam.

Nine Years On, the Fair Has Evolved

The Art World Said Lagos Wasn't Ready, Tokini Peterside Built ART X Lagos Anyway

Nine years on, Peterside’s results extend well beyond a single fair weekend.

Lagos Art Week, seeded and incubated by ART X from its very first edition, now spans more than 50 events across the city every November.

Artists like Victor Ehikhamenor point to ART X outings as turning points in their careers. A generation of young collectors who had never engaged seriously with visual art now plan their November around it.

The Talks, the Prize, the Cinema strand: each one building what Peterside calls “the kind of ecosystem where artists and galleries have ongoing support, not just one moment in the spotlight.”

All of that growth, however, demanded something the original plan never accounted for.

Every Serious Founder Hits This Wall. Most Don’t Get Past It

How Tokini Peterside Defied the Skeptics to Launch ART X Lagos

You build something by caring intensely about every detail. The caring works, the thing gets built, and then it grows beyond what one person can hold. You then face a choice to keep it the size one person can manage, or genuinely trust other people with it.

Most institutions plateau because their founders cannot make that choice. Peterside made it.

“I used to think good planning could control most outcomes,” she says. “Scaling to venues like the Federal Palace Hotel, Lagos, and managing year-round programs proved otherwise. I’ve let go of micromanaging every detail. Now I trust my instincts and rely on advisors.”

“Leadership is less about dictating steps and more about setting direction and letting the right people and momentum carry it. The work finds its rhythm when you stop forcing it.”

The letting go was not a loss of control. It was the growth.

Someone Has to Decide What African Art History Looks Like

How Tokini Peterside Defied the Skeptics to Launch ART X Lagos

Someone has to decide what gets seen, collected and remembered. On a continent where that decision has long been made by people outside it, that is not a small responsibility.

“I don’t take it lightly. But I also don’t believe I hold that responsibility single-handedly. These platforms influence the stories we tell the world about ourselves. With ART X Lagos, we’re in a position to get it right, strengthening our narrative on our terms.”

The fair has been built as a space where artists, galleries, critics and collectors shape the conversation together. Who defines the story of African art, in practice, is Lagos. Not Paris and certainly not the auction houses.

The Next Decade

Ask Tokini what she wants the African creative ecosystem to look like in a decade and she does not talk about fame or recognition. She talks about conditions.

“It’s strong infrastructure we’ve built ourselves, artists collaborating across Africa, reliable markets, education for everyone involved. No waiting for outside permission.”

That phrase belongs to every creative professional, entrepreneur, and culture builder in Nigeria and Africa at large, who has been told the approval they need comes from somewhere else.

There is a massive distinction between being interesting to people with power and having power yourself. ART X Lagos was built to collapse that distinction.

“Lagos becomes the centre because we’re making it inevitable through consistent work today.”

In 2016, the world was sceptical. Today, the world is catching up. Lagos is not just on the map, it is drawing its own.

ART X Lagos holds annually each November at the Federal Palace Hotel, Lagos. Lagos Art Week, which ART X founded and incubated, runs concurrently across 50+ events citywide. artxlagos.com

The Art World Said Lagos Wasn’t Ready, Tokini Peterside Built ART X Lagos Anyway