Dr Hassan Aliyu (DProf), FRSA

Dr Hassan Aliyu is a British-born Nigerian artist, curator and cultural practitioner whose multidisciplinary practice examines the intertwined legacies of slavery, colonialism and global capitalism, and their continuing impact on migration, displacement, inequality and social justice.

Working across painting, collage, installation and moving image, Aliyu explores how histories of extraction, economic power and displacement continue to shape the political, social and cultural conditions of the present. His practice frequently incorporates discarded consumer packaging, printed financial data and other everyday materials, transforming the visual language of commerce and consumption into a critical examination of capitalism, inequality and global systems of exchange.

His artistic practice is uniquely informed by nearly three decades of knowledge and expertise in international financial securities, alongside more than four decades of artistic engagement. This intersection of art, finance and political history forms a central strand of his practice and doctoral research, Enslaved by Debt: An Artistic Exploration of Africa’s Colonial Legacy, through which he investigated the relationship between colonialism, debt, extraction and contemporary systems of economic power.

Born in London in 1964 to Nigerian parents who had migrated to Britain before Nigerian independence, Aliyu’s early life was shaped by experiences of migration, displacement and questions of belonging. During the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70), he and his twin sister lived with their paternal grandmother in Auchi, Edo State. These experiences of conflict, separation and displacement continue to inform his artistic and scholarly practice.

Aliyu studied Fine Art at Ahmadu Bello University, graduating in 1986 with the Nigeria Art Council Award for Best Final Year Student. He began his professional artistic career in Lagos in 1986 and, following an invitation to exhibit in Britain, continued his artistic practice in the UK from 1990.

Alongside his studio practice, Aliyu is President of the Nigeria Art Society UK (NASUK) and Director and Trustee of 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning. He is a Member of the Guild of Professional Fine Artists of Nigeria (MGFA)and an AFC Nominee for the Jury of the ARD Art Residency Project in Cairo. An independent curator and recipient of the 2024 NiDA Curator of the Year Award, Aliyu also works independently as an art consultant and manages art spaces in central London. He is also a co-researcher on the Waves of Change project.

His forthcoming exhibition, Restless Objects: Migration, Memory and Survival in the Afterlives of Empire, curated by Professor Paul Goodwin, opens at Gallery Oldham in December 2026 and runs until February 2027, before touring to venues in the north of England. Bringing together work developed through his doctoral research with works spanning more than three decades of artistic practice, the exhibition considers the persistence of colonial histories within contemporary experiences of migration, memory and survival.

Recent exhibitions include Epic Journeys, a forty-year retrospective at Wolfson College Cambridge and ArtSpace5-7, Cambridge (2026); Legacies of Biafra, Iwalewahaus, Bayreuth (2025); The Carnivalesque: Body, Mind & Spirit, Noho Showrooms, London (2025); and The Blue Between Us, Rele, London (2025).