Biennale Jogja XIII

Biennale Jogja XIII, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2015) marked Lanre Olanrewaju Tejuoso's first international exhibition. Invited as part of the residency programme, he extended his Waste to Life philosophy beyond Nigeria, working entirely with found and discarded materials within the host environment.

During the residency in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Tejuoso transformed an abandoned restaurant--over a century old--into what became known as the Black Market Museum. The structure had long been neglected; part of it had been reopened by the descendants of its original owners, while other sections remained derelict and overrun. Rather than conceal the building's decay, Tejuoso engaged directly with its carcass--salvaging fragments, textures, and debris as both material and conceptual foundation for the work.

This intervention echoed his earlier transformation of the Aroko Green Museum in Abeokuta, where he reactivated a destitute building and redefined it as a living museum space. In Jogja, the gesture was not mere replication but adaptation--responding to local history, architecture, and memory. The ruined restaurant was resuscitated through artistic labour, turning abandonment into dialogue and waste into meaning.

The gallery archive for this residency documents three key phases: