Fi Sonola
Helen Scott Lidgett Award
2026
Fi Sonola (b. 1995, Lagos, Nigeria) views her practice as an interdisciplinary machine, with its primary purpose being this internal rebuilding of identity post trauma, while also understanding how society shapes this identity and, in turn, how that identity goes on to affect society. This autoethnographic approach utilises painting, photography, performance, metalworking, walking practices, installation and theory to achieve this goal. With world-building and theory, Sonola can reflect over and address themes of domestic abuse in mother-daughter relationships, the rebuilding of the post-trauma identity, as well as how we encode in communication.
Engaging in painting, sculpture, installation, performance and photography, Sonola is always attempting to strengthen the connection between 2 worlds. Her lived reality and her anime/manga inspired alternate universe, where she manages the conflict and trauma of everyday life and her past. With her paintings and text-based sculptures acting as a form of director’s/artist’s commentary. Utilising Stuart Hall’s ‘modes of communication’ and structuralist ideas to shield the sensitive nature of the work. It grants Sonola an opening to navigate her topics, maintaining dignity while offering up adjacent meaning through codes and symbols (colour, texture, typeface, etc). Other times, she breaks, joins, staggers and repeats words in an attempt to encapsulate many parts of a story, scenario or her thoughts.
Helen Scott Lidgett Award
The Helen Scott Lidgett Award is a partnership between Acme, Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London), Art Academy of Latvia and the family of Helen Scott Lidgett. Aiming to provide a bridge between art school and professional practice, the award includes a generous bursary, rent-free studio space and a mentoring programme. Recipients of Acme’s Early Career Awards Programme work from shared studios in order to encourage an environment of peer support and critical dialogue.
