FOTWRLD × Basketball for Peace — A Travelling Exhibition

THE

COLLECTORS

GAME

Art, Basketball, and the Private Life of a Public Man

“The question is not whether this exhibition merits support. The question is what you want to say about Nigerian culture in 2026.”

Coach Oliver Berdeen Johnson

Coach Oliver Berdeen Johnson — Chairman, Basketball for Peace

The Collector

The Man Who Kept Everything

On the 11th of December 1969, Oliver Berdeen Johnson stepped off a plane in Lagos on a 21-day visitor’s permit. He has not left since.

He coached Nigeria’s first national basketball team, spotted Hakeem Olajuwon as a teenager, mentored a young Masai Ujiri in Zaria, and spent 40 years quietly assembling one of Nigeria’s most significant private collections of West African art.

“You cannot talk about basketball in Nigeria without him.”— Col. Sam Ahmedu, FIBA Africa Zone 3 President
Read the full story →

The Collection

Objects That Outlast Their Makers

View full collection →

Ladi Kwali Pottery. Benin bronzes. Bronze sculptures. 40 years of deliberate acquisition across 13 catalogued artefacts — each a manufactured argument about craft, culture, and the material history of West Africa.

Get Involved

Register to Attend
or Partner With Us

Whether you want to attend the exhibition in your city, or you represent a gallery, club, school, university, or community that wants to be part of this — we want to hear from you.

Reserve Your Place

The exhibition is free and open to the public. Register to let us know you’re coming — we’ll send you dates, times, and any updates as they are confirmed for your city.

NCMM, Kaduna
Open Art Expo Exhibition Pavilion, Abuja
Obasanjo Library, Ogun State
Lagos

Partnership Opportunity

We Are Calling
on Cultural Nigeria
and the World

The Collector’s Game is an open invitation to every cultural institution, arts centre, museum, gallery, foundation, and heritage organisation — in Nigeria and across the globe — that believes the material history of West Africa deserves to be seen, documented, and debated.

This is the first exhibition to bring a living basketball legend’s private art collection into the public eye in Nigeria. It will draw the basketball community, the art world, heritage practitioners, and the diplomatic community simultaneously.

Whether you are a national museum, a private cultural foundation, a civic arts centre, a university gallery, or a corporate cultural programme — if you care about how West African craft and contemporary sport tell the same story, this is the partnership for you.

“People will come to see this because they have never had the chance before. And the partner will be the reason they had the chance at all.”
Enquire About Partnership

Lead Cultural Partner

★★★

Primary presenting credit across both venues. Branding on all physical installations, exhibition publications, digital content, and press materials. Direct engagement with the Basketball for Peace network and the NBA's African ecosystem.

Venue Partner

★★

Named partner at one of two venues — Kaduna or Ogun State. Brand presence in that city's institutional, heritage, or presidential library audience.

Media & Documentation Partner

★

Co-production credit on exhibition photography, catalogue publication, and social content across all venues. Shared access to exhibition archive and documentation.

Get in Touch

fotwrldinfo@gmail.com

www.fotwrld.com

Partners & Institutions

FOTWRLD

FOTWRLD

Curatorial Platform & Lead Producer

Basketball for Peace

Basketball for Peace

Founding Organisation

National Commission for Museums & Monuments

National Commission for Museums & Monuments

Institutional Host — Kaduna

Ahmadu Bello University

Ahmadu Bello University

Academic Partner — Zaria

Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library

Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library

Venue Host — Ogun State

Interested in joining as a partner? Contact fotwrldinfo@gmail.com