Fialor Institute

Fialor Institute is a youth-led art and research collective based in Lomé. Co-founded by Kokou Claude Gbeve and Jeff Renova, blending contemporary art, climate justice, and community organizing with a focus on urban environments and informal economies.

Our work emerges from close engagement with communities most affected by climate change, housing insecurity, and economic precarity, particularly informal workers, youth, and women in marginalized urban spaces. We use artistic research, public installations, photography, and participatory processes as tools to make visible local knowledge systems and grassroots climate adaptations that are often ignored by institutions and policymakers.

Fialor Institute develops long-term, collaborative projects rooted in listening, co-creation, and shared authorship. Rather than working on communities, we work with them, supporting youth leadership, skill-sharing, and collective power-building. Our projects transform everyday materials, practices, and spaces into platforms for visibility, dignity, and political demand.

Through public art interventions, workshops, and cultural programming, we aim to reclaim urban spaces, challenge dominant narratives, and contribute to more equitable and climate-resilient cities shaped by the people who already sustain them. Fialor Institute believes that imagination, when grounded in lived experience and collective action, is a powerful force for social and environmental justice.