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Sandra Mbanefo Obiago is an art curator, photographer, author, and award-winning filmmaker who is passionate about strengthening the creative industry to develop the African continent. She is Founder and Artistic Director of SMO Contemporary Art, curating art exhibitions in non-traditional gallery spaces to promote the best of African art. SMO has spent over a decade showcasing emerging, leading, and forgotten artists of all generations who have been instrumental in shaping the contemporary art canon of artists of African descent, and who became crucial in establishing a unique narrative of the continent. She started her career in 1988 as a technical director and video editor at the European Business Channel in Zurich, Switzerland. Two years later she joined environmental group, WWF International, and covered environment and development projects in Sub-Saharan Africa as a photo-journalist for eight years. In 1998 she founded Communicating for Change (CFC), a media for development social enterprise based in Lagos, which became an important content provider for local and international television stations for over a decade. Her award-winning films and radio programs focused on human rights, women’s empowerment, HIV & AIDS, environment, democracy and good governance, and art for development. Obiago is author of A King’s Passion: A 21st Century Patron of African Art, published by 5 Continents in Milan in 2023. She is a Jury Member of TaDA the Textile and Design Alliance based in Switzerland, and a Fellow of the Aspen Institute’s African Leadership Initiative for West Africa (ALIWA). She has a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Manitoba in Canada, and a Masters of Arts in Telecommunications from Michigan State University, USA. Obiago focuses on using creativity as an avenue for inspiring a positive narrative about Africa.