Veteran Nollywood actress, Joke Silva is bereaved.

Her sister, Bisi Silva, who was the founder and artistic director of the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA, Yaba, Lagos), has passed on.

Reacting to the sad development, Mama J, as she is fondly called by colleagues and fans could go philosophical.

She noted in an Instagram post on Tuesday, “Thou mastering me God.”

Bisi was a major player in the visual arts sector.

Since 2007 when she established the CCA, she had been a catalyst to the growth of many emerging artists while also helping in the development of established ones.

She was at the center of many exhibitions, trainings and conversations, organising local and international programmes.

As indicated in the CCA’s center, it promotes research, documentation, and exhibitions related to contemporary art in Africa and abroad. ACCA, Lagos, Silva has curated numerous exhibitions including one with the Nigerian painter Ndidi Dike.

She was co-curator of ‘The Progress of Love’, a transcontinental collaboration across three venues in the US and Nigeria (Oct. 2012 – Jan. 2013). Silva was co-curator of J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere: Moments of Beauty’, Kiasma, Helsinki (April – Nov. 2011). She was also co-curator for the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Greece, ‘Praxis: Art in Times of Uncertainty’ in September 2009. In 2006, Silva was one of the curators for the Dakar Biennale in Senegal. In collaboration with the Portuguese art critic Isabel Carlos, she selected artists for the third Artes Mundi prize in Wales. She also curated “Contact Zone: Contemporary Art from West and North Africa” (October 2007) and an exhibition titled “Telling… Contemporary Finnish photography”, in the Seventh Biennial of African Photography in Bamako (November 2007).

Silva wrote on contemporary art for international publications including Art Monthly, Untitled, Third Text, Metropolis, Agufon and for Nigerian newspapers such as ThisDay. Silva was on the editorial board of N Paradoxa, an international feminist art journal and is the guest editor for Africa and African Diaspora Issue of N.Paradoxa (Jan. 2013).

2009 In the Light of Play, Durban Art Gallery and Johannesburg Art Fair Chance Encounters, Seven Contemporary Artists from Africa, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai India e Sakshi Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan Like A Virgin…, Lucy Azubuike (NIG) and Zanele Muholi (SA), CCA, Lagos Praxis: Art in Times of Uncertainty, Second Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Greece Maputo: A tale of One City, Second Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Greece 2008 George Osodi, Paradise Lost: Revisiting the Niger Delta, CCA, Lagos Ndidi Dike, Waka-into-bondage:The Last ¾ Mile, CCA, Lagos 2007 Fela, Ghariokwu Lemi and The Art of the Album Cover, CCA, Lagos Contact Zone: Contemporary Art from West and North Africa, National Museum of Mali Telling… Contemporary Finnish photography, Settima Biennale di Fotografia Africana, Bamako 2006 Dak’Art, Biennale di Dakar, Senegal.