1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair is set to return to Somerset House from 15 to 18 October 2026 for its 14th consecutive London edition, placing a craft-led Special Projects programme at the heart of this year's presentation. Timed to run alongside Frieze Week, the fair continues to position itself as the principal showcase for contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora in the capital's autumn calendar. The programme's centrepiece is Flowing Upstream, a large-scale multimedia installation by Martin Wöllenstein installed in the Edmond J. Safra Fountain Courtyard. Developed with Romeo Addai-Boateng Akoto of Ghana's Supreme Masqueraders Society, Perve Galeria and OCUBO, the work gives discarded Ankos festival costumes a second life, reconfiguring them into 54 interlocking panels that map the outline of the African continent — a gesture tying masquerade tradition to questions of movement and connection. Alongside it, 1-54 Presents returns with West Wind, an exhibition curated by South African-Portuguese art historian and visual studies scholar Dr. Nancy Dantas that turns the spotlight on Modernist artists from Africa and the diaspora. Works by Alexander 'Skunder' Boghossian, Bertina Lopes and Ibrahim El-Salahi will be shown through Hannah O'Leary Fine Art, Selma Feriani Gallery and Vigo Gallery, responding to a wider surge of institutional interest in recovering overlooked chapters of African modernism. Elsewhere, Hassan Hajjaj's My London Rockstars portrays a new generation shaping the city's cultural life, including Central Cee, Slawn and Jorja Smith, while Nando's partners with Spier Arts Trust to present Southern African artists around a theme of belonging. Borderlands Art offers a display made entirely of barkcloth; DēpART stages Restan Lepase, in which Léon Radegonde stains, buries and reassembles found surfaces; and the Midunu Institute traces Ghanaian cocoa from farm to finished bar. Folasade Ologundudu leads (Re)Casting the Canon, a multi-day critical writing lab, and a talks programme brings together speakers from Christie's, Oliver Enwonwu and Loeve&Co, alongside a celebration of Addis Fine Art's tenth anniversary. A VIP and press preview takes place on 15 October, with public days from 16 to 18 October.