We are pleased to welcome our inaugural resident this year, Belgian-Nigerian actress Emmanuelle Gilles-Rousseau, for a rigorous research-based residency at our Lagos location.

Gilles-Rousseau works primarily in theatre in Belgium and France, and also appears in film and television.

Alongside acting, she takes part in collaborative stage writing processes. She contributed to the writing of productions such as L'avenir by Magrit Coulon, presented at the National Theatre of Wallonia-Brussels in 2024, and Le Sbeul by Jonathan Kibani (2021-2023). She also collaborated on the writing of Ceci n'est pas un film français, a feature film by Tom Adjibi in which she plays, scheduled for release in 2026. In 2024, she wrote and co-directed the absurd episodic short film Baby.

Her artistic practice explores questions of representation and the intersections of race, class, and gender. She is currently developing a short film on mixed-race identity in provincial Belgium.

During her residency at Angels and Muse, Gilles-Rousseau will conduct research towards a future film on the colonisation of traditional Igbo spirituality by Christian institutions.