Dr Will Rea is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds in the UK. His primary research concerns the masquerades of the Ekiti Yoruba in Nigeria.  This work investigates issues of identity in performance as well as the relationship between transformation and materiality in Yoruba thought. Currently he is engaged on two related research projects. First, on the way in which the historical moment of British colonialism is reflected in the arts (mainly wood carvings) of Ekiti and the wider Yoruba polity and second on cultural entrepreneurship and the creative industries in Lagos and Ibadan.