👀 October 2024 Opportunities 👀

resources for African meaning makers on the continent (plus videos of our September workshops!)

Immaculata Abba

Idayat Jinadu

, and

Immaculata Projects

Oct 05, 2024

Hello! This time around we’re not just bringing you opportunities.

Scroll down and you’ll find the playback videos of the career development workshops we held in September. Over three sessions, we had Sylvia Arthur (founder of the Library of Africa and The African Diaspora), Benita Nnachortam (founder of Kuta Arts Foundation), and the multi-disciplinary artists Yaa Addae and Uzoma Orji share presentations and discuss questions on building cultural organisations and careers in the industry of cultural meaning-making.

As usual, I share more opportunities on my IG stories, so follow or check the ‘Opportunities’ highlight there from time to time to see if there’s something for you.

This newsletter was compiled and edited by myself, Immaculata and Idayat Jinadu, the founder and editor of Hidden Gele, a cultural anthology of Nigerian women’s lives.

Jobs

Job Opportunities - MOE+ artArchitecture, Lagos (ongoing)
MOE+ artArchitecture is a creative design practice working out of Lagos Nigeria. It was established in 2014 and is a collaborative practice focused on architecture, design and artistic production. It is currently hiring for the roles of Researcher, Project Architect, Assistant Architect. Send CV and portfolio to lagos@moeaa.com

Job Opportunities - Sample Chief, Global (ongoing)
Sample Chief is a digital platform dedicated to helping music nerds find these rare cuts by unearthing the African sounds at the heart of contemporary African music and other genres. They are currently looking for people passionate about African music to fill the roles of Partnership manager, Event coordinator, and Social media manager. Contact Sample Chief at contactus@samplechief.com

Architectural Designer, Studio Contra, Ghana (ongoing)
Studio Contra is an architectural, urban and interior design practice based in Lagos, Nigeria working across all scales and contexts. They are looking to hire an architect or architectural designer in Ghana with 2 to 5 years of experience. Check out this Accra-based project in their portfolio. To apply, send an indication of interest to admin@studio-contra.com with your portfolio attached.

Call For Volunteers - Ake Arts and Book Festival, Lagos (ongoing)
Now in its twelfth year, Ake Arts & Book Festival has brought over 1000 writers, poets, musicians, actors, filmmakers, artists and thinkers together to celebrate creativity. Click the link to apply to join the festival as a volunteer this year.

Fellowships and Submissions

Call For Archival Research Fellowship - Archivi.ng, Nigeria (October 10)
Archivi.ng is digitally archiving old Nigerian newspapers to make Nigerian history accessible to everyone. They are currently recruiting for a six-month fellowship designed to enhance the world's understanding of Nigerian history in engaging and meaningful ways. They are looking for historians, journalists, artists, technologists, writers, filmmakers, content creators, and anyone interested in helping people understand Nigerian history.

Open Call - ARTCRY, UK (December 31)
ARTCRY supports responsive, political artworks in the public realm. They make funding decisions on a weekly basis, artists can apply at any time, and the program is especially focused on projects that engage with the UK's immigration and asylum systems to fight for human rights and equality. Proposals have to be for projects designed to happen for free, in public space in the UK.

Call For Papers - Institut des Mondes Africains, Global (November 31)
Open to researchers with sound field experience, the ‘Working with Masculinities’ symposium (March 24–25, 2025) aims to reassess the place of masculinities in contemporary economies, whether through a reflection on work, on men's participation in household-making, or on the lifestyles associated with specific conceptions of masculinity. If you are interested in participating, please send your paper abstract (300 words, excluding references) along with your institutional affiliation to lucie.revilla@cnrs.fr and ismael.maazaz@tuni.fi

The 2024 Abebi Award in Afrononfiction, Nigeria (November 1)
The Abebi AfroNonfiction Institute is a literary organisation founded by Mofiyinfoluwa O. with the aim of spotlighting and honouring creative nonfiction written by Nigerian (and African) women.

Open Call for artists from West Africa - Delfina Foundation, Global (October 21)
Based in the heart of London, Delfina Foundation is an independent, non-profit foundation dedicated to facilitating artistic exchange and developing creative practice through residencies, partnerships and public programming.
With support from Delfina Foundation’s Network of Africa Patrons, they are currently seeking applications from contemporary visual artists from West Africa for a residency in London. This 12-week residency will take place from 31 March to 22 June 2025, during Delfina Foundation’s spring residency season.

Research Residency Partnership - Nessiej X Selebe Yoon X La Boite, Tunisia/Senegal (October 31)
Nessij, a collective dedicated to supporting the Tunisian art scene, is partnering with Selebe Yoon, Dakar, and La Bolte, Tunis, to offer a cross-residency in 2025 between Senegal and Tunisia. The aim of this partnership is to develop a network of residencies across the African continent and enhance artist mobility.
Each residency will last 6 weeks, from April to May 2025, with Selebe Yoon hosting an artist working and residing in Tunisia in Dakar. Similarly, La Boîte, a contemporary art center based in Tunisia, will host an artist working and residing in Senegal in Tunis and/or Gabès.

Open Call For 2025 Residencies - The 32° East Residencies X Almas Art Foundation, Africa (October 31)
Are you an artist, architect, curator or researcher interested in earth as material and space for community? With the support of Almas Art Foundation, 32° East is looking for creative practitioners of any age or visual medium to join them in 2025 for 3 cohorts of residents made up of 3 artists each. The residency is open to applications from outside of East Africa but the applicant must be able to cover their own travel to Kampala. Please note, due to the limited number of slots priority will be given to Ugandan/East African artists.

Call For Residency Application - Cité internationale des arts, Global (October 25)
Are you an artist, a cultural professional looking to develop a research and creative project in Paris through a 3 to 9 months residency? The selectors are interested in the artistic and intellectual quality of the project, its links with the French and the Ile-de-France artistic scene, and professional exchanges with French artists.

Resources and Grants

PhD studentship - University of Manchester X The Stuart Hall Foundation, Global (December 1)
In partnership with the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester, the Stuart hall Foundation is offering a studentship for a PhD candidate starting in September 2025. The Stuart Hall PhD Scholarship will cover fees and a stipend. The scholarship can be held in any of the 8 Departments within the School of Social Sciences. It is expected that the award-winner will be working in an interdisciplinary area of study focused on one of Stuart Hall’s many areas of interest: cultural studies, race, ethnicity and inequalities.
White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership - The Stuart Hall Foundation, Global (January 22)
The Stuart Hall Foundation will be continuing its partnership with White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership (WRDTP) to support two PhD studentship awards available to black British students applying for a PhD in the WRDTP starting in October 2025. The award will cover UK tuition fees, a stipend, and a research training support grant. The White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership (WRDTP) is a partnership of seven universities providing interdisciplinary doctoral training.
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First Book Grant - Independent Social Research Foundation, UK/Europe (November 1)
Are you based in the UK or Europe? The Independent Social Research Foundation wishes to support recent PhD graduates in their effort to turn their PhD thesis into a publishable book. Researchers may apply from across the social sciences and the humanities. The awards are intended to provide a research stipend (to cover living costs) for a period of up to twelve months, plus appropriate research expenses.
Robin Houghton Poetry Magazines Submission Spreadsheet
Robin Houghton is taking the hard work out of submitting to poetry magazines. If your questions are: What poetry magazines are there? What are their web addresses? How many poems can I send? Are they open for submissions now? This is for you.

Film Archives Course - British Film Institute (BFI), UK (October 4 to November 8)
Join London’s Screen Archives and Black Cultural Archives for an exclusive opportunity to develop valuable skills and gain hands-on experience in archiving audiovisual collections supported by the BFI, awarding National Lottery Funding.
Time: 2:00-4:00 PM, every Friday afternoon
Location: Black Cultural Archives

"The right people will find you." - Sylvia Arthur on building LOATAD in Accra, Ghana (full video on YouTube here)

On September 12, Sylvia Arthur, founder of the Library of Africa and The African Diaspora (LOATAD) in Accra, Ghana, talked about building a cultural institution in Africa. She emphasized starting small, with LOTAAD beginning in a one-room office in 2017 and growing to a two-story house in 2020. Sylvia highlighted the importance of knowing one's mission, diversifying funding, keeping meticulous records, and documenting everything. She also stressed the need for consistency and the importance of team building, noting that many team members found her through social media and personal connections. She also shared her perspective as the organiser of the LOATAD writing residencies and what applications reviewers look out for.

Read Sylvia's essay on starting LOATAD published in LitHub here:
"But doing this work is both selfless and selfish. For every child I help to read, it’s not just their life that’s changed, but mine. To deny the feeling of pleasure and, indeed, self-satisfaction that comes from knowing you’ve made a difference to an individual, a community and, by extension, a society, would be to deny being human. After all, the payoff of self-sacrifice is often self-fulfillment. There are no saviors, not even Black ones."

"Keep knocking on doors until we find the door that's for us." - Benita Nnachortam on building Kuta Arts Foundation (full video on YouTube here)

On September 23, Benita Nnachortam joined us to talk generously about starting and running the Kuta Arts Foundation. She emphasized the importance of leadership skills and high-quality documentation of one’s practice and whatever projects and organisations one is building. She shared her experience of starting Kuta with limited resources, using personal savings, leveraging community support, having a clear vision, and the value of exchanging services for resources. It was a heartfelt session. Start small, document rigorously and build a strong team.

Kuta Arts Foundation: https://www.instagram.com/kutanigeria/

"Remember that reality is plasticine" - Yaa Addae and Uzoma Orji on sustaining a creative career (full video on YouTube here)

On September 28, Yaa the feeler and Uzoma the dreamer focused on developing creative careers. Yaa shared insights on grant writing, budgeting, emphasizing understanding the application, introducing oneself boldly, being attentive to application requirements, and finetuning one’s ideas as a continuous practice even when not working on applications. Uzoma began by critiquing the dependency on external funding and advocating for the provincialising of grants in one’s repertoire of resources. The QnA brought up some gems on challenges with budgeting and the need for realistic project planning.

Here is the Artist Statement worksheet developed by Yaa Addae, that she shared during her presentation.

Uzoma’s website: https://uzomaorji.com/ ; https://uzoma.studio/

Yaa’s website: https://yaa-addae.net/

“Remember that reality is plasticine—the world that we have inherited can feel like it’s fixed, but anything is up for contention.” - Yaa and Uzoma, 2020.

For further listening, check out the ‘Live Talk: Financing Nigerian Creative Projects’ episode on Lagos Meet’s podcast, Lagos Meet Conversations. The conversation was moderated by Oluseye Soyode-Johnson (Founder, NuConti) and was included Ife Adebayo (National Coordinator, Investment in digital and creative enterprises program iDICE), Fifehan Osikanlu (Founder, Eden Venture Group), and Mayowa Olusoji (Fund Manager, AT&T, Consulting).

That conversation had me looking above my glasses in some parts because I do not regard/value intellectual and heritage property in the same way as some of the speakers. In this other conversation between and NdaniTV's Hauwa and veteran actor and business woman in the entertainment industry Joke Silva, Joke Silva talks at length about why the arts needs patient capital and not investment in the ways some of the speakers in the earlier podcast episode talk about: