September Workshop Series: on creative career development
with Sylvia Arthur (Library of Africa and The African Diaspora), Bennita Nnachortam (KUTA Arts Foundation), Yaa Addae (Decolonise the Art World), and Uzoma Orji (Uzoma Studio)
Hello!
Instead of an Opportunity Roundup this month, we’ve invited four West African powerhouses for three workshops on nourishing a creative career. These workshops have been organised to deliver insight on how to make a good application (grants, residencies, scholarships, graduate school), how to build a sustainable career beyond freelance gigs, how organisations think about opportunities/jobs, and how to build an art or cultural institution in Africa today.
More information about the guests:
Sylvia Arthur (Ghana)
Sylvia Arthur is a cultural institution builder, social impact creator and narrative change maker. She is the founder of the Library of Africa and The African Diaspora (LOATAD) in Accra, Ghana, through which she has secured funding from European Union, Pro Helvetia - the Swiss Arts Council, Africa No Filter, Hawthornden Foundation, and Goethe Institut to support African writers.
In 2022, she became a National Geographic Explorer to develop her project 'A Women's Oral History of West Africa'. The two-year audio project entails interviewing female elders aged over 60 living along the coast of West Africa to create an alternative history of postcolonial Africa from the perspective of its women.
She will be speaking at the workshop on 12th September, 2024 at 6 pm WAT on LOATAD's work and how her organisation considers applications for their writing residencies. Majority of the session will be devoted to a QnA on all things creative careers and culture production in Africa.
Benita Nnachortam (Nigeria/US)
@benitannachortam is an artist, curator and arts administrator currently working towards a Master of Fine Arts (Photography) degree at Cranbrook Academy of Arts , Michigan. She is the founder of KUTA Arts Foundation in Ogun State. She has served as a Special Assistant/Official Photographer at the Ogun State Governor's Office and is the host of the School of Visual Arts Podcast. She has a Masters' degree in Arts Administration and Policy at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).
KUTA Arts Foundation empowers young artists and cultural workers in Nigeria by fostering art education, creative expression, and community development. It has run a residency program and Canvas Club (an art education series) since 2018, and hosts exhibitions. In 2022, the organisation received a Creativity Pioneers Initiative grant award from the Moleskine Foundation.
She will be speaking at the workshop on 23rd September, 2024 at 5 pm WAT on KUTA's projects, building an art/cultural institution and understanding opportunities from organisations' perspectives. QnA to follow.
Yaa Addae (Ghana/UK)
@yaa.dae is a writer, researcher and social designer. They are the founder of the Decolonize The Art World and art futurist studio, KRA, and have held previous full-time positions at Canvas8, Comuzi Lab, AMAKA, Gallery 1957, Ano Institute of Knowledge and Arts. They have spoken and led workshops at the Southbank Centre, Nubuke Foundation, Goethe Instiut Lisbon, and The Barbican, Autograph ABP, The Church of Black Feminist Thought, LOATAD and many others.
In 2022, she received a grant from the Art Council England to develop her project 'Open Heart Clinic', a social design incubator through which they are investigating structural barriers to loving (restorative love economics), and imagining future care infrastructure. She has also obtained grants from the Black Curatorial Fly Me Out Fund, the Orange Tangent Study Research Fund, Autograph ABP Open Call and more.
Chidumaga Uzoma Orji (Nigeria)
@uzzzoma is an artist and creative technologist. He is the founder and creative director of uzoma.studio, a creative technology studio and dream lab. He has been in residence at QUAD Derby (UK), the Yinka Shonibare Foundation (Lagos) and Akademie Schloss Solitude (Germany) and was a Digital Earth fellow 2020/2021. His exhibition and speaking credits include Lagos Photo Festival (Lagos), Abuja Art Week (Abuja), CultureHub ReFest (USA), 1927 Art Space (Greece), Format Festival (UK), Allied Media Conference (USA), PerForm Festival (Singapore) and TEDx. He is a 2021 Prince Claus Fund seed awardee and a 2022 Prince Claus Fund Building Beyond mentee.
Long time collaborators Yaa and Uzoma will run the workshop on 28th September, 2024 at 10 am WAT. Between both of them, they will be discussing all aspects of the series: from applications (for grants to jobs in the art/culture sector) to advancing one's creative career and building organisations. QnA to follow.
