34 minute read
Creatives
KENYA ACTRESS
Lupita Nyong’o Hollywood queen
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Wakanda Forever, the much-awaited , Black Panther, looks set to register some of the highest cinema earnings worldwide this year. It has already grossed over half a billion dollars and according to insiders, this is just the beginning.
While the cast is composed of familiar characters from Black Panther as well as several new faces, global attention has been focused on the fabulous Lupita Nyong’o who reappraises her role as Nakia, the
undercover spy for Wakanda from the River Tribe. Nyang’o says that in this still “the one you want to call when you’re in trouble”.
It seems that this Mexico-born, Kenya-raised superstar is the one producers want to call when they want since she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2014 for her scorching performance in 12 Years a Slave – which was in fact her producers and directors.
Viewers in Africa will also remember her sensitive, moving performance in The Queen of Katwe, which also went on to win global awards and remains a perennial family favourite during holidays.
In addition to the Oscar, she picked up a large number of awards and nominations from other organisations and the list would take more space to give than we have space for on this page. She has also won awards for documentary narration and children’s
Wherever she goes, cameras follow her. Her costumes, her looks, her hairdos are endlessly discussed in society media, magazines scramble to have her on the covers and talk- show hosts jostle to have her on their
platforms. Her views are sought, it seems, on every subject under the sun. As a high-achieving student and with a degree from an American university, her responses have considerable thought and depth to them.
Through it all, she says she has not gone ‘Hollywood’ and remains her pragmatic African self. The force and outside Africa cannot be overestimated. She often chooses to portray strong Black women who command respect, dignity and attention by their mere presence. As one reviewer put it: “She is Africa’s most powerful, and loved, ambassador. Every move this hugely talented and beautiful lady makes is a salute to the genius of her mother continent – Africa.”
RWANDA-UK ACTOR
Ncuti Gatwa Culture-bending Black Dr Who
NIGERIA-UK ACTRESS
Amara Okereke Black Eliza Doolittle charms London
NIGERIA AUTHOR
Sarah Ladipo Manyika Making a way out of no way
A refugee family from Rwanda, a boy with a big dream, a dream come true. When you read about Ncuti Gatwa’s rise to stellar fame, you might think it belongs more in the realms of hard-to
He was born in Kigali, Rwanda but he was just two years old. Surviving the turbulent teenage years in a Scottish secondary school, by the time he left he knew he wanted to be an actor and began the demanding journey, training at the Royal Conservatoire in Scotland, before making his debut on the London stage at the Globe Theatre, playing the part of Demetrius in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.
From this classical beginning, life took on the twists and turns of a young actor’s experience, at the mercy of the overwhelming expenses of trying to working a day job and borrowing money to survive.
Time for serendipity to step in and reward his talent and tenaciousness comedy-drama, Sex Education, where his deserved 2020 BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Actor in Television.
From here his journey has been on the road of success, playing the part of Jojo Moyes’ bestseller, The Last Letter from Your Lover and then landing the part of one of the Kens in Mattel’s Barbie movie, due for release in 2023.
Into this mix has come a role that has quite possibly tipped the scales of British culture. Following an outstanding audition, he will become role of the BBC’s Dr Who. Amara Okereke seized the summer season with her portrayal of Eliza Doolittle in the perennially popular musical My Fair Lady at the London Coliseum theatre. The superlatives for the 26-year-old’s mastery of song, Black performer to be cast in this quintessentially English role. waif, who dreams of becoming a society lady from her beginnings as feisty edge than in more traditional productions – yet her depiction stayed true to the timbre of the story.
As with most ‘overnight’ successes, Okereke has spent years successfully acting and dancing. Breaking barriers has been nothing new to her. Raised in Leeds to Nigerian parents, both of whom were doctors and who encouraged her to take advantage of the opportunities they did not have, Amara has been persistent, both in winning the part of Eliza and in putting a Black actress at the centre of London’s West End theatre.
The producer had scrutinised the auditions in vain for somebody to create his vision of Eliza until Ama walked in, when he knew that his search was over. Okereke shared scenes with the internationally-acclaimed veteran Vanessa Redgrave and was not overshadowed. Award-winning author and cultural critic Sarah Ladipo Manyika seems to have fashioned her work after the famous quote from legendary US writer, story you want to read, write it.”
Her writing includes academic papers, short stories, reviews and essays, the latest of which is her 2022 book Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora, a collection of stories that celebrate history, making a way out of no way.
Described as a one-of-a-kind book, it includes interviews with remarkable 21st-century intellectuals, artists and activists from the Black Diaspora, such as Wole Soyinka, Michelle Obama, Toni Morrison, Xoliswa Sithole, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Margaret Busby, and has a foreword by Bernardine Evaristo.
Manyika was born and raised in Nigeria but has lived in the UK, France, Kenya and now teaches literature at San Francisco State University.
Her best-selling debut novel In Dependence, published in 2009 by Legend Press and later Cassava Press, sold over three million copies. Her second novel, Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun (Cassava Press), published in 2016, was translated into six languages and was a California Book Award.
Her decision to choose an African publisher was, according to an excerpt from her essay ‘Betting on Africa’, because they were “savvy and diligent custodians” of her work. .
NIGERIA SINGER, SONGWRITER, PRODUCER
Tems Afrobeat’s latest rising star
Tems, Nigeria’s newest, brightest Afrobeat star, has collaborated with superstars such as Beyoncé, Drake and Justin Bieber and counts amongst her growing fanbase the likes of Adele and Barack Obama.
Born in Nigeria, she moved to London (her father is British) as a baby but returned to Nigeria four years later following her parents’ divorce. During her student days, she studied music in her spare time, watching videos from to its compelling call in 2018, gave up her job in digital marketing to devote herself to it. Cue some hard times, but run for their money!
In 2020 she became noticed enough to appear on DJ Edu’s list of artists to watch, collaborating with fellow Nigerian, Davido and later in the year, with WizKid on the song Essence from his Made in Lagos album – which later won them Best African Collaboration the map of African singers in the global eye.
In September 2020 she released her debut extended player, For Broken Ears. The song, Damages, from the EP came in at the No. 1 spot on the Nigerian Apple Music Charts and by 2021 she was astutely snapped up by RCA records. Following a new extended player, If Orange Was a Place, 2022’s The Headies (a music awards show established in 2006 by the Nigerian magazine saw her walk away with a hat-trick of awards for Best Collaboration, Best R&B Album and Best Female Artiste.
This year has been a peak for Tems, playing at Glastonbury, the O2 arena in London with WizKid, and headlining at Somerset House, to name just a few key performances.
Featuring on American rapper Future’s single Wait for U made her the Hot 100 chart, while working on a song with Rihanna for the new Black Panther: Wakanda Forever movie, means the next new album, projected for 2022, will just have to wait. We have a feeling the best is yet to come!
SOUTH AFRICA ACTRESS
Thuso Mbedu Tour de force performances
Losing her parents when she was just four years old did not stop Thuso Mbedu from following her dreams and whilst you may say she has been lucky to get the breaks she has, you could also say it is where hard work met opportunity.
Brought up by her grandmother, she attended the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, graduating in 2013 with a degree in Physical Theatre and Performing Arts Management. The following year she series, Isibaya, quickly followed by parts in the TV series Scandal! and a guest role in SABC’s teen drama series, Snake Park.
It was not all smooth sailing. A daunting six months of unemployment was followed by a happy ending with playing the part of Winnie in the teen drama series IsThunzi. This led to a 2017 International Emmy Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress. breakthrough in 2021 with Amazon Prime’s historical series, The Underground Railroad, in which she was cast as Cora, a runaway slave. Her compassionate performance won her a trio of accolades – the Gotham Award, Hollywood Critics Association Award and Independent Spirit Award.
From television to the silver screen. Sony’s The Woman King, home country, with a lead role as Nawi. One critic said, “Mbedu gives a The Woman King, ingenuity, and strength. The South African-born actor uses every colour in her box to deliver a stunningly nuanced performance that can only be described as a tour de force.” And that neatly sums it up!
BURKINO FASO-GERMANY ARCHITECT
Francis Kéré Designing from the soul
From an impoverished beginning, where food and water security took priority, Francis Kéré is living proof that you can rise from the humblest of origins to make your mark on the world. community to attend school, having to leave his family at only seven years old as it was 18km away. Sitting in classmates gave birth to his future direction, one where he would one day come back and build a school in his hometown, a building that would allow children to thrive in and be comfortable.
By 1985, he had won a carpentry scholarship and had to travel even further from home – to Berlin. He would eventually emerge in 2004 with an advanced degree in architecture, from Berlin’s Technical University, but never forgot his roots and the promise he had made to himself as a small boy.
He started a foundation to raise funds and advocate a child’s right to work in a comfortable environment, was a primary school in his hometown of Gando. Utilising all the skills he had learnt over his years of studying, he brought in local people and indigenous materials coupled with world-class modern engineering to create a space for children he had only wished for when he was seven.
The triumph of the Gando Primary School won him the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2004 and was the stimulus he needed to start his own practice, Kéré Architecture, in Berlin, Germany.
Following a career of creating buildings throughout Africa that have improved the lives of communities and feature his trademark cultural sensitivity and local engagement, his work has expanded through Europe and the US.
It is not surprising that in 2022 he was the worthy recipient of the Pritzker Architectural Prize, the most prestigious award of its kind, for his vision, commitment and contribution to humanity through the art of architecture.
NIGERIA SINGER
Burna Boy Picking up global awards for fun
Damini Ogulu, aka Burna Boy, continues to take the world by storm, receiving his third Grammy nomination in a row this year for his song Last Last, in the Best Global Music Performance category. The self-proclaimed ‘African Giant’ also received a nomination for his latest album Love, Damini in the Best Global Music Album category. Boy’s meteoric rise over the last few years, from humble beginnings growing up in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Along with artists like Wizkid and Tems, Burna Boy is the face of Nigeria’s hugely successful Afrobeats scene, which has taken the world by storm.
Whereas Afrobeat musicians used to feature on tracks by European and American artists, the industry is now clamouring to secure collabs (collaborations) with Africa’s hottest artists as everything they touch turns to gold. Burna Boy’s latest album features collabs with Ed Sheeran, Khalid, Popcaan and J Hus. Before becoming a musician, Burna Boy studied media technology at the University of Sussex in the UK, and then media communications and culture at Oxford Brookes University. He returned to Port Harcourt in 2010 to take up a year-long internship at Rhythm 93.7 FM.
MALI- FRANCE SINGER
Aya Nakamura Enthralling the world with her song
This enchanting songstress has been bewitching us with her sultry sounds since 2014, when she released her Karma, as a 14-year-old on Facebook.
Born in Mali as Aya Coco Danioko, she took the stage name Nakamura series, Heroes. She emigrated with her parents to France as a young child, and studied fashion, but then followed her true calling into the world of music – although in a nod to her past, in September 2021 she did launch a capsule collection for underwear brand Undiz.
Coming from a family of West African griots, telling stories through her songs is in her DNA. Her heartfelt break-up song, J’ai Mal, which quickly garnered secured her spot in the limelight.
In 2016, she paid tribute to her roots as support to US-Nigerian star, Davido’s sell-out concert at the Modibo Keita Stadium, in her hometown of Bamako, Mali.
A year later, her debut album, Journal Intime, went platinum in France. In from her very successful second album, Nakamura.
The song Djadja is perhaps the one sensation in France and rapidly went on to become a hit throughout Europe, female artiste to hit the No. 1 spot in the Netherlands since Edith Piaf in 1961, with Non, je ne regrette rien!
Her 2020 third album, AYA, was downloaded on Spotify over 12m times in only four days, making it the third most-listened-to album across the globe. In the same year she won an NRJ Music Award for Best Francophone the Apple Music Awards. Long may she continue to captivate and enthral the world.
ZIMBABWE WRITER
NoViolet Bulawayo Searing, poetic writing
Born in 1981, a year after Southern Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe became Prime Minister, Bulowaya experienced a traumatic childhood that would later become the source of her searing yet rhythmically poetic writing.
Completing her college education in the US, she gained her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Cornell University, where she later went on Stanford were also the lucky recipients of her wisdom.
Just a year after completing her degree, her short story, Hitting Budapest, won the AKO Caine Prize. Telling the trenchant tale of a starving gang of children from the poor side of town, the 2013 debut novel, We Need New Names.
The book was shortlisted for the Booker prize and Bulawayo became both Zimbabwean to be in the last six. The book also picked up the Etisalat Prize for Literature, the LA Times First Fiction Award and the Hemingway Foundation / PEN Award.
Then there was silence, but in 2022, came her triumphant return with a second bold and unique novel, Glory. Taking three years to write and described as a “satire with sharper teeth, angrier, and also very, very funny” by the New York Times, her second book also went on to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize, giving her another moment in history as she appear on the list twice.
She is currently writing full-time so hopefully in the not-too-distant future, we can expect a third tome from her talented and thought-provoking pen.
NIGERIA ARTIST, NFT CREATOR
Jacon Osinachi Breaking Africa’s crypto boundaries
Africa is breaking boundaries in crypto space and Jacon Osinachi is at the forefront of the innovation. The crypto artist and NFT creator shot to fame last year when he became the Christie’s auction house in Europe. (NFT stands for non-fungible token – NFT art is a digitalised piece of artwork that a person has tokenised onto a blockchain.) Shades of Water London edition of the 1:54 African Art Fair, was inspired by the work of British artist David Hockney.
Prince Jacon Osinachi Igwe was born and raised in Nigeria’s south-eastern creating digital art on Microsoft Word after his father bought him a computer tried to sell his work he was met with rejection. But in 2017 he discovered he could sell NFTs using blockchain.
Before blockchain, limited edition digital prints would sell for as little as $60. At Christie’s, his work sold for more than $68,000. In September this year, he announced he would establish his own accelerator programme to onboard African creators and establish an enriched community in the NFT art world. Six accelerator winners, curated by Osinachi, will also be invited to exhibit two additional artworks at the SCOPE art show during Art Week Miami in December.
KENYA WRITER
Idza Luhumyo The incandescent storyteller
Born in Mombasa, Kenya, Idza Luhumyo trained to be a lawyer and worked as a screenwriter and copywriter but soon realised she had a special skill – the ability to entrance audiences across characters, time and landscape in her short stories. Luhumyo admits she enjoys the challenge of short story writing, something many writers say is harder than writing a full-length novel!
Inspired by the Kenyan coast and its people, her story, Five Years Next Sunday, is a tale inspired by old traditions and fears of witchcraft along the coastal towns of Kenya, which continues to this very day. It is a haunting, poetic and clever piece of writing.
Her work has been increasingly recognised in the last three years. In 2020 she was the inaugural winner of the Margaret Busby New Daughters of Africa Award. The prize, worth £20,000, covered all the tuition fees and accommodation costs involved in a Masters degree at the School of African and Oriental Studies in London, which has taken Luhumyo on a journey from which there is no turning back.
In 2021, her story won the Short Story Day Africa Award, resulting in it being published as part of an anthology, Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa (Catalyst Press), giving her a gateway to an international audience. 2022 saw further tributes to Five Years Next Sunday, and she was the proud recipient of the continent’s biggest literary prize for it, the 23rd AKO Caine Prize, where judges described her work as “incandescent”.
So where to now? Well, we do have a hint that she is about to disappear eagerly await.
NIGERIA MUSICIAN
Ayra Starr Aiming for the galaxy
Ayra Starr initially pursued a career as a model but when she started posting covers of tracks on her Instagram in 2019, she quickly gained a huge following. This brought her to the attention of Nigerian record executive Don Jazzy, and led to her signing to his label Mavin Records.
Three years later and the 20-year-old singer, who is Nigerian but was born in Benin, has shot to worldwide fame with a string of chart-topping hits.
In a recent interview, Starr said she turned to music as an escape after she was bullied at school because of her appearance. Moving between Nigeria and Benin due to her father’s business, she said that she often had a hard time would listen to Nicki Minaj on her way to school and stated that she would feel like “the second Nicki Minaj”.
Coming from a musical family, she would also make songs with her brother, Dami, to help her deal with life’s problems. She continues to write songs with her brother well into her professional career. Describing herself as a “celestial being”, it is very likely that Ayra Starr will soon shoot into the stratosphere of fame.
‘You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough’ – Ayra Starr
GHANA-UK ACTRESS
Adjoa Andoh Restless and talented - a force of nature
NIGERIA ART ENTREPRENEUR
Tokini Peterside Building Africa’s hottest art fair
NIGERIA FILM PRODUCER
Kene Okwuosa The great Nollywood mogul
Adjoa Andoh is at the forefront of reinserting Black people and culture into spaces where they have previously been denied. Starring as Lady Danbury series Bridgerton, she is among a host of black actors to break through to UK period dramas, which only a few years ago would not have been possible.
The series is set in the early 1800s in London high society – a clique that would have been mostly dominated by white socialites. The appeal of Bridgerton is that it puts Black actors in traditionally white roles, despite the historical inaccuracy. The producers have argued that there is no reason Black actors cannot play period drama.
Andoh grew up in Gloucestershire in the UK but her father was a journalist and musician from Ghana. She has had radio and theatre. In a recent interview, to be asked to audition for Bridgerton but later accepted the role if she could be herself: “a Black woman, not a Black woman pretending that she is white”.
A known workaholic, the multitalented and multi-disciplinarian has become an important voice in her industry and her voice carries, with producers and decision-makers seeking her advice. Tokini Peterside is one of the most recognisable names in the crossover between African art and business. Growing up between Nigeria and the UK, she initially pursued a successful career as Head of Marketing for Moët Hennessy in Nigeria.
In 2012, she founded TP-Collective, providing strategy, business planning and marketing consulting to luxury and culture businesses in Nigeria, such as ALARA, the David Adjaye-designed luxury concept store and Maki Oh, a luxury fashion designer.
In 2016, she launched ART X Lagos – Africa, which has since become one of the continent’s hottest art events. The fair has been described as “West Africa’s calling card for contemporary African art fairs” and has featured exhibiting artists and speakers such as Akunyili Crosby, Bruce Onobrakpeya and Barthélémy Toguo.
The art fair was such a success that in 2018, Peterside led the visiting French President Emmanuel Macron through a special exhibition of contemporary Nigerian art by ART X Lagos, as part of the ‘Celebration of African Culture’ hosted at the New Afrika Shrine in Lagos, to launch the African Cultural Season scheduled for France in 2020. Kene Okwuosa is the man behind the big screen in Nigeria. If you’ve seen a movie at Filmhouse Cinemas, the biggest cinema chain in West Africa, then you’ve been to one of his establishments. As the co-founder and group CEO, Okwuosa has helped roll out 15 cinemas across Nigeria, with plans to expand into other cities and West African countries.
An old hand in Nigeria’s movie industry, Okwuosa has been on the scene for more than 16 years. His and Production Limited, is one of the fastest-growing independent entertainment companies focused on content. Hollywood hits like Logan, Assassin’s Creed and Black Panther to Nigeria. It has also co-produced some of Nigeria’s highest-grossing movies including Merry Men 1 and 2, The Set-Up and The Wedding Party 1 and 2.
FilmOne also works in partnership content for the streaming platform) and, most recently, Disney (as its sole distributor in Nigeria, Ghana and Liberia).
SOUTH AFRICA DESIGNER
Thebe Magugu Decolonising design
Thebe Magugu is a South Africa-based designer who rose to prominence after 2021 International Woolmark Prize.
Since 2017, he has released 10 solo collections under his own- namesake label, as well as several collaborations with international brands such as Dior, Adidas and AZ Factory.
Originally from the small city of Kimberley, he moved to Johannesburg to study fashion design, fashion photography and fashion media. After winning the best graduate collection accolade, he interned and worked for a selection of designers, fashion institutions and retailers.
Speaking about his brand, the designer says, “together with our pillar values of quality, novelty and culture, we constantly seek new ways of presenting women with clothing that both complies with and enhances the everyday. Sleek, forward-looking design intersects with motifs from our continent’s storied past, providing smart, multifaceted clothes as valuable as their woman”.
Magugu’s Spring 2023 collection, titled Discard Theory, debuted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in October 2022 as part of London Fashion Week.
He was then enlisted by Italian fashion designer Maria Grazia Chiuru to reinterpret the ‘New Look’ for French luxury house Dior in a limitededition capsule collection, whose proceeds will go to the Charlize Theron Outreach Project.
NIGERIA GALLERY EXHIBITOR
Adenrele Sonariwo Artist on a mission
Returning to Lagos in 2010 after studying in the UK, Adenrele Sonariwo started small but dreamt big. She felt something was missing in the local art scene and so started an art popup gallery at her house, to showcase works of art to a younger audience at opened her own art gallery Rele in 2015. A year later, Sonariwo set up the Rele Arts Foundation, to provide mentorship, critique and weekly stipends to young artists.
But her ambitions didn’t stop there. In 2021, she opened a gallery in Los Angeles and in 2017 she co-curated Biennale, alongside writer Emmanuel Iduma. In a recent interview, Sonariwo says that she wants to use her platform to diversify the stories being told in Africa’s art world.
Before she worked in the art world, she was an accountant for PwC in the
US, but said she was drawn to the background in Nigeria – her late father was the 18th Akarigbo of
Remo, the traditional ruler of the 33 towns that make up the kingdom in Ogun state.
Sonirawo wants to use her gallery and the Rele Arts Foundation to diversify the stories being told in Africa’s art world.
NIGERIA WRITER
Ainehi Edoro and literary culture
‘There was a need for a place where we could talk about African literature in a fun and meaningful way‘ – Edoro on Brittle Paper
Ainehi Edoro is the founder of brittlepaper.com, a critically acclaimed literary blog for fans of African literature. Explaining how she came about the name, she explains: “The brittleness of paper evokes the ephemeral nature of literary work and ideas within the digital space... Brittle Paper is about documenting the life of texts within the social media space”.
According to Edoro, the dissatisfaction in sharing her literary thoughts with only her academic community was what led her to blogging. However, she stated that her objective was to “reinvent African
She is also an Assistant Professor of English at the University of WisconsinMadison in the US where she teaches and researches on African literature, political theory and literature in social media. Her research interest is centred on the form, theory, history, and culture of the novel as it emerged in Africa. She is working on a book titled Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think. The book argues that the African novel, at the moment of its inception, introduces
SOUTH AFRICA DJ
Black Coffee Master of the dance
introduction. South Africa’s hottest DJ has risen from small nightclubs in the early 2000s to packed stadiums across the world.
Born Nkosinathi Innocent big break as one of the participants in the Red Bull Music Academy in 2003, where he was introduced to the South African dance music scene.
He launched his career in 2005 with a remix of Hugh Masekela’s 1972 hit Stimela. Later that year he released his self-titled debut album and created his record company, Soulistic Music. The album sampled songs of notable South African artists like Thandiswa Mazwai, Hugh Masekela and featured Busi Mhlongo, among others.
He was well received in the country and was quickly lauded as a ‘rising star’. His album was created using very basic musicmaking software. Maphumulo himself stated that he created it with simple technology. seventh studio album Subconsciously won the award for Best Dance/Electronic Album last year, at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. He hopes that his success will inspire other African electronic music artists to break through onto the world stage.
NIGERIA AUTHOR, ARTIST
Eloghosa Osunde Awards galore for creative all-rounder
Eloghusa Osunde is a multidisciplinary artist and writer, but it took her a while she would write a book eventually but thought she was “too young to have anything to say”.
However, once she put pen to paper the accolades began rolling in. She was awarded a Miles Morland Scholarship Good Boy, which won the 2021 Plimpton Prize for Fiction but it’s her debut novel Vagabonds!, published this year by Riverhead Books (US), Fourth Estate the literary world ablaze.
It has received glowing reviews, been named a ‘Most Anticipated Book of the one of the best works this year by a host of major publications including Entertainment Weekly,British Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Goodreads, Brittle Paper, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, and more. Vagabonds! i who live in the margins of capitalist Nigeria.
Osunde is also a visual artist, director, producer and editor. Her art and photography overlap. She believes in pushing the limits of reality. Her visual art exhibitions have spanned the globe and her artwork can be seen on prints, fashion runways and book covers. Her writing has appeared at theatre festivals and in multiple international magazines.
SOMALIA ART FOUNDATION CURATOR
Sagal Ali Creating spaces for Somali art
Sagal Ali always felt it was a shame that Somalia did not have an organisation to promote its rich artistic heritage. So, the SomaliDutch national set up the Somali Arts Foundation in 2020 to support and promote Somali art.
She said she founded the institute “due to the overwhelming need for and absence of any spaces dedicated to contemporary art in Somalia”.
The institution hopes to leverage the arts to support young people and marginalised communities to express themselves creatively, while seeking to create initiatives that support the establishment of the creative industries.
Before Ali set up the foundation, she worked in the Horn of Africa for several years. She was the Cultural Heritage Expert Consultant on the Reviving Culture, Building Peace in Somalia project from 2015 to November 2017, where she designed and implemented numerous projects using art and cultural heritage as means to foster peace, dialogue, and selfexpression.
In November 2018, Sagal started to work directly with the Federal Government of Somalia, as the Senior Technical Advisor for Art and Heritage, and she was also the Deputy Secretary General of the Somalia National Commission for UNESCO.
NIGERIA - UK POET, PLAYWRIGHT
Inua Ellams Master of the old and the new
Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams has taken the UK performing arts world by storm, becoming one of its most recognisable renowned poet, playwright, performer, graphic artist and designer. The 14th Tale was awarded a Fringe First at the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival in 2019 and his fourth, Barber Shop Chronicles sold out two runs at England’s National Theatre. poetry collection and is working on several commissions across stage and screen. In graphic art and design, online and in print, he tries to mix the old with the new, juxtaposing texture and graphics. He lives and works from London, where he founded the Midnight Run, a nocturnal urban excursion.
Ellams has been recognised widely throughout his poetry career including with the Liberty Human Rights Award for An Evening with an Immigrant (2017), the Live Canon International Poetry Prize for the poem Shame is the Cape
I Wear (2014) and most recently, receiving the Hay Festival Medal for
Poetry for the collection The Half-God of Rainfall (2020).
CAMEROON ARTIST
Barthélémy Togou Spotlighting plight of migrants
SOUTH AFRICA CURATOR
Khanyisile Mbongwa Chosen to curate 2023 Liverpool Biennial
A graduate of the École supérieure d’Art de Grenoble, France and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany, Cameroonian-born Barthélémy Togou’s story.
Through his art installations, he displaced peoples, compelling his audiences to confront the uncomfortable spectres that are often just out of their line of vision
The painter, visual and performing artist believes art is a cultural weapon that can be used to shape society and his own work is an energetic attempt to bring that change.
In 2008, he unveiled the Bandjoun Station, an exhibition space, library, artist residency and organic farm that had taken him three years to build. The purpose is to provide a space that other artists can appropriate for their own purpose, thus providing an avenue for
In 2021, he added to his list of honours and decorations when UNESCO named him an Artist for Peace. This year, he was commissioned to produce The Pillar of Missing Migrants installation under the Louvre Museum’s Pyramid in Paris, bringing his message to a wider, critical audience. It seems certain that Barthelemy’s weapon of choice will not be blunted for a while yet.
He believes art is a cultural weapon that can shape society and his own work is an attempt to bring that change.
In appointing South African Khanyisile Mbongwa as curator of the 2023 Liverpool Biennial, the organisers of the UK’s largest contemporary visual arts festival were recognising the success shape cultural trends.
Those previous credits include the Stellenbosch Triennale, which she curated in 2020, and Puncture Points, where she is the curator in residence. She also co-founded and curates Twenty Journey.
Based in Cape Town, Khanyisile uses her projects to instigate and unlock artistic expressions of joy and play. The Liverpool Biennial will present her with another opportunity to explore her favoured themes.
The title, uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things, draws heavily from her own South African heritage and will allow her to explore the ways in which people’s notions of power change as they move around the world, while
If previous successes are any guide, the festival will enhance her global standing and focus attention on her chosen themes, which will ultimately the people whose stories and struggles inspire it.
‘I wasn't born black, but my experiences in the world have made me black and continue to remind me what that is.'
SOUTH AFRICA ILLUSTRATOR
Karabo Poppy Moletsane African aesthetic
Growing up in a small South African mining town, a career in art seemed the least likely option for someone like Karabo Poppy Moletsane, whose parents dreamt of her becoming a doctor one day.
She thought so too but the drive to create became too strong and she enrolled in a school which had art as a subject. Art was something that only rich people or White people indulged in, she thought, but persisted and discovered a whole new world of digital African representation.
Using the colourful illustrations found in barber shops as an style. The freshness of her approach and their power to communicate eventually brought international clients. She began to illustrated global brands like Nike, Google, The Wall Street Journal asked her to be the illustrator for their African stories.
With her exhibitions and tours within and outside Africa, Karabo Poppy Moletsane is being identity and the unique African aesthetic. that she will remain an increasingly Africa is seen by the world and more importantly, by itself.
With her exhibitions and tours, Karabo Poppy Moletsane is being recognised as a figurehead for Black identity and the unique African aesthetic.
