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The Africa Institute is proud to announce its first cohort of Tejumola Olaniyan Creative Writers-in-Residence Fellowship as part of its African Languages and Translation Program for the year 2022.
This residency program is created in honor of the late Nigerian Professor Tejumola Olaniyan and his remarkable intellectual legacy in the field of African literature and critical theory. The residency grant is worth 45,000 AED in total inviting a competitive pool of applications from creative writers including novelists, short story writers, playwrights, poets, and scriptwriters related to Africa and the African diaspora.
The residents will work on their proposed projects for a period of three months in Sharjah, UAE.
The awardees for the 2022 Tejumola Olaniyan Creative Writers-in-Residence Fellowship are:
Leanetse Seekoe is an actress, playwright, director, and academic. She has an MA in English and Comparative Literature from the University of Fort Hare, and a BA in Theatre and Performance from the University of Cape Town.
In 2017, Leanetse wrote and directed 4 Cups and performed it as a one-hander at The Market Theatre Laboratory and The Plat4orm in Johannesburg, as well as the Theatre Arts Admin Collective in Cape Town. In 2018, the play was performed at the Pan-African Creative Exchange (PACE) in Bloemfontein and also at the Kuwamba Women’s Festival at the TX Theatre in Johannesburg. In 2020, Leanetse wrote and directed Ruth which she performed as a two women performance at the Vrystaat Kunstefees, as well as the TX Theatre in Johannesburg. In 2021, Ruth performed at the National Arts Festival Fringe and won the Silver Ovation Award. Leanetse also won a Goethe Project Space award for 4 Cups which was reworked as a four-woman performance and premiered at Moses Molelekwa Art Centre in 2022.
Her mission as a theater maker is to represent the subaltern from the perspective of black women. Through her writing, she attempts to regain the voices of black people by telling stories through the bodies of black women. Seekoe is keen to highlight themes such as feminism and mental health in the African community through storytelling, poetry, and movement to encourage the youth to become part of conversations around race and patriarchy in South Africa.
Ruun Nuur is an independent cinematic practitioner based in Columbus, Ohio. Her work and writing are hyper-focused on a Somali diasporic gaze with a keen interest in the practice of film preservation, more specifically, the African cinematic imagination. As a writer-in-residence, Ruun will examine the history of Somali cinema in the 20th-century tracing and detailing records of Somali film pioneers, their inspiration, collaborators, and the location of their work today.
She is the co-founder of No Evil Eye Cinema, a nomadic radical microcinema geared toward accessible film education and original programming. She is also the Managing Editor of “Field Notes,” a section of documentary-focused journal, Field of Vision. She’s served on the juries of Sheffield Doc/Fest, Indie Memphis and has been an invited guest speaker for Doha Film Institute, True/False Film Festival, New York Film Festival, and many more. Her essays and interviews have been published in Film Comment, i-D, DAZED, Hyperallergic and among other multimedia platforms. Her work has been profiled in Interview Magazine, NYLON, Brooklyn Rail, and more. She is currently shooting her debut feature-length documentary titled, ‘Cycles of Creation’ profiling the recovery and restoration of a long considered lost Somali motion picture alongside its director. Nuur has been awarded the 2022-23 Artist Award from Wexner Center for the Arts and is currently developing her debut documentary.
Sara Yassi is screenwriter and an aspiring author of Algerian heritage hailing from the East End of London. Sara draws heavy inspiration from her personal stories and particular interests in the female African diasporic experience, the concept of belonging through the paradigm of faith and identity as well as spirituality in and around the Indian Ocean. In 2021 she graduated with a BA (Hons) in Philosophy and Theology at the University of Oxford. During her studies she curated and taught summer workshops on Contemporary Sufism and The Nature of Religion at Pembroke College. Eager to combine the learned theory of her degree with her own creative praxis she then spent a year of further academic research and artistic exploration in Zanzibar, The Seychelles and The Maldives to pursue an understanding of localised interpretations of hierophanies and spiritual phenomena in the islands passed down through oral traditions. As a fellow, Sara will be working on her debut collection of short fiction based on her travels and findings. Her work will explore Generation-Z perspectives of diasporic African identity through themes self-love, belonging, and loss.
To learn more about the Tejumola Olaniyan Creative Writers-in-Residence Fellowship and the application process, visit here.
The Africa Institute is proud to announce its first cohort of Tejumola Olaniyan Creative Writers-in-Residence Fellowship as part of its African Languages and Translation Program for the year 2022.
The Africa Institute is proud to announce its first cohort of Tejumola Olaniyan Creative Writers-in-Residence Fellowship as part of its African Languages and Translation Program for the year 2022.
This residency program is created in honor of the late Nigerian Professor Tejumola Olaniyan and his remarkable intellectual legacy in the field of African literature and critical theory. The residency grant is worth 45,000 AED in total inviting a competitive pool of applications from creative writers including novelists, short story writers, playwrights, poets, and scriptwriters related to Africa and the African diaspora.
The residents will work on their proposed projects for a period of three months in Sharjah, UAE.
The awardees for the 2022 Tejumola Olaniyan Creative Writers-in-Residence Fellowship are:
Leanetse Seekoe is an actress, playwright, director, and academic. She has an MA in English and Comparative Literature from the University of Fort Hare, and a BA in Theatre and Performance from the University of Cape Town.
In 2017, Leanetse wrote and directed 4 Cups and performed it as a one-hander at The Market Theatre Laboratory and The Plat4orm in Johannesburg, as well as the Theatre Arts Admin Collective in Cape Town. In 2018, the play was performed at the Pan-African Creative Exchange (PACE) in Bloemfontein and also at the Kuwamba Women’s Festival at the TX Theatre in Johannesburg. In 2020, Leanetse wrote and directed Ruth which she performed as a two women performance at the Vrystaat Kunstefees, as well as the TX Theatre in Johannesburg. In 2021, Ruth performed at the National Arts Festival Fringe and won the Silver Ovation Award. Leanetse also won a Goethe Project Space award for 4 Cups which was reworked as a four-woman performance and premiered at Moses Molelekwa Art Centre in 2022.
Her mission as a theater maker is to represent the subaltern from the perspective of black women. Through her writing, she attempts to regain the voices of black people by telling stories through the bodies of black women. Seekoe is keen to highlight themes such as feminism and mental health in the African community through storytelling, poetry, and movement to encourage the youth to become part of conversations around race and patriarchy in South Africa.
Ruun Nuur is an independent cinematic practitioner based in Columbus, Ohio. Her work and writing are hyper-focused on a Somali diasporic gaze with a keen interest in the practice of film preservation, more specifically, the African cinematic imagination. As a writer-in-residence, Ruun will examine the history of Somali cinema in the 20th-century tracing and detailing records of Somali film pioneers, their inspiration, collaborators, and the location of their work today.
She is the co-founder of No Evil Eye Cinema, a nomadic radical microcinema geared toward accessible film education and original programming. She is also the Managing Editor of “Field Notes,” a section of documentary-focused journal, Field of Vision. She’s served on the juries of Sheffield Doc/Fest, Indie Memphis and has been an invited guest speaker for Doha Film Institute, True/False Film Festival, New York Film Festival, and many more. Her essays and interviews have been published in Film Comment, i-D, DAZED, Hyperallergic and among other multimedia platforms. Her work has been profiled in Interview Magazine, NYLON, Brooklyn Rail, and more. She is currently shooting her debut feature-length documentary titled, ‘Cycles of Creation’ profiling the recovery and restoration of a long considered lost Somali motion picture alongside its director. Nuur has been awarded the 2022-23 Artist Award from Wexner Center for the Arts and is currently developing her debut documentary.
Sara Yassi is screenwriter and an aspiring author of Algerian heritage hailing from the East End of London. Sara draws heavy inspiration from her personal stories and particular interests in the female African diasporic experience, the concept of belonging through the paradigm of faith and identity as well as spirituality in and around the Indian Ocean. In 2021 she graduated with a BA (Hons) in Philosophy and Theology at the University of Oxford. During her studies she curated and taught summer workshops on Contemporary Sufism and The Nature of Religion at Pembroke College. Eager to combine the learned theory of her degree with her own creative praxis she then spent a year of further academic research and artistic exploration in Zanzibar, The Seychelles and The Maldives to pursue an understanding of localised interpretations of hierophanies and spiritual phenomena in the islands passed down through oral traditions. As a fellow, Sara will be working on her debut collection of short fiction based on her travels and findings. Her work will explore Generation-Z perspectives of diasporic African identity through themes self-love, belonging, and loss.
To learn more about the Tejumola Olaniyan Creative Writers-in-Residence Fellowship and the application process, visit here.
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