The Winners of the Future Africa Grant for Extended Reality Creators have been announced by Africa No Filter and Meta.
Africa No Filter and Meta (Facebook.com) are pleased to announce the six finalists of the ‘Future Africa: Telling Stories, Building Worlds’ program, which aims to identify and invest in the continent’s next generation of Extended Reality (XR) artists.
The winners, who hail from Mozambique, South Africa, Nigeria, Mauritius, Cameroon, and Kenya, will use music, multimedia installations, films, and sculpture to explore spirituality, heritage, the cosmos, imagination and memory, and masculinity in their extended realities projects, all with a focus on telling compelling African stories that are contemporary, narrative-shifting, and immersive.
The six storytellers that will be taking part are:
Pierre-Christophe Gam, Cameroon: A multimedia artist who is working on a hybrid art project that combines virtual reality, cinema, photography, and mixed-media sculpture to envisage Africa’s future from the perspective of an African family in the year 2070.
South African Xabiso Vili: Vili’s visual album is a speculative fiction project that addresses reconciliation and healing. Vili is a writer, performer, and new media artist. Vili aspires to transform toxic masculinity into caring masculinity.
Nirma Madhoo, Mauritius: Nirma Madhoo’s work addresses African cultures as technology, which she displays through old techniques such as cultural astronomy.
Michelle Angawa, Kenya: This short tragicomedy covers a day in the life of a Nairobian boda boda rider, exploring desire and the complexity of Nairobian existence, and was created by a film editor and XR creator.
Nigerian multimedia artist Malik Afegbua is working on a virtual legacy experience of the Kofar-Mata dye pit, a cultural and historical monument in Kano.
Mozambique’s Lara Sousa: The journey of Lemanjá, the Afro-Brazilian goddess of wisdom, is used to investigate the ocean as a sacred site of spirituality in this film by a filmmaker and producer.
Each creative will be supported with up to $30,000 in financing as part of the ‘Future Africa: Telling Stories, Building Worlds’ program, as well as opportunities to attend XR-industry events to develop their creativity and drive interest in their projects. Electric South and Imisi3D will also provide mentorship.
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