Mentorship Program for East African Curators

Program Dates: January-June 2025

Photo: Njabala Foundation

Program Overview

ICI, in partnership with Njabala Foundation and AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, is offering a 6-month mentorship program for emerging female-identifying curators based in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, themed “Curating as multiplying mediation and access to culture.”

The mentorship aims to support emerging arts workers by creating a platform to develop their practice, gain resources, enhance research and discourse, and engage with established curators from East Africa and beyond. Offering opportunities to develop tools and actions to raise awareness about gender issues in the East African context, the program will support a new generation of cultural workers sensitive to the place of women artists and augment the agency of female-identifying artists, curators, and educators in the region and globally.

Over the course of the program, each participant will meet with their mentor monthly between January and June 2025 to workshop a proposal for an exhibition or similar project and to receive individual feedback on their curatorial practice. Mentorship sessions will take place virtually, though participants will be invited to Kampala, Uganda for a midpoint, in-person group meeting to connect with the other participants and mentors.

This opportunity is available to female-identifying cultural workers based in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Applicants should have 3+ years of experience curating, working in the arts, or working with artists.

Mentees

Applications are now closed. Successful applicants will be announces here.

Mentors

Rose JepKorir Kiptum

Rose Jepkorir Kiptum is the co-curator of Wanakuboeka Feelharmonic, Naijographia, and 28 Words in Maputo.

Partners

Independent Curators International(ICI)

Independent Curators International supports the work of curators to help create stronger art communities through experimentation, collaboration, and international engagement.

https://curatorsintl.org/about/

AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions

AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions is an NGO created in 2014 that works towards making women artists of the 18th to 21st centuries visible by producing and sharing free bilingual (French/English) content about their work on its website, organizing events and editing its own printed publications.

https://awarewomenartists.com/en/