Culture & Development Journalist

Email me for projects and commissions on
what art/culture, ideas and infrastructure have to do with socio-economic living standards in West Africa.


Development

2023                Can Green Hydrogen tackle Nigeria’s persistent energy poverty?, Unbias the News

Following a recent green hydrogen partnership between Germany and Nigeria, we need to consider three issues: energy poverty and development in Nigeria, green hydrogen as a climate-friendly option in Nigeria’s infrastructural development, and the terms of the Germany-Nigeria partnership.


2022                Will Africapitalism Save Africa?, Le Temps 


Our current economic system needs to go beyond the Africanisation of an exploitative system. It needs to foreground collective responsibility instead, be vigilant about closing the inequality gap and commit to the welfare of all workers, consumers and the environment.
(This op-ed was featured as part of a debate series, alongside Tony Elumelu, Khadija Sarife (South African investigative reporter) and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira (Professor of Politics and IR, Oxford).

Listen to me talk more about Africapitalism on the Nigerian Scam podcast, following my essay in The Republic.


2022                Nigeria: The Cautionary Tale of the Strike that Never Was, African Arguments


Just days before #EndSARS, Nigeria’s labour congress disappointed many by calling off what had promised to be a similarly momentous protest.


2022                What will it take for monthly rent to work in Nigeria?,  African Arguments


Nigerians currently have to shell out a whole year’s rent in advance. Many renters want this to change, but landlords will need reassuring.


2021                 Dispossess: Evictions for Development?,  Heinrich Böll Stiftung

As Lagos pushes to become a 'world-class' city, gentrification increases with more low-income residents being displaced under the pretext of 'public interest'. This research summary explores how evicted victims are impacted and its implications on trade and the Lagos economy.




Art & Culture

2023                 Wana Udobang’s Gospel of FreedomThe Republic

With over 15 years of a trailblazing storytelling career across journalism, performance poetry, filmmaking and TV, Wana Udobang is one of the poets who revitalized the Nigerian poetry landscape in the last decade. I spoke to Udobang about emotional abandonment, the body as subject and object, the power of re-imagining personal and collective histories, the Nigerian creative/cultural industry, her role in shifting the culture towards greater levels of vulnerability and accountability, and more.


2023                 What is Afro Indie music?, Okay Africa

“It’s not a genre, but a soundscape,” says the artiste Tommy WÁ.
Despite the lack of African representation on the global indie scene, African platforms like the Ghanaian harmattan rain and the Kenyan Café Ngoma have been consistent in their underground efforts at categorising and platforming this sonic landscape. And with good reason: this is a soundscape that expands our understanding of the influences acting upon 21st century Africans and our imagination of what sound on the continent can do.



The idea that situating the portrait of a ruler next to the memorial of his conqueror–in a bastion of the conqueror’s empire–gives the portrait teeth to bite the conqueror’s history is a dangerous illusion.



I spoke with Rakeb Sile of the Ethiopian art gallery Addis Fine Art, Aziza Balogun and Sosa Omorogbe of the Nigerian Sabo Art Advisory, Sakhile Matlhare of the Frankfurt-based Sakhile & Me gallery, Teesa Bahana of the independent non-profit 32° East|Ugandan Arts Trust, Nigerian artist Yadichinma Ukoha-Kalu and Egyptian artist Heba Khalifa. The reverberating message from these women is: “we can make the contemporary art industry work for us too.”








Creative Writing 🫧


Essays
2022                       Whom Did He Love?,  The Brooklyn Rail (Critics Page)

In this short essay,  I looked for my grandfathers in the tender face of a young man photographed in 1911 by N. W. Thomas, the official anthropologist of the British Colonial Office. I use an experimental memoir approach to discuss the socio-political context and consequences of the photo.  Listen to me and other November issue critics talk about our contributions here.

2022                        Feature, Tender Photo Journal

“... Forty years later, some photographer is still writing about the afterlife of that 2-year existence because we still need that mill and its ghost will have to suffice in the meantime. Just like, you know, my parents gave birth to their first son and after eleven years, he died in an avoidable plane crash (no water & electricity at the airport, ignored warnings, etc.).
Twenty years later, the same photographer is still writing about the afterlife of that boy because we still need him and so his ghost...”

2022                        Still in Enugu, Lolwe

“But then years passed, and between school terms in Abuja and holidays spent in the village, I was not able to make friends in Enugu. The city began to feel like a party I could not attend. And then, more years passed, and I saw that there was no party in the first place.”

2022                        Finding Belonging in London, In Real Life by The Photographer’s Gallery, UK
2022                        Time and the 1947 Abeokuta Women’s Revolt, History Workshop
2019                        In the Hands of God, We Rendezvous, Saraba Mag                    
2018                        Me, My Body and I, Popula


Fiction
2022                        Why Had They Never Left?, Michigan Quarterly Review (mixtape)



Poetry
2019                        Sasha Fierce asks ‘Why Don’t You Love Me?’, Lunch Ticket
2018                        Another Day, Nanty Greens



Full writing portfolio here.



Awards
2023                         Best of 2022 Economics Writing, The Republic Journal (for essay on Africapitalism)


Writing workshops/fellowships

2022-2023           SBMEN and Goethe-Institut Nigeria Art Writing and Criticism Workshop
2022                        Writer-in-Residence at Library of Africa and the African Diaspora, Ghana
2021                        African Arguments Pilot Fellowship (one in six, out of 500 applicants)
2021                        Tampered Press Workshop with Lesley Nneka Arimah and Mamle Kabu
2020                       SBMEN Creative Writing Workshop
2018                        Arvon Foundation writers retreat with Malika Booker and Polar Bear
2017                        Apples and Snakes Writing Room with Roger Robinson
2017                        Writivism Emerging Writers program
2016                        Youth Editorial Program at the Royal African Society’s Africa Writes


Previously

2022                       Senior Editor at Tech Cabal (Africa’s leading technology publication)
2021 - 2022        Contributing writer for AMAKA Studio (where I wrote about African women in the business of agriculture, art, tech & more)
2021                       Inaugural freelance journalism fellow at African Arguments



Email me for projects and commissions on 
what art, culture, and ideas have to do with socio-economic living standards in West Africa.

Copyright - Immaculata Abba (2017 - 2023)