2024                        Open Society Foundations grant (to make Sweet Medicine)

2024                        Goethe-Institut Nigeria Support and Connect grant (to make Restful’s first print magazine)


2023                        Rising Star Award, S16 Film Festival (for You Matter to Me)
2023                        Abebi Afro-Nonfiction Award (for The Fire in My Memory)
2023                        Wasafiri life writing prize longlist  (for The Fire in My Memory)
2023                        Best of 2022 Economics Writing, The Republic Journal (for essay on Africapitalism)

2021                        Artist grant, under the ‘Creating Joy: Art, Refusal and the Worlding of Black Lives’ project (to make You Matter to Me)

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Previous Editorial/Research Jobs:

2024                        Project consultant for Archives of the Nigerian Left (nigerianradicalism.net) (3 months)
2021–2023           Freelance journalist 
2022                        Senior Editor at Tech Cabal (3 months)
2021–2022           Contributing writer at AMAKA Studio (on African women’s contributions in agriculture, art, tech & more)
2021–2022            Inaugural journalism fellow at African Arguments



Fellowships, Workshops & Residencies:

2024                        Zeitz MOCAA x University of Western Cape museum fellowship (did only 2/12 months, life happens)

2023                        Abebi Award Writing Residency, Lagos
2023                        New York Portfolio Review 
2023                        The Nlele Institute, Professional Photography Development Workshop, Lagos 
2022–2023           Shared Heritage Africa DOCOMOMO (African modernism) architecture research fellowship
2022–2023           SBMEN and Goethe-Institut Nigeria Art Writing and Criticism Workshop

2022                        Writer-in-Residence at Library of Africa and the African Diaspora, Accra
2022                        Lagos Photo Festival x Reuters Portfolio Review (best portfolio prize)

2021                        African Arguments Pilot Journalism Fellowship
2021                        Tampered Press Workshop with Lesley Nneka Arimah and Mamle Kabu
2021                        The Nlele Institute Portfolio Review
2021                        Introduction to Photographic Histories, The Photographers’ Gallery

2020                       SBMEN Creative Writing Workshop
2020                       For Creative Girls, Business Development mentorship with Hallie Haller

2018                        Arvon Foundation writers retreat with Malika Booker and Polar Bear
2018                        Photo Scratch portfolio review/exhibition

2017                        Apples and Snakes Writing Room with Roger Robinson
2017                        Writivism Emerging Writers program
2017                        Digital Photography Summer school, University of the Arts London

2016                        Youth Editorial Program at the Royal African Society’s Africa Writes



Selected Photo Publications:

2022                        Education of the Tumblr Girl-now-Artist (portrait/collage), HAPAX Issue 3
2022                        Black Women Photographers on International Women’s Day, The Guardian (print)
2019                        In The Hands of God We Rendezvous, Saraba Mag
2017                        Way of Seeing, Saraba Mag


Group Exhibitions:

2022                      Cosmos of Space, of Place and Time (Nlele Institute), Recontres de Bamako
2021                       The Wrong Biennale (curated by olakiitan adeola, ftbc)
2018                       Off the Track Festival, Battersea Arts Centre
2018                       QM Visual Arts Collective show, Hundred Years Gallery

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Academic background:  


BA  History and Comparative Literature, QM University of London

• history dissertation on the consequences of The Brussels Conference Act of 1890 on colonial state priorities and anti-colonial resistance in the use of firearms and liquor in southern Nigeria 1890-1969
  
• literature dissertation on writing tyranny on the body in Kafka’s ‘In the Penal Colony’ and Uzoma’s ‘Quasi School of Taught’
  

MSt Global and Imperial History, University of Oxford

• dissertation on the economic lives and thought of Kumasi market women 1970-1995
  
• long essay on time, temporality and anti-colonial movements in Nigeria 1900-1945

Conference Presentations:

• Aug 2021                               ‘Politics of control and consumption of colonial commodities: guns and alcohol in Southern Nigeria (1890- 1945),’ Institute of Historical Research (IHR London) Graduate Conference.
  
  
• Jan 2019                               ‘Economic nationalism and masculinities in late colonial Nigeria,’ Africa and World War II conference, Queen Mary University of London.
  

Panels:

• July 2024                               Breaking New Ground in Igbo Language Cinema, Centre for Memories/NZUKO, Enugu.
• September 2023                  Policy in Context: Africa’s Cost of Living Crisis, The Africa Centre, New York

Workshops facilitated:

• Nov 2021                                 Oral History training session Nigerian Railway Heritage Project, run by Nigerian Railways Corporation/University of Oxford/Legacy 1995.   (press)
• Dec 2021                                      Doing Oral History at Home, Crater Literary Festival, Enugu.

Academic Publications:

• Abba, I. (2022). Conflicting Temporalities in the Struggle for Independence in Late-Colonial Nigeria (1945-1960). KUJUA: Journal of the African Studies Students' Association 2022, 2(1), 8-28.
  

                        Access my paper directly through this link.