Extended Reality Creators get $30K Africa No Filter and Meta Grant

Mar 15, 2022

Africa No Filter, in partnership with Meta, Electric South and Imisi 3D are awarding African Extended Reality Creators with up to $30,000 in grants to support the production and development of new content.

Six creators are winners of the ‘Future Africa: Telling Stories, Building Worlds’ programme. The program focuses on harnessing and investing in the next generation of Extended Reality (XR) creators and ecosystems in Africa.

The winners come from Mozambique, South Africa, Nigeria, Mauritius, Cameroon, and Kenya. They will incorporate the creative uses of music, multimedia installations, films and sculpture in their work. To explore projects around spirituality, heritage, the cosmos, imagination and memory and masculinity into their extended realities projects. All with a focus on telling compelling African stories that are contemporary, narrative-shifting, and immersive.

Each creator will get funding of up to $30,000. Participate in XR-industry events to improve their creativity and showcase their projects. They will also access mentorship from Electric South and Imisi3D. 

It’s reassuring to see the amount of incredible XR talent on the African continent, says Jessica Hagan, Arts and Culture Program Lead at ANF. “The creativity and innovation we encountered in the selection process has been very exciting. It shows that Africa is also on the pulse of global innovation and tech trends that are redefining how stories are told and experienced. XR content creation is costly, but African creators are not falling behind,” she adds.

Extended Reality Creators Africa

The six Extended Reality Creators are: 

  • Pierre-Christophe Gam, Cameroon: A multimedia artist who is working on a hybrid art installation that fuses VR, film, photography, and mixed-media sculpture to imagine the future of Africa from the perspective of an African family living in 2070.
  • Xabiso Vili, South Africa: A writer, performer and new media artist. Vili’s visual album is a speculative fiction piece that explores reconciliation and healing. Vili hopes to turn toxic masculinity into compassionate masculinity.
  • Nirma Madhoo, Mauritius: A fashion filmmaker, XR creator and Ph.D. candidate. Her work explores African cultures as technologies, which she illustrates through ancient practices like cultural astronomy. 
  • Michelle Angawa, Kenya: A film editor XR creator. This creation centres around a short tragicomedy that depicts a day-in-the-life of a Nairobian boda boda rider. Exploring desire and the complexities of Nairobian life. 
  • Malik Afegbua, Nigeria: A multimedia artist who is curating a virtual heritage experience of the Kofar-Mata dye pit, a cultural and historical site in Kano, Nigeria.
  • Lara Sousa, Mozambique: A director and producer. This creation uses the journey of Lemanjá, the Afro-Brazilian goddess of wisdom, to explore the ocean as a sacred site of spirituality.

This specially curated program is an opportunity to support African storytellers who are leveraging the power of the next evolution of social technology. Whilst also shining a spotlight on the amazing, creative, and diverse talent pool we have here on the continent. We understand the power of Extended Reality and how it can be used to tell stories that shift narratives about and within the continent. We’re excited to see these visions come to life.”

Sherry Dzinoreva, Meta’s Public Policy Programs Director, Africa, Middle East, and Turkey

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