Call for applications: Black Academy Creative Contest 2022

The selected theme for this year is Life Before Colonialism. This activity is implemented in the framework of the Black Academy project with the collaboration and support of the city of Mannheim and the Centre for International Cultural Education at the Mannheim Goethe-Institut.

The contest provides an opportunity to:

• Learn and share the diversity of pre-colonial societies (routines, community structures and roles, norms and values, spirituality, thoughts and wishes, languages, architectures, common day life, music, dance, etc).
• Encourage personal ancestral storytelling.
• Dismantle negative stereotypes and decolonising history and historiography through a creative approach, since the range of subtopics for each submission should be chosen freely by the contestant.

Process of participation

Applicants are expected to:

• Select a specific topic related to precolonial history. Try to be creative in their selection, and are encouraged to dig deeper into the history of their ancestors before colonialism. Research about the topic from various sources. These sources can include people in their communities, historical spaces, folklore, academic articles, forums, books, museums, etc.
• Select a format of submission. Participants can write a text, film a video or record an audio in which they explain their research.
• Submit their creative work on this Google form before 2 October. The work will be sent to the jury of this year’s contest, and participants will hear back from the organisers in October.

Length of the fourth formats

Text

This format encourages participants to write 1 000 words maximum. The format of the text should be in line with the participants’ topic of interest, so creatives should think about the ways which their selected format suits their knowledge and make use of this advantage. For instance, if a topic is about a specific person that lived before colonialism, then writing a diary entry might be a suitable format for highlighting your collected knowledge(s).

Art design

This format encourages creatives to design an art piece and describe and contextualise it with a text of 500 words. Participants should also send a picture or a short video of an art piece. Creating an art piece, for instance, a cartoon, allows participants to present their selected topic of interest in a more physical format. The art design must be of maximum 100mb.

Video

This format encourages participants to film a video for five minutes. The video should highlight their topic of interest. For instance, if a participant’s selected topic of interest is about pre-colonial architecture then filming the architecture for their video might be suitable. The video will be of maximum five min and 300mb.

Audio

This format encourages participants to record an audio of five minutes. Selecting the audio format opens the possibility to host, for example, the participant’s own radio show or include a short interview. For instance, if a participant’s selected topic of interest is about precolonial myths, then recording a story might be suitable. The audio will be five min maximum and 10mb in MP3 format .

Winners

The winners will be celebrated at a ceremony hosted by the Black Academy. The best submissions will be awarded with a certificate, prize money, a book and an audio book of their liking. Furthermore, the submissions will be published on the Black Academy website, and the winners are invited to present their work during future events. All participants will receive a certificate of attendance.

The ceremony to announce the winners of the contest will take place on the 29 October from 10am to 12pm (GMT+1).

“We encourage you to focus during this contest on the diverse spectrum of pre-colonial (hi)stories,” a statement reads. “Additionally, we invite you to become creative in your imagination by submitting to us your material in text, audio, photo collage or video format.

“History started way before colonialism took place. The theme of this year’s creative contest was selected because we want to highlight the diverse histories all over the world which are preceding colonialism. This is especially so because the pre-colonial histories of the Global South are still marginalised and perceived as the ‘’Other’’ by the dominant Eurocentric historiography and discourse.”

All enquiries should be emailed at info@black-academy.org.

View the original call here.