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Home • ESSENCE Africa

We're Still Celebrating Nigerian Artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby Receiving A MacArthur 'Genius' Grant

We're Still Celebrating Nigerian Artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby Receiving A MacArthur 'Genius' Grant
loliputa/Getty Images
By Luso Mnthali · Updated October 26, 2020

Nigerian visual artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby, was recently one of 24 recipients selected to receive a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, also known as a ‘Genius’ grant.

The fellows are each awarded $625,000 and are unrestricted in what they choose to use it for. Fellowships are bestowed upon “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Njideka Akunyili Crosby (@njidekaakunyilicrosby)

The 34-year-old Los Angeles resident said she wasn’t seeing images of a country she recognized once she moved to the United States and aims to create work that works on multiple levels.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Njideka Akunyili Crosby (@njidekaakunyilicrosby)

“I use my work to explore the spaces where disparate cultures overlap, really mining my story or my history as someone who grew up in a very small town, moved to a big city in Nigeria, and then eventually moved to the United States and really thinking of people who inhabit spaces like that,” she said in a video shared by the MacArthur Foundation. “So thinking of post-colonial spaces and immigrant spaces, spaces where multiple cultures come together.”

Crosby says she hopes to share her own unique experiences while also giving others a taste of her reality through her art.

“What I’m doing is mining my life to tell a story that is global but really wanting people to feel like they’re getting a glimpse into my world”

The MacArthur Genius grant is given over a period of five years. Notable recipients previously awarded with the coveted grant include writer Chimamanda Adichie, who received the grant in 2008.