Nandi Jola: Telling Our Stories

How can we create art which includes all our stories?

Nandi Jola is a poet, storyteller and playwright, whose work explores themes of identity. Born in South Africa, Nandi moved to Northern Ireland in 2001. Her great passion is empowering young people from marginalised backgrounds through the arts.   For the last few years, she’s lived in Belfast, and funding from The National Lottery via the Arts Council of Northern Ireland has enabled Nandi time and space to write her work.

Game Changers host, Aimee Fuller - two-time Olympian, author and broadcaster - returns home to Northern Ireland. She meets Nandi at the Ulster Museum, where our Game Changer is about to become an Artist in Residence.  

They discuss the ‘Nandi J Project’, founded with the vision of tackling women trafficking and sexual exploitation, and telling their stories. And at the Ulster Museum, Nandi and Aimee immerse themselves in the collections. Nandi has been invited by the museum to adapt the exhibits – particularly those which are African in origin.

Finally, at the Crescent Arts Centre, as birds circle overhead, Nandi reads from one of her artworks on display – a poem and a mural, called Landing (Belfast), an imaginative exploration of migration and home.  

On the podcast we are also joined by Fergie, from the incredible Ouchhh studio. They are pioneers of data paintings & sculptures, using AI and Machine Intelligence, and have been commissioned to create a genuinely unique installation, inspired by the Game Changers in arts and film.

In a busy courtyard at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Fergie explains how he visited each of the National Lottery Arts & Film Game Changers, attaching sensors to them to measure their brainwaves as they were asked a series of questions.    

The resulting data has been used to create an installation which will transform the wall of the V&A museum into a living, breathing piece of art.

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Game Changers is brought to you by National Lottery players, who raise £30 million each week for good causes across the UK. For more information about projects that help ordinary people, visit: https://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk

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