Jepchumba

I dream in digital

artist, curator, technologist

Jepchumba is a digital artist, farmer and cultural technologist. She has been listed by Forbes as one of the 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa (2012) and in the Guardian Africa’s Top 25 Women Achievers. A cultural ambassador, Jepchumba travels the world to promote the growth of creative technology in Africa. Bridging the gap between African art & tech, culture, and innovation, she is considered to be a pioneer in the African technology sector. She is the Founder of African Digital Art and Future Lab Africa. African Digital Art is an international award-winning platform that presents works of animation, AR/VR, digital painting and gaming, it functions as an online collective for digital artists from Cairo to Johannesburg, 

Selected Speaking Engagements

International Talks & Conferences

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The long & ambiguous (pre)history of audiovisual in the Black experience

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA

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Update or Die Conference

Phi Center & MIT OpenDocLab
Montreal, Cananda

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Sheffield Doc Fest

Future Lab Africa, Storytelling with Audio (Alternative Realities Summit)
Sheffield, UK

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Asking Why

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Creative Projects & Practice

African Futures designed by Ancestral Knowledge

Explorations in African digital practices through farming, forestry and ancestral knowledge. This project  is an initiation into radical imagination through African agricultural and technological practices.  This project seeks to recover some information about African knowledge systems in order to put to practical use the imagination
outside Western traditional understanding of technology.

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Creative Practice & Projects

African Digital Art

Founded in 2009, African Digital Art is an award winning platform. Showcasing the best in African Digital Art.

Creative Practice & Projects

COLAB NOWNOW

ColabNowNow unleashes the best skilled, dangerous minds from Africa to re-imagine future forms of African storytelling by creating an interactive and immersive experience. 10 artists and 5 storytellers from West, East, Southern Africa and the UK with multi-disciplinary talents will explore the creation of narratives in a post-screen, post digital world where non-linear is replaced by multi-linear, multi-modal, multi-layered and multi-access; content is scalable both fixed and mobile, across surfaces, across environments, across technologies for Africa!

Creative Projects & Practice

Future Lab Africa

audio african contemporary traditional sci-tech storytelling. Recepient of the Digital Lab Africa Award. This audio series hopes to breed curiosity by inviting the you to use your imagination and think creatively with reckless abandon. The series is a call to explore African modes of science and technology outside of lab spaces and innovation labs. We seek to find what does technology, science, nature, the environment and the nature of experimentation really mean in the context of African people’s lived realities.
 
 
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Exhibition

Post African Futures

Embarking on a profound exploration of African identity within the intricate nexus of art and communications technology, a visionary exhibition curated by Tegan Bristow emerges as a compelling challenge to conventional artistic paradigms. Delving into a meticulous survey spanning South Africa, Kenya, and glimpses of Nigeria, Bristow unravels a rich tapestry of artistic discourse that critically engages with the complexities of African identification and resists the homogenizing forces of globalized culture. In this digital odyssey, artists utilize technology not merely as a medium but as a metaphorical conduit, weaving a multi-faceted narrative that challenges prevailing perceptions. The digital realm becomes a conceptual framework, allowing creators to represent the unseen and the magical elements embedded in cultural practices while simultaneously serving as a poignant critique of Western systems of knowledge. In this exhibition, the metaphoric capacity of digital art transcends its utilitarian function, offering a space where the intangible aspects of African identity come to life, pushing against the currents of globalized homogeneity with profound artistic depth.

40 Under 40 ART & Tech

The eight edition of the Apollo Magazine project, the first to focus on the theme of Art & tech. It comes at a time when new technologies are transforming how art is made & experienced at an unprecedented pace – with artists playing a vital role in communicating, scrutinizing and taking creative advantage of these changes.

Jepchumba
Featured Articles

2016

As part of the Guardian’s series on technology in Africa, we meet 10 leaders of the continent’s digital transformation.

2015

ARTsouthAFRICA spoke with Jepchumba about “dreaming in digital” and the possibilities that lie ahead for digital art on the continent. This interview was published in full in the March 2015 Innovation Issue (13.3) of ARTsouthAFRICA magazine.

2015

Bubblegum Club interview with Jepchumba. Digital artist and curator Jepchumba describes this form of art as encompassing artwork whose production and presentation uses digital technology as an essential part of the creative process.

2015

Africa's top women achievers

The Guardian To celebrate international women’s day, we asked you to name women from across the continent who you feel deserve recognition. Here are your top 25.