Daring, inventive and multi-talented, Jamal Ademola is an award-winning Nigerian-American artist and film director whose oeuvre traverses a kaleidoscope of disciplinarity, working across film, video, animation, painting, installation, acting and performance. Through this comprehensive repertoire, Ademola embarks on a captivating exploration of Blackness that resonates deeply with the human experience by investigating identity, memory, language, dreams, ritual, love and myth. International audiences have been spellbound by Ademola's previous works, such as "I Dreamed of Seeing Myself", "Who Should I Be in the World?," and "I Forever Am", which have been showcased at esteemed galleries, institutions and festivals, such as the Black Cultural Archives in London (2023), the Soho House Screening Room (2023), the Alchemy Film & Arts Moving Image Festival (2023) (2022), the Kala Art Gallery (2022), The New School (2022) and Untitled, (AWCA) White Space Creative Agency in Lagos, Nigeria (2021).
Beyond his work as a visual artist, Ademola has also performed as an actor, gracing the screens of acclaimed TV series like "Your Attention Please" on Hulu and the enthralling "Ten Cent Daisy," streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Tubi. In addition to working on commercials, Jamal is the creative director of "The Blind Couple from Mali", an upcoming feature documentary film about Grammy nominated musicians Amadou & Mariam, directed by Ryan Marley and produced by Katie Lafferty. Recognitions, grants and honors have followed Ademola on his artistic journey, affirming the vitality of his contributions at the intersection of art and cinema. Notable among these are the 2021–22 Kala Media Art Award, the 2022–23 PAM CUT Sustainability Labs Fellowship, the 2023 Black Experience on Xfinity Grant from Comcast (NBCUniversal), and being shortlisted for a 2023 JustFilms grant from the Ford Foundation—a testament to Jamal's ability to make socially engaged work with meaning. Ademola has attended artist residencies at highly coveted institutions like the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Kala Art Institute, Pocoapoco, Caldera Arts and now the Sitka Center for Art & Ecology.
During his time at the Sitka Center, Jamal will prepare for a solo exhibition and work on two of his most ambitious projects, a feature film titled "Ellas Vinieron de Las Nubes," which is currently in production. This groundbreaking hybrid docu-fiction film about the Afro-Mexicans of La Costa Chica, Oaxaca, promises to push the boundaries of non-fiction storytelling, deftly blending reality and imagination to create an experience that is both thought-provoking and other-wordly. Additionally, deeply inspired by writer and Elder Malidoma Patrice Some, Ademola will work on a visual autoethnographic feature film project titled "Pieces of You," a love letter to Nigeria and a personal exploration of the African diaspora, using his dual heritage as Nigerian and Black-American as a qualitative method of inquiry to probe the African psyche across continents and all its delicate contents.
Poetry and Pulchritude ensue.
