In June 2025, Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation, in partnership with the Yinka Shonibare Foundation (Y.S.F.), launched The Short Century Intensive, a fellowship designed to support artistic and scholarly inquiry into the cultural and political histories of the mid to late 20th century. As the second chapter of Re:assemblages, a dynamic, multi-year programme designed to foster collaboration and experimentation across postcolonial art archives and library collections, the intensive is anchored by Okwui Enwezor’s seminal 2001-2002 exhibition The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945–1994, which examined the intersections of art and politics during a period of intense struggle and transformation across Africa. Taking this archive as a provocation, the intensive asks: what forms of relation, refusal, and repair remain possible in the afterlives of this compressed century?
Following a nomination process of 16 applications, the final selection was made through an internal review led by Y.S.F. & G.A.S. Associate Curator and Archivist Naima Hassan, Guest Curator Maryam Kazeem, Y.S.F. Trustee and curator Ann Marie Peña, G.A.S. Executive Director Moni Aisida, G.A.S. alumna and London-based ethnobotanist Jonn Gale, CEO of G.A.S. and Y.S.F. Belinda Holden, Y.S.F. Head of Philanthropy Siti Osman, and Y.S.F. Communications and Projects Manager Magda Kaggwa. We are grateful for their time and thoughtful engagement throughout the process.
Today we are pleased to announce the Short Century Intensive Fellows: Cosmo Whyte, Miatta Kawinzi, Najha Zigbi-Johnson, Pujan Karambeigi, and sadé powell.
Over the course of six months, the five selected participants will engage in a series of virtual intensive sessions, an in-person convening in Lagos, and contribute to the Re:assemblages Symposium and a corresponding chapbook. Through these activities, fellows will critically engage with and expand upon Enwezor’s framework by foregrounding the cracks, silences, and gaps within the official records of The Short Century. Through collective research, discussion, and production, the fellowship invites them to navigate and explore these spaces through multiple lines of thought, ones rooted in care, criticality, and experimentation.
The Short Century Intensive is made possible through the generous support of the Terra Foundation for American Art. We look forward to seeing the remarkable contributions these talented individuals will bring to the evolving conversations around archives, liberation movements, and cultural production across Africa and its diasporas.
ABOUT THE FELLOWS
Cosmo Whyte
Cosmo Whyte is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His interdisciplinary practice explores interstitial subjectivity through engagement with personal and public archives. He positions the archive as both a threshold and a site of disruption, interrogating its boundaries and challenging distinctions between what is preserved and what resists containment. Whyte has received the Art Matters Award and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (both 2019), the Working Artist Award and The Drawing Center’s Open Sessions Fellowship (2018), the Artadia Award (2016), and the Edge Award (2010).
His work is included in the collections of the High Museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, National Gallery of Jamaica, International African American Museum, Picker Art Gallery (Colgate University), the 21c Collection, the Hallmark Art Collection, and the Speed Art Museum.
Photo of Cosmo Whyte. Image courtesy of Matthew Kroening.
Miatta Kawinzi
Miatta Kawinzi is a multi-disciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, researcher, writer, and educator. Her practice explores cultural hybridity, personal and collective memory, home, belonging, and the poetics of freedom dreaming across African/Diasporic imaginaries, geographies, and temporalities. Of Liberian and Kenyan heritage, she is based in New York. She holds an MFA in Studio Art from Hunter College.
Her work has been presented at Smack Mellon, Knoxville Museum of Art, the Africa Center, Des Moines Art Center, PS122 Gallery, Pan African Film Festival with LACMA, ICA LA, CUE Art Foundation, New Orleans Film Festival, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. She is the recipient of the 2024 Creative Capital Award, 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Work, and 2021-23 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship. Select residencies include Àsìkò Art School (CCA, Lagos & ARD; Cairo), Smack Mellon (NY), MacDowell (NH), Cité internationale des arts (Paris), and the Bag Factory (Johannesburg).
Photo of Miatta Kawinzi. Image courtesy of the artist.
Najha Zigbi-Johnson
Najha Zigbi-Johnson is a writer, educator, and cultural organizer. Her Harlem-based practice explores the intersections of contemporary Black art, the built environment, and social movements. She is the editor of Mapping Malcolm, a transdisciplinary publication that engages the legacy of Malcolm X in the built environment. Najha’s work has been published by New York Magazine, Artforum, SEEN Journal, Essence, White Cube Gallery and more. Najha was raised in and currently resides in Harlem. Najha is a graduate of Guilford College and Harvard Divinity School, and was subsequently a Research Fellow at the Graduate School of Architecture Preservation and Planning at Columbia University.
Photo of Najha Zigbi-Johnson. Image courtesy of Dondre Stuetley.
Pujan Karambeigi
Pujan Karambeigi is a PhD candidate in art history at Columbia University and the 2024–25 Mellon-Marron Research Consortium Fellow at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). His research focuses on institutional histories of art, with particular attention to how art became a tool for nation-building in the context of postwar decolonization. He is the editor of downtowncritic.net, a former contributing editor at Jacobin, and his writing has appeared in Art in America, Texte zur Kunst, ARTMargins, Mousse Magazine, Artforum, and other publications. He has curated exhibitions at ISLAA New York, the Wallach Art Gallery, and Felix Gaudlitz.
Photo of Pujan Karambeigi. Image courtesy of Marcin J. Muchalski and Diamond Shot Studio.
sadé powell
sadé powell is a concrete poet from New York City, exploring performative writing through experimental print and paper techniques. inspired by her upbringing, she uses the sonic, kinesthetic, and linguistic elements of her 1930s royal typewriter to deploy dissemblance as black feminist poethics. she is a 2025 Jerome Fellow in Literature and holds an MA in Performance Studies from NYU Tisch School for the Arts. she is the author of periodluv(Belladonna* Collaborative), and her chapbook wordtomydead (Ugly Duckling Presse) received the 2025 Anna Rabinowitz Award. her debut poetry collection dontbeabitterbtch is out now with Selva Oscura Press.
Photo of sadé powell. Image courtesy of Chris Cuadrado.
Re:assemblages 2025–26 is generously supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art and Afreximbank under the auspices of the Afreximbank Art Program.
