Asmaa Jama is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and filmmaker.
Asmaa's first film work Before We Disappear (2021), was an interactive moving image piece commissioned by BBC Arts, followed by The Season of Burning Things (2021), in collaboration with Gouled Ahmed, commissioned by the Bristol Old Vic (2021) and Except this time nothing returns from the ashes (2022), commissioned by Spike Island. Their work has also been presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale in collaboration with the Goethe Institute and Theatre Neumarkt’s 100 Ways to Say We Programme (2021), and was the official selection at Blackstar Film Festival, Aesthetica Film Festival and Sharjah Film Platform 5 (2022).
Jama’s writing has been commissioned by Jerwood Arts, Hayward Gallery, Arnolfini and Ifa Gallery, Berlin. Their written works have been published in places like The Poetry Review, Nataal and Magma. In theatre, they have written for and performed in Dorothee Munyaneza’s Mailles, and recently wrote for Radouan Mrziga and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s piece Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione.
Jama is the winner of the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize (2024) and was commended for the Brunel African Poetry Prize (2022); and shortlisted for the New Poets Prize (2022) Queen Mary Wasafiri Writing Prize (2021); James Berry Poetry Prize (2021); To Speak Europe in Other Languages prize (2020), and longlisted for National Poetry Competition ( 2021 ) and is a Cave Canem Fellow. Jama was also an artist-in-residence at, Callie’s Berlin (2022), the School for Sonic Memory, Mucem/Onassis Stegi (2022) and In Between Time Festival, Bristol (2019).
They were a Film London FLAMIN fellow (2022); a resident artist at Somerset House Studios and a Barbican Young Poet.
︎ ︎
