Vincent Kolo, has won the $50,000 Nefertiti grand prize for creativity during a virtual festival as part of the African Union & Afrochampions inaugural Africa Integration Day Creative Challenge celebration.
Vincent Kolo won the visual art category with his artwork ‘The Cords of Yesterday’.
Sponsored by Afreximbank and Commercial International Bank, the Grand Prize was awarded for work that passionately highlights the contemporary quest for Africa to learn from its past, take charge of its present and build its own unique vision of a united, prosperous, future. Its thematic essence is: the Africa we Want, the AU’s Agenda 2063 grand slogan.
The Africa Integration Day, which is celebrated every July 7, was initiated in 2019 during African Union’s summit on African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to popularise economic integration across the continent as a lever of inclusive sustainable development.
The festival, dubbed “The Boma of Africa” is a series of insightful convening with creative arts challenge to drive the ‘African Integration’ agenda, exploring themes such as “African unity is about difference, African science is universal science, Africa’s future is in its past and Globalisation is Africa’s friend,” a statement by organisers of the event said.
The chairman, AfroChampions executive committee, Edem Adzogenu, commended winners in all categories of the creative arts challenge that included literature, cinematography, culinary art, visual art, fashion and craft.
Additional winners of the Creative Challenge were announced:
- H.E Bineta Diop, the African Union Special Envoy on Women, Peace and security, awarded the USD$15,000 Prize for Social Justice, sponsored by MTN, to Sinenkosi Msomi for work that draws on themes of social change, justice, inclusion, equity, equality, struggle, and anti-oppression
- Dikembe Mutombo, global basketball icon, awarded the USD$10,000 Prize for African Renaissance, sponsored by ADS Group, to Bertha Munthali for work that draws on themes of development, knowledge, innovation, integration, ingenuity and transformation.
- Ghanaian Poet based in London, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, awarded the USD$5,000 Prize for Literary Excellence, also sponsored by Afreximbank, to Peter Wambua for literary achievement in prose and poetry that opens up new vistas of African possibility.
