PRESS & MEDIA
RECENT PRESS MENTIONS
“Foreget “to re-inherit yourself”. By trade, I am a crafter of words, but I have never imagined so shamanic a reworking of the verb forget. I am galvanized—and grateful.”
- EVA YAA ASANTEWAA, Imagining: A Gibney Journal, Imagining Digital
“...prolific Nigerian-American poet, curator, choreographer and performance artist’s new show explores the erotic fear associated with the black male body.”
- LIZZIE SIMON, WALL STREET JOURNAL
“A foray into the dramatic and vulnerable elements of identity”
- EFFIE BOWEN, INTERVIEW
“Jaamil Olawale Kosoko’s #negrophobia has many forms. It is an art installation, a practiced, choreographed performance, and a poetry reading. It is a personal story and a history lesson, told through the lens of internet culture. It might be consciousness-raising and Afrofuturist, but it might also be the negation of both.”
- KATHERINE BERGSTROM, POINT OF CONTACT
CURRENT PROJECTS
CHAMELEON (A VISUAL ALBUM)
GARMENTING: COSTUME AS CONTEMPORARY ART
PORTAL FOR(E) THE EPHEMERAL PASSAGE
BLACK BODY AMNESIA
OFFICIAL BIO
jaamil olawale kosoko is a multi-spirited Nigerian American author, performance artist, and curator of Yoruba and Natchez descent originally from Detroit, MI. Their book Black Body Amnesia: Poems and Other Speech Acts was released in Spring of 2022. kosoko is also a 2022 MacDowell Fellow, 2020 Pew Fellow in the Arts, 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Choreography, 2017-19 Princeton Arts Fellow, 2019 Red Bull Writing Fellow, 2018 NEFA NDP Production Grant recipient, 2017 MAP Fund recipient, and 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Fellow. Their creative practice draws from Black study and queer theories of the body, weaving together visual performance, sculpture, lecture, ritual, and spiritual practice.
Their live art works Chameleon (The Living Installments) premiered virtually in April 2020, Séancers (2017) and the Bessie nominated #negrophobia (2015) have toured internationally, appearing in major festivals including: Tanz im August (Berlin), Moving in November (Finland), Within Practice (Sweden), TakeMeSomewhere (UK), Brighton Festival (UK), Oslo Teaterfestival (Norway), and Zürich MOVES! (Switzerland), among others.
They are the author of two poetry chapbooks: Animal in Cyberspace and Notes on An Urban Kill-floor. Their poems and essays have been included in The American Poetry Review, The Dunes Review, The Broad Street Review, among others. Season 1 of his interview-based podcast, American Chameleon can be found on all podcast platforms.
kosoko lectures regularly at Princeton University, Stockholm University of the Arts, and Master Exerce ICI-CCN in Montpellier, France. In Fall 2020, they were appointed the Alma Hawkins Visiting Chair in the World Arts and Cultures Department at UCLA. Connect with jaamil on IG at jaamil_means_beauty
OTHER ARTICLES
The New York Times
Coming Soon to the Guggenheim: Words, Words, Words
Dance Magazine
“Jaamil Olawale Kosoko’s Career Presents a Syllabus for Change”
Staging Decadence
“Jaamil Olawale Kosoko - Staging Decadence”
Philly Magazine
”This Philly Performance Artist Just Scored a $75,000 Pew Fellowship”
NY Times
“This Artist Proposes a Community Space ‘To Dream, To Imagine’”
Artforum
"Red Bull Arts Detroit Announces Recipients of Expanded Residency and Fellowship Program"
The Dance Enthusiast
The Dance Enthusiast Asks Jaamil Olawale Kosoko about "Chameleon" as part of Live Feed at New York Live Arts
Columbus Underground
"“The body goes through incantations of itself” | Jaamil Olawale Kosoko Brings Séancers to the Wexner Center"
Wexner Center for the Arts
"WexCast: Jaamil Olawale Kosoko & André M. Zachery"
Riting
"Jaamil Olawale Kosoko in conversation with Tyler Matthew Oyer"
Brighton & Hove News
“Jaamil Olawale Kosoko - Séancers. Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts”
The New York Times
"Framing the Unruliness of Life and Loss in the Black Box"
READ MORE
American Theatre
"Beyond Whiteness: A January Festival Wrap-Up"
Culturebot Archive
