Akwi Nji

In Living Color: Black Art in Iowa Festival
2025-26 Project Grant

In Living Color: Black Art in Iowa is a one-day, multidisciplinary festival celebrating the transformative power of Black artistry across the visual arts, movement, and storytelling. Scheduled for September 2026, the festival will nurture experimental, ephemeral, and connective modes of presenting art—blending gallery-style exhibitions with performance art, artist talks, live storytelling, and immersive audience engagement.

The project builds on Akwi Nji's past work producing interdisciplinary, artist-led experiences that blur boundaries between exhibition, performance, and storytelling. A pilot of In Living Color in 2022 transformed a residential home into a gallery space and drew more than 250 people from across the region. Beyond visibility, In Living Color aims to cultivate a sense of sanctuary and empowerment for Black artists and audiences. By pairing traditional exhibition formats with cross-disciplinary activations, it models new ways to present and nurture visual arts in Iowa and builds a replicable framework for artist-led community engagement.