aKAZ!ATL intends to build awareness/synergy between innovative art and design coming out of urban African cities such as Dakar, Lagos, Accra, Johannesburg, and Maputo with similar initiatives incubating and transforming communities Atlanta. The African art and design will be curated, framed and situated in a narrative that tells a story of agency, confidence and pride. aKAZ!ATL in partnership with CARE’s Global Innovation Hub team, hopes to curate events that will build marketing opportunities and traction for a new narrative about Africa, one that is less about conflict, suffering and poverty and more about coping, resilience, innovation and transformational beauty. aKAZ!ATL hopes to build a client base for artists and designers from Africa among Atlanta art and design aficionados while also contributing to the mission of the CARE Innovation Hub focusing on becoming a valuable contributor to the community of Atlanta innovators trying to build an ever more inclusive, dynamic and yet global city.
Jumbe K. Sebunya
Jumbe recently retired from a long career in humanitarian assistance with organizations such as the UN, Save the Children Fund, The African Medical Research Foundation, CARE and ChildFund International. During the last ten years; he served as East and Southern Africa as well as West Africa Regional Director for ChildFund International.
His entire career was focused on the African continent and in particular on improving the livelihoods of the most marginalized communities in both rural and urban settings. Throughout his time living and working on the African continent and beyond, the resilience and sheer innovative power of individual lives and their adaption to often very challenging circumstances, stood out to him. He became interested, particularly in the work of artists and designers he encountered in the many African capital cities he worked in and visited. He watched in awe at how many of them built traction for their creations both in Africa and across the globe thereby really shifting the often negative narrative about the continent of Africa.
It is this traction that Jumbe would like to see happening in Atlanta. He hopes to have planted the first seed for this by opening aKAZ!ATL in the CARE Global Innovation Hub.
Anja Sebunya
Anja recently returned to Atlanta after three years of working in Dakar, Senegal. Anja is originally German. Her parents were global nomads and so she spent her childhood and adolescence between India and Pakistan. As an adult she has lived and worked in the UK, France Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Senegal. Anja and family moved to Atlanta in 2007. They quickly decided this vibrant and cosmopolitan city would be a good long term home. Anja has always been interested in themes of migration, notions of home, belonging and fusion of cultures. She is a closet writer, art collector, connector of people and ideas and an avid shopper with a great eye for the unusual. Opening aKAZ!ATL is a long term dream from which she hopes to situate and realize her many passions and interests.