The 2024 Norval Sovereign African Art Prize

Ashraf Jamal is the Writer-researcher for ArtBankSA, and a research associate in visual art and design at the University of Johannesburg. He has taught at universities locally and abroad the spheres of cultural studies, art history, performance, anthropology, and comparative literature. Jamal is the co-author of Art in South Africa: The Future Present and co-editor of Indian Ocean Studies: Social, Cultural, and Political Perspectives. He is the author of Love themes for the wilderness, The Shades, A million years ago in the nineties, Predicaments of culture in South Africa, IN the World: Essays on Contemporary South African Art, Strange Cargo: Essays on Art, and Looking into the mad eye of history without blinking. Cataract: Essays on Abstraction is forthcoming.

Heba El Kayal has recently been appointed Chief Curatorial Consultant at the Norval Foundation to lead the curatorial department. She is a curator, writer and researcher from Cairo, Egypt.

Heba gained a bachelor’s degree in English and comparative literature from the American University in Cairo, and a master’s degree in modern art history and curatorial studies from Columbia University in New York City. She is in the process of submitting a dissertation for an LLM Legal Studies and Legal Practice degree in England, examining a topic related to the intersection of art and law.

She has worked in various art-related capacities in Dubai, Beirut, New York, and London, amongst other cities, specializing in modern and contemporary art from the Middle East and North Africa. Heba has, over the course of her career, regularly consulted for auction houses and private collectors, working closely with both emerging and established artists from the region. Amongst her many recent curatorial endeavors was a selection of contemporary Egyptian artworks for the Strauss and Co. auction ‘Curatorial Voices: Modern and Contemporary Art from Africa’ in February 2023 as well as the critically successful exhibition at the Middle East Institute in Washington D.C. titled ‘Speaking Across Mountains: Kurdish Artists in Dialogue in the fall of 2019.’

Over the past fifteen years, she has sought to highlight emerging and established talent from across the continent while supporting the preservation of historical archives and advising in the creation of artist estates in the Middle East and North Africa.

Heba sits on the board of the non-profit organization ArteEast in New York.

Marie-Ann Yemsi is an independent curator and contemporary art consultant. A graduate in political science, she is the founder and director of Agent Créatif(s), a Paris-based agency, which has developed a renowned expertise in cultural production and art consulting with a focus on contemporary artists from Africa, its diasporas and the Caribbean. Artistic Director of the 11th edition of the Rencontres de Bamako – African Biennale of Photography in 2017, she has been the curator of numerous international exhibitions for public or private institutions, in France and abroad.

Marie-Ann Yemsi is a member of the board of directors of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and of the acquisitions commission of the Cnap – Centre National des Arts Plastiques, a public institution under the French Ministry of Culture dedicated to expand and manage France’s national contemporary art collection.

Ngaire Blankenberg is the founder and director of the Institute for Creative Repair- a new initiative that is working to repair individuals, communities, institutions and cities, through arts, culture and heritage. Previously, she was the Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (NMAFA)from 2021-2023. Under her leadership, Ngaire began transforming NMAFA into a 21st Century Global African Art Museum with a vision to contribute to more regenerative art ecosystems, underpinned by African philosophies. She was instrumental in issues of restitution; in her first year as director, she led the Smithsonian’s efforts to return the ‘Benin Bronzes’ in its collections back to Nigeria and was co-lead in the pan-Smithsonian Collections Stewardship Strategic Initiative.

Prior to joining the Smithsonian, she worked as a museum consultant, advising more than 55 cultural projects in 35 cities on 5 continents on all aspects of museological practice. In addition to museums, she has advised on integrating cultural spaces in cities and parks, developing art residencies, making archives accessible, engaging communities and decolonizing knowledge production. Clients have included Experience AlUla (Saudi Arabia), National Gallery of Canada, Superblue Miami, Museum and Archive of Constitution Hill (Johannesburg), the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, MEG—Musée d’ethnographie de Genève, Olympique de Marseille football club; Jewish Museum Berlin (Germany); International Rice Research Institute, (Philippines), the Barangaroo Delivery Authority (Sydney); the European Space Agency (Noordwijk); the Bangladesh Navy (Dhaka); the Canadian Museum of History (Ottawa); Dubai Arts and Culture Authority (Dubai); and more.

She is co-editor, with Gail Lord, of Cities, Museums and Soft Power (AAM Press 2015) which urges museums to play a more vital role in creating equitable, inclusive and empowering cities; and co-editor, with Ali Hossaini, of the Manual of Digital Museum Planning, (Rowman and Littlefield 2017) which provides practical guidance for cultural institutes to transform to reflect new digital realities.

Sean O’Toole is writer, editor and curator based in Cape Town. His books include the biography Irma Stern: African in Europe – European in Africa (2021) and short story collection The Marquis of Mooikloof and Other Stories (2006). He has edited three volumes of essays, including African Futures (2016) and The Journey (2020). His essays have appeared in monographs by, among others, Michael Armitage, David Goldblatt, Gareth Nyandoro, Brett Seiler, Penny Siopis and James Webb. He is a past editor of Art South Africa (now Art Africa) and co-founded the urban-affairs magazine Cityscapes. A working journalist principally focussed on art, photography and architecture, he has published well over 1000 news articles, reviews, features and commentary in print and online. His recent curatorial projects include Congress (2021) at Norval Foundation and Photo book! Photo-book! Photobook! (2022) at A4 Arts Foundation, both in Cape Town. He has adjudicated numerous awards, including the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, Daimler Award for South African Photography and Frieze Writer’s Prize. He is the founder of independent publisher Extemporary Press.