With nearly 70 applications received in response to the Artists’ Call it was a (welcome) challenge for the judges to select the artists. The ten shortlisted could all have made a contribution to Full Stack Feminism but ultimately they felt that Jamila and Roibí have lived experience and ways of thinking and working that will significantly enrich the project.

One of the judges, curator Laurence Hill commented that the applications reflected the values of the project: ‘I have never seen a response to a call that featured so many self-identified, Queer, POC, Disabled and Neurodiverse people - more than 80%’. Excitement at the existence of a project like FSF was a recurrent theme with all of the people that we interviewed. Importantly, the framing of the call and the project made them feel safe to apply so it has been an affirming experience and I'm feeling proud to be part of it’

Jamila and Roibí will engage with the project over 8 months, and will be primarily focussed on making work for an exhibition to be held in Brighton in September 2023.

About the artists:

Jamila Prowse is an artist, writer and researcher who works across moving image and textiles to consider methodologies for visualising mixed-race identity and the lived experience of disability. She is drawn to stitch making and patchwork as a tactile form of processing complex family histories and mapping disability journeys. Presently, Jamila is an artist on UAL Decolonising Institute's 20/20 programme, where she will be in residence in the National Disability Art Collection and Archive from 2022-23, making a responsive work to their collection exploring the lived experience of disabled artists.

She also works with moving image as a site of self-archiving and autoethnography. Her first artist film, An Echo For My Father (2021), commissioned by Lighthouse, Brighton centred around her late father Russell Herman, a South African jazz musician who passed away when Jamila was three. The film explored losing a parental figure and access to one side of your heritage.

Jamila is an Associate Lecturer in photojournalism and documentary photography at London College of Communication, University of Arts London. She was a member of the Brent Biennial Curatorial Committee 2021-22 and was previously a residency artist at Gasworks between January to April 2021. Previous exhibitions and screenings include Studio Voltaire (London, UK), Hordaland Kunstsenter (Bergen, Norway), Obsidian Coast (Bradford, UK) and South London Gallery (London, UK).

Roibí O Rua is a multimedia artist and self-proclaimed popstar based in Waterford City.

A graduate of Limerick School of Art and Design, she has exhibited work in the 39th EVA International and the 2021 RDS Visual Arts Awards as well as having recently completed a digital commission as part of Project Arts Centre’s SHORT CUTS programme in collaboration with RTÉ Culture.

Hailing from a background of Queer Club Culture, paired with a love for all things Cyber, she creates work that explores Queer Identity as it relates to and evolves with Cyberspace. Her work takes the form of Music, 3D Modelling, Animation and Illustration, with an emphasis on digital and accessible methodologies.

Her current works center on the concept of the Trans identity as a Cyborg, drawing from Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto, VNS Matrix’ Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century as well as her own Trans* Identity.

About Full Stack Feminism

The Full Stack Feminism in Digital Humanities project (FSF) is funded by the UKRI-AHRC and the Irish Research Council under the ‘UK-Ireland Collaboration in the Digital Humanities Research Grants Call’. It is a collaboration between the University of Sussex, Technological University Dublin, and Maynooth University. Partners include Cambridge Digital Humanities, the Digital Repository of Ireland, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

The project aims to embed intersectional feminist thinking and practices within and across the broad discipline of digital humanities. Our cross-disciplinary team recognises that biases and stereotypes can manifest at any stage of a Digital Humanities project. These biases and stereotypes are historically informed and driven, resulting in the exclusion and marginalisation of certain voices and experiences.