Elijah Ndoumbe is a multidisciplinary artist and award winning director working towards embodied methods of artistic connection, care and radical imagination. Their short documentary, ‘Prayers For Sweet Waters’, following Trans-identifying sex workers in Cape Town during the pandemic, premiered at the Academy-qualifying HIFF, won an award at NewFest, screened at the ‘22 Sundance Film Festival, and won best South African Short Film at the ‘22 Durban IFF. Ndoumbe was a 2021 artist in residence at Black Rock Senegal, and exhibited photographs paired with sonic soundscapes at the 2022 DAK’ART Biennale as a part of Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock 40 exhibit. They were in residence for the Black Rock 40 creative residency (May - June 2022), working with artists in different disciplines and dancers over the course of several weeks to activate La Maison Culturel de Douta Seck.
Most recently, Ndoumbe was in residency as a part of the ‘22-‘23 CPH:LAB cohort, a mentorship program for experimental technologies in documentary filmmaking hosted by the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. They exhibited at the 2022-2023 Rencontres de Bamako African Photography Biennale, and are currently in development on a project with artists between France, Senegal, and the United States.
