Nnenna Onuoha

Role

Research Associate, Digital Provenance Lab, Leuphana University Lüneburg (since 2026). Also Guest Scientist, Co-Lab 2: Mapping Postcolonial Neighbourhoods, Humboldt Universität (2025–2026).

Biography

Ghanaian-Nigerian researcher, filmmaker, and visual artist based in Berlin. Her audiovisual work explores monumental silences surrounding the histories and afterlives of colonialism across West Africa, Europe, and the United States. Centering Afrodiasporic voices, her practice revolves around processes of collective re-membering: putting the past together limb by limb.

Education

PhD candidate in Media Anthropology — Harvard University (2020–present)
PhD candidate in Global History — Universität Potsdam (2022–present, cotutelle)
MA in Social Anthropology (2024) — Harvard University
MA in Documentary Filmmaking (2018) — DocNomads Consortium (Lisbon/Budapest/Brussels)
MPhil in World History (2016) — Trinity College, University of Cambridge
BA in History, Literature, and Anthropology (Film secondary) (2015) — Harvard College

Career

Research Associate, Digital Provenance Lab, Leuphana University (2026–present)
Guest Scientist, Mapping Postcolonial Neighbourhoods, Humboldt Universität (2025–2026)
Krupp Foundation Dissertation Fellow, Harvard Center for European Studies (2024–2025)
Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellow (2023–2024)
FSC-Harvard Fellow (2022–2023)
Fellow, "Global Memories of German Colonialism," University of Hamburg (2021)
Research Associate, CARMAH (Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage), Humboldt Universität (2018–2020)
Guest Scientist, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (2019–2020)
Lecturer, Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt Universität (2019)
Film Tutor, Catalyst Berlin (2022–2023)

Research Interests

Material legacies of the Berlin-Africa Conference
Afterlives of colonialism across West Africa, Europe, and the US
Memory, performance, and historical remembrance
Media anthropology
Afrodiasporic healing arts and care practices
Provenance and colonial histories

Filmography (Selected)

The Memory Guardians (2024)
The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for Mabel Dove
Cartographies of Care (with Edna Bonhomme)
The A-Team (2021)
Onwoba
Lagos, Lagos
Entwicklungsland — Revisited (2025)

Solo/Duo Exhibitions

Waters this Deep, Künstlerhaus Bethanien (2026)
The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for Mabel Dove, ACUD Galerie, Berlin (2024)
The Memory Guardians, Schaudepot-Zitadelle Spandau Museum, Berlin (2024)
As Above, So Below — Three Films on Ritual, Kunstverein Langenhagen (2024)
A F T E R L I V E S, Galerie im Turm, Berlin (2022–2023)
Cartographies of Care, alpha nova & galerie futura, Berlin (2020)

Group Exhibitions & Screenings (Selected)

International Competition, London Short Film Festival (2026)
The Black Gaze, interfilm Festival (2025)
XPOSED Queer Film Festival (2025)
Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg (2025)
Soil Conversations, Johannesburg Art Gallery (2023)
Declaration of the Bitter Land, Museum of Modern Art Shanghai (2023)
BPA// Exhibition 2022, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2022–2023)
Through the Cracks, arebyte Gallery, London (2021)

Awards & Fellowships

Next Generation Short Tiger (2026)
Salzburger Kunstverein Residency (2026)
LOLLY Award, XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin (2025)
Krupp Foundation Dissertation Fellowship (2024–2025)
Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship (2023–2024)
Amadeu Antonio Foundation Prize (2023)
Flaherty Film Seminar Fellowship (2023)
FSC-Harvard Fellowship (2022–2023)
Berlin Senate Grant for Women in Film and Video (2020)

Publications

Chapter in Doing Diversity in Museums and Heritage: A Berlin Ethnography
Chapter in Censored? Conflicting Concepts of Cultural Heritage
"Owned by Others: A Map to Possession Island"
"Contesting the Colonial Archive" in Pismo Widok, no. 39 (2024)