February’s featured friend is the magnificent Akwi Nji!

I met Akwi in 2012 when I was brought in as a guest host for SPT Theatre’s “Tales from the Writers’ Room” series. At the time, Akwi was one of SPT’s writers and performers as well as an English teacher at Washington High School in Cedar Rapids. I got to work with Akwi on another Writers’ Room show again in 2015 and had the privilege of shadowing her as she taught at Iowa BIG. I found it fascinating to watch her work with high school students in such a unique and nontraditional context, guiding them in community-oriented, real-world, project-based learning.

It is a pleasure to follow Akwi’s evolution as an artist. She is one of the most driven and inspiring people I have ever met, and I am constantly learning about her ongoing list of superpowers. On top of being a dedicated mother, she is an influential teacher, writer, poet, performer, textile artist, activist, and (dare I say?) style icon.

Akwi is always creating. One of her latest exciting projects is described as “a nationwide arts initiative to tell our nation’s true stories, in visual + audio form, inspired by the personal fabric remnants we’ve held close.” Check out The Remoir Project today. 

From Akwi’s website:

“Akwi creates as a writer, performer, and visual artist. Her work and words have appeared on stage from California’s Wine Country to New York’s Fashion Week. She is a former Iowa Arts Council Fellow, founder of The Hook, creator of The Remoir Project, and a champion of the artist and the arts through her role as producer of multi-media arts events in the Midwest.

Her visual art serves as manifestations of her exploration of race, gender, Black history as American history, and a parallelism of current social issues with their historical and cultural counterparts. As a writer, voice artist, performer, and producer her collaborative partners include Emmy-award winning composers and nationally-renowned dancers and choreographers.

While engaged in a fulfilling and successful art career, she also works with companies and organizations as a keynote speaker on the topics of art as place-making; storytelling as effective marketing; pattern disruption; and the intersection of art, economy, and civic wellness.

Akwi was born in Iowa City, Iowa, and raised in Cameroon, Africa. Her experiences as a Cameroonian and Cameroonian American inform her work as she explores the intersections of gender, parenthood, race, tensions between “outsider” and “insider”, and concepts of geographical and spiritual home. She lives in the Midwest with her two daughters, a dog, and two cats. The stage is her first love, art her truest home.”

Thank you, Akwi, for using your amazing gifts to make the world a better place!