ANNA AWARD 2023

Samallie Kiyingi is a lawyer by training and an art collector by passion. Her collection focuses on elevating the work of African artists, which she achieves not only through her support for institutions but by directly supporting the artists themselves. A seasoned General Counsel with a distinguished international career in financial services, Samallie is also the convenor of her employer’s art programme which was established to preserve, collect and showcase African art at the bank, as well as to raise the visibility of Africa’s creative talent through annual art related activities.

Samallie is the founder of Artnaka, a private members’ platform focused on art from Africa and its diasporas. She  is currently a trustee of The Showroom  (London) and a member of the Contemporary Arts Society of Uganda. Ms Kiyingi is a founding member of the Tate Modern’s African Art Acquisition Committee and sits on the Global Council for the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art in Cape Town.  She previously sat on the boards of Gasworks (London) and 32 Degrees East (Uganda).

Bridget Masinga is a woman of many talents. A Miss South Africa runner-up in 2002, she is a popular radio host, TV actor, producer, MC and public speaker, social media personality and fashion fundi. She holds a BA in Government and Development from the University of South Africa (UNISA). Most recently, thousands tuned in to her daily radio show The B-Side with Bridget Masinga on Kaya FM,  the home of the Afropolitan, where she made a name for herself as a champion of arts and culture in South Africa. 2022 her arts focused show aptly named The Art of Everything on the country’s leading talk station, SAFM was awarded The Best Night Show.

A highlight of her year in 2019 was broadcasting her show from the New York City Winter Jazzfest, one of the top jazz festivals in the world. This came soon after nabbing an exclusive interview with Naomi Campbell and the founder of the Global Citizen movement, Hugh Evans, in the run-up to the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 in December 2018. The interview was a real feather in her cap as the event was not only being held to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s birth, it was also the first Global Citizen Festival to be hosted on African soil.

Jana Terblanche is an art curator and development strategist based in South Africa.

She serves as the Head of Development at Southern Guild Gallery in Cape Town. Terblanche was previously Head Curator at SMITH Gallery (Cape Town), Associate Curator at the African Artists’ Foundation (Lagos) and worked extensively as an independent curator. In these roles, she oversaw an extensive art programme on the African continent and abroad. Over her career she has curated presentations at FNB Art Joburg, Investec Cape Town Art Fair, 1-54 London and Art Rotterdam. She has curated a multitude of solo and group exhibitions including ‘Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt’ for the Open City programme alongside curator Anelisa Mangcu.

Terblanche manages Southern Guild’s relationships between artists, collectors, art fairs and institutional collections. Her curatorial practice addresses decolonial theory, intersectional feminism and poetics through artmaking.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from the University of Cape Town.

Freda Isingoma is an entrepreneur and investment banking professional who has worked in multinational and leading investment institutions in the UK, US and South Africa. In 2009, she launched Eyecandy Brows, a specialist brow bar concept which grew to over 20 branches across South Africa. Freda has been collecting art from Africa and the Diaspora for over 20 years and in 2018 she founded KIISA to provide innovative investment and impact solutions that drive the growth, visibility, knowledge, and sustainability of the African and Diaspora art ecosystem. More recently, Freda joined an award-winning team at Octopus Investments as a Fund Manager specialising in investment in UK listed small companies, primarily managing the Octopus AIM Venture Capital Trusts. Octopus Investments is the UK’s largest Venture Capital firm and one of the most active in Europe.