Studio 51 incubates possibility. We do this by developing and piloting innovative programs and new models of collaboration to nurture artistic voice in Africa. From the Dramatic Fiction Lab to Ethiopia Creates our track record and reputation seeding unexpected collaborations that can lead to policy wins is unparalleled. Our latest project Kenya Creates is a collaboration with the International Resource for Impact and Storytelling and is offering a new interdisciplinary imagining of what is possible when the writers room gets flipped.

Ethiopia Creates was an interdisciplinary working group we co-founded that met bimonthly to organize creative entrepreneurs and advocate for policies that benefit the creative community. The first convening of this working group took place in 2019 as part of the Ethiopian Job Creation Commission’s design workshop. The recommendations from this group informed the national jobs action plan and led to the creative sector being included as an economic priority for the first time.

We ran the Dramatic Fiction Lab for three years from 2018-2021. This was the first hands-on training program in physical production where participants were given instruction in the art of serialized dramatic episodic writing, directing and producing, and then placed on set to create a full season of a television show. Many of the participants in the initial cohort are among the leading producers, writers, and directors in the country.