Sola Olowo-Ake at Atlanthos Soft Launch Exhibition. The Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia.

Jazz Groden-Gilchrist (Project Lead) & Sola Olowo-Ake (Project Researcher). Atlanthos: Youth-Driven Innovation through Afrofuturistic Storytelling by the Ethos Lab Griots, The Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia

TEACHING & COURSE DEVELOPMENT

Ethọ́s Lab’s Griots Program (2023-2024)

  • Developed and facilitated teaching speculative storytelling afrofuturism course on the Atlanthos educational lore project for Grade 7-12 participating youth.

  • Developed an African Grounding Methodology for the Atlanthos Project.

  • Facilitated Museum site youth research in collaboration with Museum of Anthropology, UBC curator 

  • Exhibition planning and execution

Ethọ́s Lab’s Atlanthos Box Program in select VSB Schools (2023)

  • Redeveloped and facilitated Ethos Lab’s afterschool storytelling and virtual reality program for Grade 5-6 & 8-9 in select schools in the Vancouver School Board.

  • Exhibition planning and execution

Research Support for students of the ‘Design for Regional Resilience’ Program at Emily Carr University (2022)

  • Facilitated research support for students in the Design for Regional Resilience Program (designed by the Shumka Centre & DESIS Lab) at Emily Carr University .

  • Weekly group and one on one tutorial for students

WORKSHOPS

‘tablenotable’ research project with Helene Day Fraser & Jihyun Park

  • Lead researcher and community engagement lead at Emily Carr University, where the project took place. [Project Archive]

2 Part Storytelling workshop for ‘Design for Regional Resilience’ Program at Emily Carr University (2022)

  • Developed and executed storytelling mapping and materiality workshops for participating students and organisations. 

  • Conceptualised a methodology workbook for participating students and organisations.  

    [Workbook from p.183]

The Writing Circle Project Creative Art 8 week Program for Youth at Delta Family Resources Centre (non-profit)

  • Facilitated an 8 week creative art and writing program with my collective- The Writing Circle Project, for youth in the Delta Family Resource Centre afterschool program

Guest Designer for Decolonizing Design’s Material Practices at Emily Carr University (2021 & 2022)

  • Developed and facilitated a 2 part workshop for Helene Day Fraser’s course, ‘Decolonising Design’s Material Practices’ at Emily Carr University. It  explored using stories, positionality and embodiment to decolonise and re-think commonly used prototyping and production

  • Facilitated peer review sessions and presentation within the workshop for Industrial design students.

Sola Olowo-Ake, Jihyun Park & Helene Day Fraser (‘tablenotable’ Project Leads). Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

Workshop 1 & 2 for Design for Regional Resilience Program. Shumka Centre x DESIS Lab. Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

Design Researcher and Team Leader for ‘probes. for Plurality!’ at the Canadian Fashion Symposium (2022)

  • Team Leader and facilitator in collaboration with Helene Day Fraser for a group of fashion scholars on a project called ‘probes. for Plurality!’


‘Yorùbá storycharting as storytelling’ workshop for Transformative Storytelling for Social Justice at Emily Carr University (2021)

  • Developed and facilitated a workshop for Dr Cissie Fu’s class, ‘Transformative Story-telling for Social Justice’ at Emily Carr University.


‘On storylistening…’ 2020

  • Organised a Graduate students symposium for MFA and MDes students at Emily Carr University as part of a MITACS Research Assistant Grant.

  • Developed and facilitated a storylistening workshop as part of my design contribution to the symposium and the issues it was tackling.