Mwamba T Nyanda

Mwamba T Nyanda is an aspiring filmmaker and the founder of the Tanzanian transgender rights organisation, Tanzania Trans Initiative. Mwamba’s exploration of film as a medium for self-expression began his training and work with the Canadian-based organization, 75 SHOTS’s ‘Pocket Cinema’ initiative, which specialises in the creation of short films using cellphone technology. Nyanda’s film, ‘The Source’ – which looks into the relationship between a father and his transmasculine son – was screened earlier this year during a parallel event as part of the sixty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which took place at United Nations Headquarters in New York. Mwamba is the first resident to spend six weeks at Purple Mountain Arts Residency. For the first four weeks, he accompanied five other queer African aspiring filmmakers and creatives in putting together the 75 SHOTS film, Nuit Eternelle. For the latter two weeks at PMAR, as our official Autumn / Winter 2025 artist-in-residence, Mwamba collaborated with PMAR co-founder, Carl Collison, on a series of photographs exploring the layered and often charged role clothing plays in the lives of transmasculine persons.