Irene Fubara-Manuel is a Brighton-based artist working in animation, game design and installation art. They are currently concluding their doctorate at the University of Sussex in Creative and Critical Practice on biometric surveillance and its racialised applications in border policing.

Their most recent projects are an installation piece Border Ritual (2016) shown at the Hastings Art Forum, Border Ritual 2.0 (2017), a video game exhibited during London Design Week as part of Code Liberation’s group show at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and DREAMS OF DISGUISE (2018), the artist’s first solo at ONCA Gallery in Brighton. DREAMS OF DISGUISE was also shown at Birmingham Open Media in We Run This, a digital art exhibition featuring the works of non-binary artists of colour and curated by Florence Okoye.

Irene also writes on race and sexuality as in their co-authored book, Killing Off the Lesbians: A Symbolic Annihilation on Film and Television and their piece ‘Isicholos and Latex Gloves: Queering African Womanhood’ in Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness (2017).

Irene’s project for the JUST AI Fellowship proposes ethnographic and participatory action research to explore possibilities for decolonial and anti-racist alternatives to migration algorithms. The project aims to move the focus of streaming tools, used in applying for UK visas, away from automating a ‘hostile environment’ and towards reimagining a fair and welcoming UK for all migrants, irrespective of background.