Our Fellowships
We offer two safe-haven fellowships, one locally, and a fellowship-in-exile for artists and writers who qualify to be hosted by City of Asylum but are subjected to the travel ban. We secure safe haven for our fellows and leverage our networks to support their well-being and professional development. We also connect them to thought partners in Detroit to encourage artistic exchange and the continuation of their creative work.
Credit: Pio Kaliński
Fellow-In-Exile Aaiún Nin
Aaiún Nin is a poet, mixed media artist, and activist born in Luanda, Angola. Their first poetry collection, Broken Halves of a Milky Sun (Astra House) won the Norwegian Grimsund Award and the Lilla Prize in Denmark, and has been translated into numerous languages. As an outspoken critic of Europe's legal discrimination of immigrants and police violence, their work explores the effects of racism, colonialism, gender and sexual violence, queer love and desire. They currently reside in Geneva, Switzerland.
Aaiún originally fled Angola due to threats based on their sexuality and identity. Shortly after, Angola legalized homosexuality, which effectively voided Aaiún's asylum case in Europe. Barred from obtaining citizenship—or even a work permit—and unable to return home due to continued risk, they have spent years in precarity and limbo. Through it all, they have continued to make bold, incendiary, indispensable work.
Get to know Aaiún's work:
Read Broken Halves of a Milk Sun.
Watch their powerful video profile on AJ+.
Fellow-In-Exile Taimaa Salama
Taimaa Salama is a visual artist from Gaza. Her tactile paintings combine sculpture, photography, and Palestinian traditional craft in ways that allow blind and low-vision children to engage with art. Her work has been profiled by Al Jazeera and Global Times. She has had exhibitions with UNESCO, Podium Oslo, Dar Al-Ghusayn, 28 Magazine, and others. She is an IIE-Artist Protection Fund Fellow and City of Asylum/Detroit’s Abby Kraftowitz Fellow.
She came to her practice during her undergraduate studies. While completing an assignment for class in relief paintings, Israel enforced a blackout across her city. Working with clay in the dark (in a studio with holes in the roof from a prior bombing) she imagined that this might be similar to how a person with blindness encounters the world through touch. She set out to make art for people with visual disability, especially children.
In 2024, she lost all of her artwork when Shababeek for Contemporary Art was bombed. She fled Gaza with her husband and baby just before the border closed.
Fellow-In-Exile
Tareq Hajjaj
Tareq Hajjaj is a Palestinian poet and journalist. He is the Gaza Correspondent at Mondoweiss and the author of the poetry collection Ibn Qamti (Gaza Ministry of Culture). He has contributed reporting to Elbadi, Middle East Eye, Al Monitor and We Are Not Numbers.
His reporting on Gaza is widely shared and re-posted. He studied English Literature at Al-Azhar University and is a member of the Palestinian Writers Union.
Many of Tareq’s colleagues have been killed by Israel, including Hassan Eslayeh. He carries this weight into his work. His elderly mother died of a stroke in 2024 while being displaced for the fourth time.
Abby Kraftowitz Fellowship
This fellowship is awarded to a visual artist who is forced to leave their home country because of the politics of their creative work. Abby Kraftowitz was a photographer whose work highlighted both the strength and vulnerability of the human spirit. She connected profoundly with her subjects, who were women and LGBTQ+ families facing trauma, addiction, eating disorders, and end-of-life illness. When she passed away at the age of 33, City of Asylum/Detroit decided to continue her legacy by creating a fellowship in her name. Interested artists, please apply to the International Cities of Refuge Network or the Artist Protection Fund, and specify your preference to be hosted by City of Asylum/Detroit in your application.
Credit: Geoffrey Berliner
Abby Kraftowitz Artist-In-Exile Dieu-Nalio Chery
Dieu-Nalio Chery’s work has demonstrated a willingness to risk his life to tell stories that matter, stories that illustrate the spirit of resilience and the nature of belonging. His photo essays can be found in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Haitian Times. In 2019, he received the Robert Capa Award for "best published photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage” for his bold coverage of the political crisis in Haiti. In 2020, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Chery was born in Haiti and started working in his uncle's photo studio in Port-au-Prince when he was 20. After witnessing the devastating earthquake in 2010 and its aftermath, he observed how authorities treated the victims and decided to pursue a career in photojournalism.
For eleven years, Chery worked for the Associated Press, documenting the pain and beauty of his people’s struggles. Many of his images have become iconic records of Haiti in the 21st century. Chery has been recognized by Pictures of the Year International, Best of Photojournalism, and The Magnum Foundation’s Photography and Human Rights Fellowship.
In 2019, Chery was shot in the jaw by pro-government senator Ralph Fethiere. In 2021, after covering anti-government protests, the Associated Press pulled him off the assignment due to threats from pro-government forces. The same year, the G9 and Fantom 509 gangs put a hit on his family, including his young daughters, due to his work.
Now in exile, he has shifted his focus to celebrate the cultural practices and hard-won livelihoods of Haitians in diaspora, particularly in the Midwest.
Writer-In-Exile Pwaangulongii Dauod
Pwaangulongii Dauod is a Nigerian writer whose essay, “Africa’s Future Has No Space for Stupid Black Men” (Granta), sparked a national conversation about queer issues in Nigeria and led to threats to his life. He is an Artist Protection Fund Fellow in residence at Wayne State University’s Department of English and City of Asylum/Detroit. His writing has appeared in Granta, LitHub, Johannesburg Review of Books, and elsewhere. He studied with celebrated authors Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Binyavanga Wainaina and holds an MFA from University of Virginia. He is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, an O’Brien Fellowship at the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, and a Gerald Kraak Award. He was a finalist for the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Manuscript Prize and Woke Africa Magazine named him One of the Best African Writers of the New Generation.