The Leslie Hobbs Scholarship
Funded by Susan HeywardIn honor of Diane & Gail Leslie and Patricia Scott Hobbs, fierce teachers, artists, & administrators of Freedom Theater of Philadelphia.
Why The Leslie Hobbs Scholarship
A word from funder Susan Heyward
¨Diane Leslie conducted my first acting classes that introduced me to Ntzoke Shange and Amiri Baraka, Patricia Scott Hobbs taught me discipline in my first dance classes full of young Black bodies, while Gail Leslie did her best to cover the administrative work. Theirs was a symbiotic relationship; it's impossible to separate them from each other. I want to celebrate their efforts and honor the legacy of Black women working together to create community, inspire children, and protect our heritage.¨
The 2025 Leslie Hobbs Scholarship Recipients
Heather Dannyelle is a writer, policy analyst, and stand up comedian originally from Los Angeles, CA. Her work focuses on the intersection of politics and personal story, in particular examining fraught family dynamics. She is currently working on a collective memoir, exploring the impact of incarceration on her family. She lives and works in Berlin, where she has been based for six years.
Nella Aguessy is a Beninese-French visual artist and documentarist based between Cotonou and Berlin. With a background in Economics, Political Science, and Photojournalism, their work combines a documentary approach with a raw, poetic, and analog aesthetic. Their practice engages with themes of identity, memory, and resistance, spanning collaborations with LGBT+ editorials (Daddy Together, Berlin 2020) and decolonial exhibitions such as Grenzenlos at the Historische Museum der Arbeit in Hamburg (2021) and the Global Young Faculty’s urban research showcase (montan.dok Ruhr, 2021). In 2024, they exhibited in both Cotonou and Berlin, and founded Bigmotha_Studio. Aguessy was named a finalist for the Ellipse Prize for African Contemporary Art and the 2025 Berlin Art Prize. Through powerful medium format portraits and immersive narratives, their work captures an awakened world, where poetry meets resistance.
