Are you a mid-career artist, designer, or creative with 5-10 years of experience in architecture, design, or spatial practice, whose work is dedicated to (re)imaging the future of your African city? You are invited to apply to the Building Beyond Mentorship Programme 2023 and define the future of public space and community in your city by activating the imagined possibilities of your localised context.
Building Beyond brings together 12 experienced designers, creatives, and artists over the course of a year to foster conversation, collaboration, and exchange within the cohort; to support each participant in their own individual practice; and to facilitate exchanges between the cohort and relevant external practitioners. They support practices that engage with challenges related to your city’s public space and communities to propose alternative ideas and methods that align the physical city with the realities and imaginations of the lived city. They seek to foster locally-rooted, critical design practices, and cultural productions that challenge ideas of space and citizenship, reaffirm agency, and restate ownership. Building Beyond is an alternative educational structure where you come together with your peers to reflect on your practice, activate your practice within your local context, and gather ideas and universalities from different urban contexts – aimed at reimagining the future of your contexts and continent.