Location: Cape Town, South Africa

Mission: Founded in 2005, as a not-for-profit organisation, the Africa Centre was developed as a platform for exploring contemporary Pan-African artistic and cultural practice as a catalyst for social change.

Based in Cape Town, South Africa, the Africa Centre is a social innovator that provides a space dedicated to the celebration, creation and performance of contemporary African culture and intellectual expression.

The Africa Centre, together with a number of residency programmes around the world, launched the Artist in Residency Programme (AIR) in April 2011. The Project has been conceived to support artists from Africa who are provocative, innovative, relevant and highly engaged with both social issues and their art forms.

Other Programs

Infecting the City: A provocative, site-specific, public art intervention that resonates with and challenges people to connect with each other and their City, through art.

Everyday African Urbanism: In collaboration with the African Centre for Cities (an interdisciplinary research and teaching programme focussed on quality scholarship regarding the dynamics of unsustainable urbanization processes in Africa, with an eye on identifying systemic responses), Everyday African Urbanism is an initiative in social innovation that strives towards urban transformation by using the ‘big picture’ theoretical narrative and then reinterpreting it, through creative reasoning, into actual micro solutions.

Badilisha Poetry X-Change: A poetry podcast platform exclusively dedicated to the exposure and archival of both the contemporary and historical voices from Africa and its Diaspora.

Talking Heads: Providing unexpected platforms for Africa’s thought leaders to share their knowledge.

WikiAfrica: WikiAfrica sustains Wikipedia as a free, open and truly global encyclopaedia by encouraging, supporting and challenging individuals and institutions across Africa to contribute their knowledge of Africa to the most commonly used online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia.

Cost: The costs of the residency and return airfare are included in each residency that is awarded.

Application Fee: n/a

Number of Artists: Up to 11 at a time

Accommodations: n/a

Length of Stay: n/a

Demographic/Medium: The Project has been conceived to support artists from Africa who are provocative, innovative, relevant and highly engaged with both social issues and their art forms. The list of accepted artists are predominantly from Africa with a handful of international applicants as well.

Benefits: (see above)

Deadline: AIR is currently not accepting new applications for residencies until further notice.

Website