Dedicated to up to 12 artists whose work reimagines public space and community in the built environment on the African continent.
Building Beyond
Building Beyond is where artists from across the African continent come together to collectively respond to the built environment by engaging with relational worlds of communities and public space in this setting. Fellows receive €10,000 to invest in the further growth of their practice, engaging their communities, critically assessing how we live, and what the future could hold.
As part of our ongoing Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning process, we regularly check in with Fellows and mentors, using flexible methods to assess outcomes, learn from experience, and improve our approach. Our aim is to evaluate our methods, not the individuals we support.
Below you can dive into the Building Beyond impact reports, which highlight lessons learned from the two cycles, showing progress toward our goals and offering insights on bringing African practitioners together with their Dutch counterparts. They also explore the impact of the €10,000 Fellows Award on artists' practices, including social change sparked by Building Beyond.
Our Building Beyond Fellows hail from a variety of countries on the African continent, and their practices span a wide range of design fields including architecture, urbanism, digital design, visual arts, photography, research, and performance.
Each Cycle of Building Beyond concludes with a joint collective publication, showcasing the participants’ shared reflections and work.
The programme begins with an introductory session where participants present themselves and the work they will develop. It continues with online “chapters” co-curated by Senior Fellows featuring workshops, guest talks, reading groups, one in-person meeting, and one-on-one sessions dedicated to the each participants’ practices and goals. The programme ends with a collaborative project.
Supported by three Senior Fellows, this programme fosters conversation, collaboration, and support to spatial practices. Participants contribute to an ongoing conversation on how resilience, humanity, and creativity in our urban environments can create opportunities for communally imagined realities in the city.
Some key urban questions that Building Beyond addresses include: Who narrates? Who represents? Who creates? Who is invited? Who belongs?
We welcome applications from individuals who have ±7-15 years of relevant professional experience and whose individual practice relates to architecture, design, spatial practice, public space, and urban communities. Individuals who are arts managers, facilitators, academic researchers, or others, without an individual artistic practice, do not fall under this category, and as such are not eligible to apply.
Eligible applicants must be from, live, and work in our eligible countries in Africa: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Tanzania, Tunisia, Chad, South Africa, or South-Sudan.
Between 2021—2025, we partnered with the Creative Industries Fund and issued four Cycles of the Building Beyond programme, supporting a total of 48 exceptional mid-career artists across the African continent, each with a different spatial approach and addressing a range of pressing issues related to their built environment. From calls for applications to Lab Weeks and other Building Beyond activities, the Creative Industries Fund was our close and trusted partner and collaborator.
From 2025/2026 onwards, Building Beyond is run solely by the Prince Claus Fund.
You can always reach out to Emma van Schie, our Programmes Manager.
