2023 Prince Claus Fund Building Beyond Mentorship Programme for mid-career creatives. (Fully Funded to the Netherlands)

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? Prince Claus Fund & the Creative Industries Fund NL invite you to apply to the Building Beyond Mentorship Programme 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. We 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. We seek to foster locally-rooted, critical design practices, and cultural productions that challenge our 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.

Eligibility Requirements

YOU ARE ELIGIBLE FOR THIS PROGRAMME IF:

You have ±5-12 years of relevant professional experience
You are from, living, and working in 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
And you are an artist, designer, or creative whose individual practice relates to design, public space, architecture, activism, policy, and the digital space

The Prince Claus Fund and the Creative Industries Fund NL hold a broad disciplinary understanding of arts and culture. When referring to artists and cultural practitioners we mean people who have an individual artistic practice. Individuals who are arts managers, facilitators, academic researchers or other, without an individual artistic practice do not fall under this category, and as such are not eligible to apply.

Please note that previous awardees of the Prince Claus Fund are not eligible to apply unless their previous project is finished and closed before the end of 2023.

ELIGIBLE EXPENSES

This award is not restricted to a pre-decided budget but must be used for the development of the concept outlined in your application.
If you have hesitations about applying due to the feasibility of transferring the grant money to a bank account that you have access to, please reach out to us to discuss this concern.

Benefits

The Building Beyond Mentorship Programme cover the costs related to the mentorship programme itself, including travel expenses and visa costs. Individuals are responsible for their own travel insurance. Further details on the covered expenses are communicated with successful applicants in a timeline manner.

The programme consists of peer group sessions, guest speaker sessions, and two in-person intensives in the form of ‘Lab Weeks’—one in the African continent, and one in the Netherlands—where there will be further opportunities for exchange and to build your network.
In addition to this, each participant receives an award of €10.000 and guidance from mentors to work on the concept for a body of work that is outlined in their application.

For More Information: