AL for The Arts

Matt Maralack

The AL for the Arts Network is purposed to meaningfully contribute to the development of the creative arts industries on the continent by creating a collaborative platform for ALA employer partners, students, alumni, staff and non-ALA affiliated artists to engage in various AL for the Arts initiatives and activities.

Mural Image created by: Emmanuel Mushy (ALA 2011)

The Creative Arts sector and the talent in Africa is enormous, and is significant to the economic development of many countries in Africa. The network encompasses the entirety of the creative economy, a term that encompasses the core individual artistic disciplines of visual arts, design, writing, theatre and performance, music as well as their related sub industries, e.g. advertising, publishing and distribution, in addition to arts and culture management and policy making. This is to enable a holistic and thriving creative economy development approach with avenues that showcase Africa’s rich heritage and culture. Additionally, the network aims to develop data and document stories of how art can be a force for development in Africa, through its envisioned shared success.

How will we achieve this?

Accelerate

Young African Talent

The AL for the Arts network serves to accelerate the development of the African cultural and creative economy. We do this by helping our young leaders build the capabilities require to rapidly grow in their careers, creating channels to share their work, and create opportunities for our network to engage with industry leaders and key stakeholders.

Ignite

Collaborative Impact

The AL for the Arts network seeks to ignite collaborative connections, mentorship, and access to capital for ventures and initiatives with our young artists across the continent and globally. We believe in the intersectionality of the arts to inspire collaborations across multiple sectors of society in achieving our vision of peace and shared prosperity for Africa.

Weave

High-Impact Networks

Creating communities that build our collective capacity to tackle Africa’s grand challenges, as we accelerate the growth of our young artists and ignite collaboration creating communities of practice. We envision the AL for the Arts network becoming one-of-its-kind on the continent.

Career Tracks

Explore the variety of ways you can get involved in The Arts

Visual Arts

The visual arts have traditionally encompassed what can be considered to be fine art disciplines such as painting, sculpture, ceramics, glass blowing and printmaking. But today, the definition of visual arts encompasses photography, television and filmmaking, illustrating, mural painting, craftwork, tapestry and the broad umbrella of design.

Design

Design is a vibrant and crosscutting arts career track and involves the application of inter-disciplinary technology to arts, crafts, architecture, town planning, engineering, textiles, jewellery, clothing, furniture, typography and a host of other fields to name a few. With the rise of digital media, design is a rapidly changing field, with the internet introducing emerging career opportunities in website design and advertising.

Writing

This field can be described as the art of stitching words together, and in many ways encompasses communication and language development in our society. Electronic media is amongst the most powerful means of promoting and developing literature, documenting new knowledge and writing your own stories

Theatre and Performing Arts

This involves acting out stories in front of a live audience, using a combination of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle. The space is also made up of a host of technical careers, such as stage management, sound design, lighting design, set design and set building. This field is vibrant, and forms one of the main destinations of a written script

Music

Music is a broad and dynamic field, and includes an array of potential career avenues outside of becoming a musician. Music covers a spectrum of professional areas, such as composition, production, sound engineering, radio broadcast, music education and music therapy.

Art Business Careers

Alongside each art discipline is an industry that supports the core creative practice. These include careers in entertainment law and copyright, artist management and representation, art curators, collectors and dealers, label management, theatre and gallery ownership and management, publishing and distribution, arts consulting and arts and culture policy writing.

Stories of impact

Watch our art come to life through the stories of our alumni

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african leadership ny ony razafindatandra portrait 01

Niu Raza

Ny Ony Razafindratandra ’11 is a Malagasy singer, songwriter and performing artist. Publicly known by her stage name, Niu Raza, her music features a blend of African influences, telling diverse stories about the African continent and its people.

What's happening in AL for The Arts?

Art in Africa is an evolving and dynamic sector with endless amounts of talent to showcase

African Leadership Academy brings the Climate Change in Africa Art Exhibition online through Google Arts & Culture

Network News

The globe is now united around the importance of food production and agriculture, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Motswana photographer Towela Tembo ’19 uses multimedia to cross creative borders

When second-year ALA student Towela Chawezi Tembo (also known as Towela Kams) from Botswana picked up a camera for the very first time in 2015, she didn’t know that photography was going to be her doorway into the vast and colourful world of the creative arts.