As part of our Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning efforts, we conduct annual impact reports on our Seed and Fellows Awards to better understand their impact on each cycle of Awardees and identify areas for improvement. Below you can find out all about our reporting on the Fellowship Building Beyond!
Developed in collaboration with Creative Industries Fund NL, 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.
The Building Beyond impact reports highlight key insights about the programme’s goals, reflecting on the complexities of managing the Fellows Awards and improving the programme, particularly in bringing together African and Dutch practitioners and meeting diverse fellow needs. The reports also examine how the Award influenced the artists’ work, from how they used the €10,000 to the psychological benefits of connecting with peers. Most notably, it shows the early signs of the social change Building Beyond inspires.
Dive into the Building Beyond impact report
A story that stands as emblematic of the potentially transformative nature of Building Beyond is that of Cycle 2 Awardee neec nonso. In his report, neec described his experience during the Accra Lab Week, seeing the plight of Accra residents subject to forced evictions. Relating this to similar evictions within his own context in Lagos prompted a radical change of direction for his work. Facilitated by the flexibility of the funding, which allowed him to completely rethink the project he had intended to invest the Award in, and supported by the mentors, neec has begun work on what he describes as “activism projects”. He writes, “During the course of the programme, I shifted my attention from the celebratory and ‘good-feel’ to the kind that will rile and wake up the participants of my work and make them act”.
