As part of the multi-annual programme (2022-2026), Africalia is implementing a component on Global Citizenship and Solidarity Education in Belgium. This program aims to encourage citizens to dare to reinvent our society by stimulating social inclusion and strengthening the interdependence between humans and the planet.
Picture ©Nikiema Florent.
Africalia’s GCSE programme aims to empower citizens to better understand, analyse and critique their environment in artistic and creative ways. To encourage citizens to become actors of change, the organisation wishes to call upon artists from all disciplines who want to take part in this process. The artistic proposals selected are intended to become tools for raising awareness of the role of the arts and culture in addressing global issues creatively and artistically. Here, as everywhere else, creativity is a fertile ground for imagination, liberation and the reinvention of our societies.
No society can last without ensuring its cultural transmission. Because humans are essentially cultural, and there is no culture "except by the will to transmit it from one generation to the next".(1) This relativistic and plural vision of culture is reflected in UNESCO’s notion of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). An essential component of ICH is that its recognition is community-based, thus emphasising the role of social actors : "intangible cultural heritage can only be heritage when it is recognised as such by the communities, groups and individuals who create, maintain and transmit it ; without their input, no one can decide for them whether a given expression or practice is part of their heritage. (3)
For a long time, cultural heritage was thought of as a form of respect for our ancestors, and the notion of ICH invites us to think about preserving this heritage for our successors.
Inheritance is thus a gift from the previous generation to the next but also a debt to the next. This debt includes not only what has been received but also what has been transformed and acquired over time. This transformation work can result in a shift in the content consumed and the way it is consumed(4).
While the risk of patrimonialization, such as the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, is to do works of the past sacred and thus freeze them, we wish here to think of the act of transmission and creation of heritage as an act of mutation parallel to the mutations that our societies are experiencing.
A change in the relationship to time and space, as digital technology has created a global village.
A mutation of the relationship to cultural objects linked to the transformation of social identities and their construction thanks to the possibility today of (re)defining oneself ad infinitum
We, therefore, invite artists not only to question the modes of transmission and cultural heritage in the context of contemporary societies but also to rethink the very notions of transmission and heritage in the light of a society experiencing a crisis of its memory and identity.
To submit a project, send your complete application by email to africalia@africalia.be before 11 December 2022 at 23:59.
If the email exceeds 10 MB, please use a Wetransfer or Dropbox link.
Application form : download the document
Call for projects guidelines
If you have any questions regarding the Call for projects and/or the co-financing application, please send them only by email to africalia@africalia.be between 1 November 2022 and 8 December 2022.
Only projects run by organisations and activities based in Belgium are eligible
Africalia’s contribution will be between 5.000€ and 15.000€ per project for a maximum intervention of 80% of the project’s total budget. Only one application for co-financing can be submitted per Call and per applicant.
Discover the laureates of the Call for projects 2020 to gain insight into selected projects.
This section contains a list of frequently asked questions (only available in French and Dutch).
(1) Baillargeon, Stéphane. “La Transmission De La Culture - Une Précarité Persistante.” Le Devoir. Le Devoir, September 29, 2012. https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/360365/une-precarite-persistante.
(2)Bortolotto, Chiara. “Introduction. Le trouble du patrimoine culturel immatériel”. Bortolotto, Chiara. Le patrimoine culturel immatériel : Enjeux d’une nouvelle catégorie. Paris : Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2011. (pp. 21-43)
(3)UNESCO. “Qu’est-Ce Que Le Patrimoine Culturel Immatériel ?” UNESCO. Accessed September 29, 2022. https://ich.unesco.org/fr/qu-est-ce-que-le-patrimoine-culturel-immatriel-00003.
(4)Octobre, Sylvie, et al. « La diversification des formes de la transmission culturelle : quelques éléments de réflexion à partir d’une enquête longitudinale sur les pratiques culturelles des adolescents », Recherches familiales, vol. 8, no. 1, 2011, pp. 71-80.
