Pan-African Network for the Arts in Environmentally Sustainable Development, 2021-2023

The project aimed to test a co-creative method whereby policy actors, citizens, artists and researchers co-created artworks about environmental issues. The project aimed to see if such an exercise was possible in multiple contexts, and to explore the effect of working in such an activity on the co-creation of understanding between these groups, for example about their differnet viewpoints on a common issue. The experiment was carried out in country-level workshops in five African countrise. A report was produced on each workshop. Part of the data set consists of original artwork, created by the project partners in the workshops. This includes paintings, photographs, songs, lyrics and videos. Participants in Ghana created one song, with sections in each of 5 languages, about the relationship between livestock herding, peace and environmetal protection. Participants in Kenya worked in small groups to create drawings expressing their views about how milk could be commercialised, and were encouraged by the facilitator to draw containers milk could be sold in. An artist used these drawings to create a painting about the cultural aspects of livestock keeping. Participants in Senegal co-created two paintings, using a collage method, about coastal problems in St. Louis, Senegal. One painting focused on the unequal effects on richer and poorer inhabitants of sea level rise, induced by climate change. One picture focused on the problem of coastal pollution. Participants in Mali created a poem and a painting about water resource depletion. Participants in Mauritania contributed ideas on climate change to a musician who created a song about social cohesion and action on climate change. A music video accompanies the song. Simultaneously, an artist painted a painting about climate change in Mauritania. Part of the data collection includes workshop reports in English and French which show the participants' commentary about the art works they created and describe the process of creating them.