Creative Futures Africa opens its Summit conversations to Joburg’s creative community during Design Week South Africa

Johannesburg, 06 October 2026 - Jozi my Jozi and Business and Arts South Africa (BASA), together with partners Andani.Africa and Creative Capital, will bring the ideas, questions and practical priorities emerging from the 2026 Creative Futures Africa Summit into a public conversation during Design Week South Africa.

Creative Futures Africa: Beyond the Summit takes place on Thursday, 08 October, from 17:30 to 19:30 at A42 House in Parktown North. This free public event offers Johannesburg’s creative community an opportunity to interrogate, challenge and build on discussions that began at the invitation-only Summit in September.

The second Creative Futures Africa Summit brought together leaders and practitioners from the creative economy, business, finance, technology, policy, tourism, climate and city-making. Its starting point was clear: Africa’s creative economy should not be treated as a peripheral sector or occasional showcase, but as essential economic and social infrastructure – creating livelihoods, shaping identity, strengthening cities and generating new opportunities for innovation and investment.

From conversation to action

The Summit explored the conditions needed for African creativity to thrive at scale: investment and more appropriate funding models; stronger policy and intellectual-property frameworks; better data and market access; creative infrastructure; mobility; inclusive public spaces; and meaningful collaboration between the public sector, business, cultural institutions and communities.

It also examined the role of cities in enabling creative economies. Across discussions on culture, tourism, mobility and urban development, a consistent message emerged: successful creative cities are not built through marketing alone. They are built by investing in the people, enterprises, cultural spaces, public realm and connections that allow creativity to be produced, experienced and shared, and flourish.

For Johannesburg, this means recognising the city’s cultural life as a living asset. Its music, fashion, design, food, heritage, art, entrepreneurship and street-level energy are not simply attractions for visitors; they are part of the city’s everyday economy and identity. The challenge is to ensure that artists, makers, traders, cultural workers and local businesses can participate in, and benefit from, the value that culture creates.

“Creative Futures Africa was designed to move beyond broad agreement that creativity matters,” says Dawn Robertson, Visitor and Creative Economy Catalyst at Jozi my Jozi. “The Summit made a strong case for the practical systems that make creative work viable: investment, access, safe and connected cities, stronger partnerships and space for people to make, trade, perform and grow.”

“Creative Futures Africa: Beyond the Summit is about taking those conversations back to the people doing the work every day. We want the creative community to test the ideas, challenge the assumptions, share what is missing and help shape the actions that follow. Johannesburg’s creative future cannot be designed behind closed doors; it has to be built with the people, places and enterprises that give this city its energy and character.”

A platform for the sector

The public discussion forms part of Design Week South Africa’s Johannesburg programme, taking place from 08 to 11 October. Design Week South Africa’s annual festivals in Johannesburg and Cape Town showcase exhibitions, studio and urban tours, product launches, installations, panel discussions and workshops that celebrate South African creativity.

“This year’s theme, ‘The Shape of Us’, provides a fitting context for the Beyond the Summit conversation. It invites reflection on how design, culture and creativity shape the places people inhabit, the economies they build and the stories they tell about themselves,” comments Robertson.

“Creative Futures Africa was convened to strengthen the conditions in which South Africa’s and Africa’s creative economies can flourish. That requires more than dialogue between institutions; it requires the knowledge, challenge and participation of the artists, designers, cultural practitioners and entrepreneurs who experience those conditions first-hand,” says Beth Arendse, CEO of Business and Arts South Africa (BASA).

“Beyond the Summit opens the conversation, ensuring that the insights generated in September are tested against real experience and carried forward through collaboration. Creative Futures Africa: Beyond the Summit will create space for delegates, creative practitioners, entrepreneurs, students, cultural organisations, funders, city-makers and interested members of the public to engage with the Summit’s emerging agenda. The aim is not to repeat the closed Summit, but to open its ideas to wider scrutiny and participation, and to strengthen a shared programme of action for Johannesburg, South Africa, and the wider African creative economy.”

The evening will take the form of a facilitated panel discussion, bringing together voices from across Johannesburg’s creative, cultural, business and city-making communities. Panelists will unpack the Summit’s key themes - from investment, infrastructure and market access to creative-city development, public spaces and inclusive opportunity, before opening the conversation to the audience. The aim is to move beyond reporting back on the Summit and create a constructive public exchange on what needs to happen next for Johannesburg’s creative economy.

Event details

Creative Futures Africa: Beyond the Summit

• Date: Thursday, 08 October 2026

• Time: 17:30 – 19:30

• Venue: A42 House, 6A 8th Avenue, Parktown North, Johannesburg

• Entry: Free and open to all ages

• Booking: Reserve a place via Luma