Bakani
[bah-KAH-nee] Verb
Bakani means to build. It is a word from the Kalanga language of Zimbabwe in Southern Africa.
Our Mission
Bakani Foundation is a non-profit cultural institution dedicated to the stories of Africa and the Diaspora as expressed through artistic expressions, living practices and ways of knowing. We create spaces and cultural infrastructure for these stories to be preserved, shared across generations and geographies, and reimagined for the future.
Our Core Pillars
Preservation
Through documentation, archiving, research, and creative interpretation, we preserve and promote awareness of African and Diasporic stories wherever they reside (languages, the arts, ecological knowledge, oral histories, artistic traditions, archives, philosophies, etc.)
Connection
Through gatherings, exchanges, spaces for dialogue, and our cultural diplomacy initiative, we foster global connections and bring diverse communities into meaningful conversation.
[Re]Imagination
Through participatory spaces, installations and public programs, we invite African and Diasporic communities to collectively imagine the futures they wish to build, expanding the stories we tell about Africa and the Diaspora.
“Bakani Foundation began as a connected question. How do we hold our stories, and how do we carry those stories forward? The work of the Foundation is one response. It creates spaces where African and Diasporic stories can live fully across time, place and form. It creates spaces for memory, dialogue, and [re]imagining what comes next.
— Lynette Sifiso | Founder and Creative Director, Bakani Foundation & The African Museum of Collective Wisdom