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 cultural institution dedicated to African and Diasporic storytelling. We understand storytelling broadly, recognizing that cultures tell their stories through artistic expression, 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 on their own terms.
Our Core Pillars
Preservation
Through documentation, archiving, research, and creative interpretation, we safeguard and amplify African and Diasporic stories, knowledge systems and living practices.
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 envision and articulate the futures they wish to build. We emphasize imagination as something communal and structured
“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