Dakar
Dakar is a cosmopolitan city whose identity is based on its melting pot of peoples. Housing 25% of the country’s population and 80% of its economic activity, the city is Senegal’s veritable engine room.
Attached to a rich heritage and a tradition of openness, Dakar is a creative metropolis which hosts cultural events of great magnitude, including the World Festival of Black Arts and the Biennial of Contemporary African Art. The city has also a large number of cultural infrastructures: the Théodore Monod Museum of African art, the Arts Village, galleries including the National Gallery of Art, the Daniel Sorano National Theatre and the Grand National Theatre. These multiple infrastructures reflect the dynamism of Dakar’s artistic scene and its vibrant and diverse community of actors.
Dakar is a modern city which, in view of pursuing its development, tends towards increasing its innovative capacity by strengthening the role of Media Arts in the range of expressive forms used by its cultural and social artists and actors. The city intends to make culture, creativity and innovation the driving forces of local development.
Thanks to the digital age, the production and dissemination of artistic creations is becoming accessible to an increasing number of actors. It is also a great tool for the interaction of arts, education, science and technology. A major asset for the city, the digital revolution can facilitate the convergence of different artistic worlds as well as amplify and diversify the expressive forms of Dakar’s people.
As a Creative City of Media Arts, Dakar envisages:
- Supporting innovative and developmental local projects in the field of Media Arts;
- Developing cooperation with the other cities in the Network in a concrete and inclusive project scheme. This should foster momentum behind bringing peoples together, particularly between the global North and South;
- Strengthening culture’s means of intervention and making it a lever for human and urban development;
- Strengthening UNESCO's visibility and promoting its actions in the field of culture and the creative economy;
- Promoting the Network with local decision-makers and more broadly across the African continent;
- Supporting other member cities by giving them access to the local stage; and
- Creating bridges between Senegalese and international actors.