A classical music concert at the GoDown. Over the years, the GoDown and the Kenya Conservatoire of music, who have an annex at the GoDown, have forged a partnership supporting young classical musicians with bursaries for music lessons.Puppets from the popular XYZ show by Buni Ltd, who among the diverse arts and media organizations based at the GoDown Arts Centre.Salah Ammar is a Sudanese artist based in one of the GoDown’s subsidized studios.The Nairobi County Manjano Visual Arts Exhibition & Art Prize is an annual feature of visual arts activities in Nairobi, offering prizes in student and established artist categories.High school boys admire the GoDown’s graffiti walls. Each year, schools visit the GoDown to interact directly with a contemporary arts space.The GoDown is open to the public. It hosts exhibitions, performances and creative workshops.Kenyan musician Size 8 performs at one of the GoDown’s annual Nairobi community festivals called Dunda Mtaani. The festival has helped strengthen connection artists have community audiences; at the same time, community artists have found a platform from which to test and prove themselves.A visitor to the Exhibition “Kenya’s Nubian’s: Then and Now” that was curated by Greg Constantine. The GoDown promotes programs such as this that have relevance and meaning for the community.JokaJok Dance Company in performance. Contemporary dance is among the new, exciting art forms the GoDown has actively facilitated.A scene from “Mo Faya”, Eric Wainaina’s huge musical success, which played to full houses at the GoDown. Children share their creativity after an art session at the GoDown.

Creative Economy / Creative Entrepreneurship

The GoDown Arts Centre’s creative entrepreneurship course is for artists and creative entrepreneurs across all creative arts disciplines. Through it artists hone their business and life skills in an inspiring learning environment, among peers and facilitators with whom they exchange experiences, challenges and insights. Together, they begin to build a community of like-minded, empowered individuals who beyond the course form networks of support that not only advance their individual careers but the wider creative sector as well.

Since 2012, 150 artists and creative entrepreneurs have successfully completed the first Semester of the course, (which has in total four semesters). In March 2014 a cohort of Semester 2 artists successfully graduated.

Using the Lifecycle model derived from psychologist Howard Gardner, the students reflect on the trajectory of their own life journeys as creatives, and as entrepreneurs, looking at ways in which they can identify and plug skills and knowledge gaps in their own practice, as well as open outwards to embrace new innovations and technologies, and networks.

Flagship Programmes



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