Inkundla Spaces envisions a Sierra Leone where creativity is infrastructure — where artists have the workshops, stages, and publishing platforms they need to develop, perform, and earn. Where cultural expression is not concentrated in one city but alive across the country, connected across borders.
Our Mission
Inkundla Spaces builds creative infrastructure for artists in Sierra Leone and across the region — workshops, stages, publishing platforms, and cross-border exchange, so that artistic practice becomes a sustainable livelihood, not just an act of exposure. We work in Freetown and the provinces, with communities historically excluded from the cultural economy, rooted in the belief that art is a practice of care, dialogue, and collective action.
About Us
Inkundla is the Nguni/Zulu word for a communal gathering place, a space where stories are told, ideas are tested, and community is built. That’s what we’re building in Sierra Leone. Founded in Freetown in 2023, Inkundla Spaces runs creative workshops, monthly community events, an annual arts festival, and a pan-African literary journal. We work in Freetown and in the provinces — because the artists are everywhere, even if the infrastructure isn’t.
We treat art as a practice of care. Our spaces are for artists exploring pressure, resilience, identity, and belonging through work rooted in everyday life. We believe artists should earn from what they make, not perform for exposure and hope for the best.
Wi Kreative Playgron (WKP) spotlights one featured artist per session — a poet, musician, or storyteller who shares their work and process with the room. Kreative Kommunity (KK) opens the floor to multiple voices through an open mic format. Both run monthly in Freetown. Each session centres artistic creation rooted in lived experience, and selected sessions are documented to extend their reach beyond the live space.
Wi Art Space is a rotating exhibition series held at Lumley Atlantic Hotel in Freetown. Every few weeks a new visual artist is spotlighted, giving them a platform to showcase their work to diverse, international visitors. The exhibitions offer artists visibility, networking opportunities, and direct economic benefits through sales and commissions.
The question running through every space: what does our waste say about who we are, and what beauty can be found in what others discard?
What We Leave Behind is a multidisciplinary visual art programme led by Isha H.S Kamara. Every piece is made entirely from discarded materials — objects thrown away, overlooked, forgotten. The programme began with an exhibition at Aurora Foundation and has since grown into workshops with young people at EducAid Sierra Leone.
Rise & Riot is Sierra Leone’s spoken word competition, running qualifying heats from March through October and culminating in a grand finale at the Inkundla Arts Festival. Taking place at Mango Peak in Freetown, it gives poets a competitive yet supportive platform to explore personal, social, and cultural themes. Winners receive monetary prizes and opportunities to develop their craft through our workshops.
Kreative Workshops run in Kenema, Lunsar, Foredugu, and Freetown — bringing structured creative development to artists in communities that don’t always have access to it. We work with young people aged 14 to 18 and emerging adult artists, in weekly partnership with EducAid Sierra Leone. In 2026, an EU-funded seven-day intensive will take the programme to Kenema at full scale through the Culture Moves Salone mobility programme.
Poetry Korna is Inkundla’s monthly literary journal, run by Admire Bonnie. Each edition brings together poets from Sierra Leone, Liberia, Zimbabwe, and beyond — centering South-South literary exchange and amplifying African voices across borders.
The Open Mic Series has taken creative platforms to communities that rarely see them — Lunsar, Foredugu, Kenema, Bo, Waterloo, and Blama. These grassroots gatherings give poets, musicians, and storytellers a stage in their own communities, amplifying diverse voices and strengthening cultural bonds across Sierra Leone.
The Inkundla Arts Festival has been running every October since 2024 — a three-day gathering of poets, musicians, visual artists, and storytellers in Freetown. The 2025 edition, Mind Matters: Stories That Heal, explored mental health through lived experience and creativity. The third edition is coming in October 2026, opening the stage to artists from beyond Sierra Leone for the first time.
Inkundla Spaces 