From 6–8 February 2026, the Pan-African Network for Artistic Freedom (PANAF) convenes its annual summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, bringing together artists, cultural workers, legal practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and advocates from across Africa and beyond.
Hosted in a city shaped by history, diplomacy, and cultural exchange, the PANAF Summit 2026 creates space for critical reflection on the realities shaping artistic freedom today—across legal systems, economic structures, digital environments, and social contexts.
Exploring the Theme: Free to Create
The 2026 theme, Free to Create: Power, Pressure, and Possibilities within Digital and Economic Landscapes, frames the Summit’s central inquiry: how artists navigate growing political, economic, and technological pressures while continuing to imagine, express, and sustain their work.
Across three days, conversations will engage with the conditions that enable or restrict creative practice, while also exploring collective strategies for resilience, collaboration, and policy change. The programme brings together lived experience, institutional insight, and creative practice to examine what artistic freedom looks like in today’s Africa.
