Mobile a2k is a project that aims to document and assess the impact of cultural events and public art on urban safety in three African cities: Douala, Cameroon; Luanda, Angola; and Johannesburg, South Africa. The project partners with various arts organizations in Africa and will evaluate whether cultural activities can positively impact factors like livability, social cohesion, and civic participation in cities experiencing violence. Mobile a2k will contribute its findings to Wikiafrica in 2014 to spread knowledge about relationships between culture and urban safety in Africa.

1. Mobile A2K
access to knowledge
culture and safety in africa
documenting and assessing the impact of
cultural events and public art on urban safety
Culture and Safety in Africa.
Documenting and assessing
the impact of cultural events
and public art on urban safety
Davide Fornari
davide.fornari@supsi.ch
supsi University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Lugano
Iolanda Pensa
iolanda.pensa@lettera27.org
lettera27 Foundation, Milan

2. What is Mobile a2k?
Mobile a2k is a project Mobile a2k aims at spreading cultural
conceived within the frame contents produced within the African
of action of lettera27 continent through new displaying
Foundation, a non-profit formats and tools.
organization whose mission
is to support the right Mobile a2k is employing technology,
to literacy, education, participatory design, and visual arts
and the access to knowledge to focus on and compare the side-effects
and information, especially of cultural events and public art
in the African continent. installations on urban safety and security
The project started in late in three violent and unsafe African cities:
2009 and is currently under Douala (Cameroon), Luanda (Angola)
development in partnership and Johannesburg (South Africa).
with supsi as an executive
branch.

3. What are the origins of the project?
This project is based on the experience
and the archives of our partners in Africa:
doual’art Fundação Sindika Dokolo Chimurenga
is an ngo which has been working promotes numerous arts and culture is a pan African publication of writing,
on urban transformations for the past festivals in Angola and abroad. Its mission art and politics in print since March 2002.
twenty years in order to promote the is to create a center for contemporary The journal is published on paper three
empowerment of local communities, art in Luanda, and not only for displaying times per year, online monthly and
and the devolpment of urban awareness pieces of contemporary African art, but through themed performances called
in Douala, Cameroon. also to create the conditions necessary “Chimurenga Sessions”.
to integrate African artists in the
www.doualart.org/ international circles of the art world. www.chimurenga.co.za/
www.fondation-sindikadokolo.com/ African Centre for Cities
seeks to facilitate critical urban research
and policy discourses for the promotion
of vibrant, democratic and sustainable
urban development in the global South
from an African perspective.
www.africancentreforcities.net/

4. doual’art, Cameroon
doual’art has been working The 2011 edition of the Salon
in Douala since 1991. Urbain de Douala was devoted
They operates as promoters to the issue of water in the
of infrastructures, works city of Douala. During the
of art and design. sud, several African artists
The association mapped together with the University
the installations by artists of Douala studied the quality
through a signage system of water sources and wells,
and a cartography. and made these data available
The intervention Douala to local communities in order
Ville d’Art et d’Histoire proved to raise their awareness.
efficient both for the
documentation of points
of interest and for making
the city safer through active
citizenship.

5. What are the main research questions?
This research addresses the questions: These questions rely on
the hypothesis that arts are
“How cultural events and public art affect a space for experimentation
urban safety in African cities?” and research, not directly
connected to urban safety,
and but capable of triggering
unforeseen ways of
“Can we assess these changes as positive producing higher livability,
according to a group of factors?”. civil cohabitation and social
cohesion.

6. The network of Mobile a2k
partners
African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town
Chimurenga, Cape Town
doual’art, Douala
École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications, Paris
Fondazione lettera27, Milan
Fundação Sindika Dokolo, Luanda
Institut Jean Nicod, Paris
Latitude Platform for Urban Research and Design, Brussels
supsi, Lugano
Università Iuav, Venezia
usi, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano
case studies
Douala, Cameroon
Luanda, Angola
Johannesburg, South Africa

7. Mobile A2K
access to knowledge
culture and safety in africa
documenting and assessing the impact of
cultural events and public art on urban safety
Follow Mobile a2k
please keep in touch if you want to:
- participate to the project as an external evaluator;
- be included in Mobile a2k network;
- be informed about the results of this research in 2014.
Davide Fornari
davide.fornari@supsi.ch
Mobile a2k contributes to
Wikiafrica with the license
supsi University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Lugano
cc by sa. This work is licensed
under the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
Unported License. To view a
copy of this license, visit http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/
Iolanda Pensa
by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to
Creative Commons, 444 Castro
iolanda.pensa@lettera27.org
Street, Suite 900, Mountain
View, California, 94041, USA. lettera27 Foundation, Milan