Finding A Creative Space Can Be Hard, Jambo Spaces Is Solving That Problem

When Jambo Spaces, one of Accra’s foremost creator hubs launched in 2022, its main vision was to create an infrastructure for the country’s creator economy.

A physical space housing different other spaces and resources that support all kinds of creative exploration. Since then, it has managed to be a home for podcasts, events, video shoots, music recordings, gathering space for unconventional creative engagement and more. In 2022, Jambo built its answer in Accra with a collection of creative spaces tucked away in Tse Addo, one of the city’s fast-growing neighbourhoods. Since then, thousands of creators have come through its doors, while Jambo has delivered creator education, youth programmes, productions and events, working with multiple brands, institutions, foreign governments and creative communities across Africa. It has been home to two editions of OkayAfrica’s Culture Cafe series — an interactive listening session with some of the continent’s biggest stars.

But along the way, as the community grew, more creative spaces began springing up, not just across Accra and Ghana, but across the continent. It became clear that Jambo was never supposed to be the only space. Across Africa, a growing network of studios, creator hubs, co-working spaces, cultural centres, makerspaces, innovation hubs and community spaces is quietly providing the infrastructure behind Africa’s booming creative economy. Yet many remain difficult to discover.

This has led Jambo to set up the Jambo Creator Space Directory, an ambitious and free directory mapping the spaces powering creativity across Africa. Starting with 30 plus spaces currently on the platform, Jambo aims to expand its reach across the entire continent and grow the directory to 1000 spaces in a year. The goal is simple: Help creators find spaces, help spaces find each other, and help the world see the people building Africa’s creative infrastructure.

“We started by serving creators from one space in Accra. Our next chapter is about connecting creators to thousands of spaces across Africa,” Bernard Kafui Sokpe, Co-founder of Jambo Spaces explains.

“If creativity needs space, then those spaces need to be visible, connected and supported too.”

 The goal for this directory, according to the Jambo team, is to become Africa’s largest directory of creative spaces. This initiative comes at a particularly important time when physical spaces and liminal creative centers are reshaping how Africans create, commune and experience art. In cities across the continent, creative hubs and artistic gathering spaces are popping up, which expands the options that creatives have access to. The downside of this growth is that many of these spaces can be hard to find or in some cases, buried in the mix.

Jambo’s directory aims to streamline that process, helping creatives find the right kind of space for the kind of work they are looking to do.

The directory is only the beginning. Over the coming months, Jambo will visit creative spaces across the continent, share their stories, and create new programmes and opportunities connecting spaces, creators, brands and institutions.