Seatavern

The Creative and Engaged Research for Health Equity in Africa Conference is a first-of-its-kind gathering on the continent that boldly repositions creativity, inclusion, and community engagement as essential drivers of equitable health research and innovation.

Hosted in the vibrant and complex city of Cape Town, the conference brings together researchers, artists, health professionals, community advocates, and change-makers to co-create new ways of knowing and doing. It recognises that solving the continent’s most pressing health challenges requires more than data—it requires imagination, radical listening, and collaborative action.

Too often, African health research is shaped by externally imposed norms and methods. As Dr. Helen Kara, a global expert in creative methodologies, writes in her letter of support for this gathering, much of African scholarship remains bound by epistemic colonialism, privileging ‘scientific’ knowledge systems at the expense of Indigenous, embodied, and creative ones. This conference disrupts that narrative.

From storytelling and photovoice to AI-enabled participatory design, immersive theatre, visual arts, and digital innovation, this conference explores how creative practices can transform the purpose and process of research.

We invite dialogue on the ethical dimensions of community engagement, the value of art as data, and the potential for digital tools to include, rather than exclude, those most often left out of research agendas. This is not a traditional academic conference. Expect art performances, walkshops, live co- creation labs, and unconference spaces alongside more conventional panels and poster sessions. You will encounter policy-makers and poets, activists and AI engineers, healers and hackers, all committed to building healthier futures rooted in justice, imagination, and co-creation.

We are especially excited to co-host this event at Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences with our partners from the University of the Western Cape, the University of Venda, the University of Johannesburg, University of Cape Town, the University of South Africa, KU Leuven, the Office of Astronomy for Development, and FEDISA Fashion School.

Cape Town, with its deep history of activism and inequality, provides a fitting context to explore the duality of pain and possibility - and to imagine new futures together.

We welcome you to submit your ideas, share your work, and join this pan- African, transdisciplinary, and intergenerational movement for creative and engaged health research. Whether you’re a seasoned scholar, a first-time researcher, a community leader, or an artist with a vision, this space is for you.

Let’s reimagine not only what we research, but how, why, and with whom.