The Pan-African Creative Exchange (PACE), in partnership with the Vrystaat Arts Festival and the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, is a multi-layered and multi-platform responsive organisation which operates primarily as a biennial showcase and arts market and a site of provocation, promoting the interdisciplinary arts in Africa. PACE was developed for African and African diaspora artists and for national and international presenters, producers and festival directors, providing the highest quality interdisciplinary arts cultural product from Africa and its diaspora to buyers, artists and the general public. Though its flagship discipline is the performing arts (theatre, dance, music), PACE also showcases work from other disciplines such as visual arts, crafts, fashion, film, and digital arts.

PACE was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 2015, at a long table conversation between arts professionals from the African continent and international visitors, and is driven by a ‘coalition of the willing’ from the African continent, as well as cultural professionals outside of Africa.

PACE aims to transcend cultural, social, historical, geographical and disciplinary boundaries by increasing the global reach of Africa’s contemporary arts industry, and contributing to the continent’s development of future work. PACE partners with other platforms, festivals and artists to widen the reach of African and African-diasporic cultural products. By facilitating connections across diverse contexts and artistic exchanges, PACE challenges the status quo of the discourse around African/diaspora artistic work, and promotes a more equitable representation of creative expression on the global stage.