Banana Club has announced that internationally acclaimed creative director, editor, stylist and image-maker IB Kamara will join the Banana Club Economic Inclusion Forum 2026: Access: Beyond Inclusion, taking place in Gaborone from 16–17 October 2026.
Bringing together voices from Botswana, the region and beyond, the annual Forum examines economic inclusion through the interconnected questions of opportunity, capital, ownership and access to the digital economy. The 2026 programme brings perspectives from business, finance, technology, culture and civil society into conversation around the systems that determine who is able to participate in and ultimately shape economic life.
Kamara will open the main Forum programme on Friday, 16 October with Culture as Economic Power, an intimate conversation with Banana Club Founder and Director Tanlume Enyatseng exploring how creativity becomes cultural, economic and institutional power.
Born in Sierra Leone, raised in The Gambia and based in London, Kamara has built a multidisciplinary career spanning fashion, photography, publishing, film and creative direction. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Dazed from 2021 to 2025 and joined Off-White in 2022 to oversee the brand’s creative direction following the death of its founder, Virgil Abloh. His work has extended across publications including British Vogue and Vogue US and brands including Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dior, Nike and Ferragamo.
The 2026 Forum builds on Banana Club’s inaugural Economic Inclusion Forum, which brought together delegates from the region, alongside workshop participants and four cross-sector conversations. Banana Club is a Botswana-based, queer-led cultural non-profit organisation working at the intersection of contemporary art, public discourse and social change.
During his tenure at Dazed, Kamara created cover shoots with cultural figures including Rihanna, Harry Styles, Rosalía, Dua Lipa, Doja Cat and A$AP Rocky. His wider practice has consistently engaged questions of African identity, masculinity and representation while moving between creative disciplines and global cultural institutions.
For Banana Club, Kamara’s participation provides an entry point into a wider question at the centre of this year’s Forum: what happens after representation?
“Access is not simply about being invited into existing systems. It is about having the agency, resources and ownership required to participate in shaping them,” says Tanlume Enyatseng, Founder and Director of Banana Club. “This year, we want to move beyond representation and ask more difficult questions about who gets opportunity, who receives capital, who owns the value being created and, ultimately, who gets to build.” Following the opening conversation, the Forum’s morning programme will examine three dimensions of economic access: Access to Opportunity, considering where talent and economic potential continue to be excluded; Access to Capital, examining how funding and investment decisions are made and who is considered investable; and Access to Ownership, interrogating who owns and benefits from the value generated by African cultural production.
The programme continues on Friday afternoon with the Digital Futures Lab, exploring how music, technology and digital culture can create more inclusive pathways into the creative economy by expanding access to skills, platforms, audiences and economic opportunity for communities historically excluded from them.
The Forum culminates on Saturday, 17 October with the Banana Club Block Party, bringing the conversations of the Forum into a public cultural space centred on music, community and nightlife.
Additional speakers, collaborators and programme details will be announced in the coming weeks.
The 2026 Forum builds on Banana Club’s inaugural Economic Inclusion Forum, which brought together delegates from the region, alongside workshop participants and four cross-sector conversations. Banana Club is a Botswana-based, queer-led cultural non-profit organisation working at the intersection of contemporary art, public discourse and social change.
Through artist development, cultural production, economic inclusion, research and public programming, Banana Club creates platforms for underserved communities while building connections between culture, institutions, policy and economic participation.
At the centre of its artistic work is the Banana Club Artist Fund (BCAF), alongside programmes examining economic inclusion, cultural research and the conditions necessary for artists and communities to participate meaningfully in cultural and economic life.
