Lusaka's culture lives in converted houses, showground halls and compound courtyards rather than grand institutions. Three days trace the Visual Arts Council's studios, 1960s independence architecture, the Kabulonga gallery circuit and youth theatre in Chibolya.
Home of the Zambia National Visual Arts Council since 1985, this Showgrounds gallery hangs rotating shows by Zambian painters, printmakers and sculptors, with working studios behind the main hall. Mon–Fri 09:00–17:00, Sat to 13:00.
A converted Rhodes Park home holding the Zintu ethnographic collection of Zambian masks, stools, headrests and baskets, alongside a commercial gallery, craft boutique and the Zebra Crossings Café in the garden. Tue–Sat 09:00–17:00.
Anglican cathedral consecrated in 1962, its copper-clad roof and pale concrete arches a landmark of late-colonial modernism built as independence approached. Across Independence Avenue stands the 1974 bronze Freedom Statue of a man breaking chains.
Contemporary art space in a Roma house mixing studio residencies, experimental exhibitions and courtyard evenings of Zambian jazz, spoken word and film. The programme leans younger and rougher than the Kabulonga commercial galleries.
The Lechwe Trust has collected and shown Zambian art since 1986, and its Kabulonga gallery holds the country's deepest holdings of Henry Tayali, Godfrey Setti and Stary Mwaba, plus scholarship-winner shows each year. Weekdays 09:00–16:00.
Zambia's parliament, opened in 1967 on a rise off Nationalist Road, is a confident copper-roofed modernist block from the first republic, its debating chamber lined in Zambian hardwood and ringed by a public visitors' gallery.
Longacres cultural centre on Alick Nkhata Road with a hall used for francophone and African film screenings, Zambian theatre nights, concerts and dance, plus a courtyard exhibition space and a French-language library.
Built in 1953 for the Lusaka Theatre Club, the Playhouse on Church Road is the city's oldest working theatre and a base for the National Theatre Arts Association of Zambia, staging drama, comedy nights and school festivals.
In Ng'ombe compound, widows and grandmothers crochet handbags from cut plastic bags on the veranda while a community school runs alongside. Tours take in the weaving room, the craft shop and the women's choir rehearsal.
Each Sunday the grounds beside Arcades on Great East Road fill with over a hundred stalls of chitenge cloth, malachite and soapstone carving, Tonga baskets, copper work and Zambian curios, most sold by the people who made them.
Kabulonga's leading contemporary space, on Leopards Hill Road, showing painting, photography and installation by artists including Stary Mwaba and Zenzele Chulu, with the city's most consistent run of solo exhibitions.
Youth circus company founded by performers from Chibolya compound, training acrobatics, juggling, aerial silks and tumbling while funding school fees for its members. The troupe tours internationally between Lusaka seasons.