Kumwesu Arts and Crafts

"Kumwesu"  ("My home")  is an organisation committed to transforming the African Fine Arts industry by improving access to global markets.

Most fine Artists in Zambia and Africa at large do not have access to global markets despite of the growing appreciation of African Art on global markets. Art as a business is in most African  countries is not considered as viable career option capable of sustaining the artist. This is driven by Little or no appreciation of art by households that can afford to purchase, Low income earning from households that cant and lack of professional training of most artists. Yet according to the African art market report of 2016 in recent years modern  contemporary African art carvings and paintings have started catching the eyes of big spenders on the global stage although activity in the sector is still small compared to other regions. And so, despite the unprecedented interest in African pieces, local collectors don’t have the money to amass the kind of collections that attract the global industry’s collection. This leaves only one solution for the modern and some contemporary African artist, Global markets! Our goal as kumwesu is to bridge this gap through our platform which will not only ease access to global markets for Art work for both the modern and contemporary  but also aiding the improvement of the portfolio's of Artists to make them compete on a global stage through our platform.

Firstly we are doing away with the traditional brick and mortar approach. Secondly because we identified how access to global markets is important so we begun with building interest from collectors dealers and gallerists across the globe requesting them to briefly tell us what they like thats puts us in a position of matching an artist to the right collector. Thirdly because we understand lack of training will make some unable to break into the market despite being put on the platform we will continuously provide training boot-camps for artists to ensure their skills are perfected. 

Its a virtual platform that means anyone from anywhere on the globe will be able to view the site. Secondly we will need to build algorithms through the use of AI tools that will help improve our targeted marketing to ensure we improve our effectiveness.

After completion of the prototype  by 4th August we plan to.

• Sign up 100 Artists to annual membership subscription and get them to list 30 pieces each. Sign up 200 Artist to once off plan and get them to list  5 paintings each.

• convince 100, collectors, dealers or galleries to purchase at least 14 pieces each  from our site.

• Ensure Artists signed up to our annual subscription plan sell  10 pieces and  those signed up to the once off plan sell 4 pieces. All items sold for both plans being  priced @ $500 or more.

• Auction  pieces of the famous late Henry Tayali.

The first 1-3 years are dedicated to establishing ourselves in Zambia where we plan to serve 1000+ Artists in this period after that we plan to expand to major other African Countries. In Zambia alone its estimated they could be between 10,000-45,000 individuals in this industry according to the central statistics office. In Africa At large a conclusion on research of the findings from various statistic institutions during the last 11 weeks of Training with the Tony Elumelu Foundation revealed they could be a total of  1,193,812 individuals in this industry requiring our service.

Collectors of Art

Monthly and weekly newsletters to keep them informed on upcoming artist with potential that produce what they like.

Regular appreciation letters from the CEO expressing his gratitude on their support for the business.

For regular customers it we may be even go further as painting them portraits signed by Kumwesu in house studios.

Visual Artisans

Through our world class curators and visual art master class training videos online on our platform or physical workshops we will help them improve their craft.

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The prototype is still in development and after its launch we will be serving the first 300 artists by the end of the year.

(1)Full stack developer, (1)Graphic designer (2) sales and marketing and (1) Business development and strategy implementation personnel and we have the support  and advise of The visual Arts Director of the national arts council of Zambia.

Revenue Streams

1. Membership of k500/ $50 per year + 25% of the value of every sale for members.

2. Once off listing fee of k50/ $5 + 30% of the value of every sale for non member.

Winning the prize can help us in the initial stages of our start up but also the exposure we will get for our business is the most valuable.

We need investment to able to hire top notch curators and art experts to improve the image of our company.