Class, Creativity, and Cultural Production in Africa
Originally published by The Elephant — Read the original article →
Artistic freedom and expression has long been shaped and constrained by many factors, including power, economic hierarchies, and class. In Africa, the right to create and distribute art without censorship has always been a contested terrain. Artists’ realities in the African region are directly influenced by both their geographical and societal positions; class plays a big role in how the art world runs. What does society consider as art? Who gets to buy, collect, or even witness art? Who has access to exhibition spaces or international residencies? These questions are not abstract; they define the careers of many artists, including my own.
Since 2011, we have seen youth-led movements harness creativity as a tool for political resistance, from the Arab Spring uprisings to #FeesMustFall in South Africa, #EndSARS in Nigeria, and, most recently, Kenya’s Gen Z protests. In Sudan, where I was born and raised, the December Revolution was marked not only by chants in the streets but also by murals, poems, songs, and performances that transformed the cityscape into a living archive of resistance. Yet, even within such moments of collective creativity, class distinctions determined who could participate, whose voices were amplified, and whose remained unheard.
In this article, I reflect on how class shapes artistic and cultural production in Africa: how it has defined access to creativity, how it limits cultural consumption, and what mechanisms – grassroots, digital, and transnational – have begun to narrow these divides. My reflections are grounded in personal experience as an artist and curator working between Khartoum and Cairo, as the founder of The Muse multi-studios and the Sudan Art Archive, and as a participant in regional and international networks of cultural production.
