THINKING

What it means to be present, celebrated and still excluded from meaningful trade. There is a familiar scene that plays out at many conferences, festivals, government events and corporate activations. It is a scene that has become so normal within the creative sector that many people no longer stop to question it. The conference venue is alive long before the programme formally begins. Delegates arrive in waves carrying laptops, notebooks and branded tote bags. Conversations b

Why economic freedom remains incomplete in practice Over the past two weeks, I’ve been reflecting on the responses to my first two pieces on cultural trade. The conversations have been thoughtful, but one thing keeps surfacing for me: We speak about freedom often — especially at this time of year — but we don’t always speak about the systems that make that freedom real. In my first article, I shared why I am writing about cultural trade. In the second, I explored how pricing

Rethinking value, production, and the systems behind African fashion I recently came across a question that stopped me: Are diaspora customers paying for the fashion, or funding the gap? It is a question that sits at the heart of how African fashion is currently structured — and how it is priced. The price of an African garment has never just been about fabric. It carries more than design, labour, and creativity. It carries the weight of systems that do not yet fully exist. A

I didn’t always have the language for what I do. For a long time, I moved between spaces — working with creatives, building markets, supporting businesses — but something always felt incomplete. We were creating, producing, showcasing… but not always trading. And that gap stayed with me. Over time, I began to understand that the challenge is not talent. It’s not creativity. It’s not even demand. It’s systems. The systems that connect culture to markets.The systems that enable