East African Visual Artists' career trajectories: national and international intermediaries, networks and platforms

PhD in Culture, Media and Creative Industries
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Background and context ​
The international visibility of African contemporary art has expanded significantly, driven by the growth of global art fairs, museums’ diversification agendas, and the rise of digital platforms. Yet African visual artists still face uneven access to international art markets, often shaped by geopolitical hierarchies, gatekeeping structures, and institutionally mediated forms of mobility. Within this broader landscape, East Africa presents a particularly compelling case. While vibrant local art scenes exist and evolve in cities such as Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Kampala, and Dar es Salaam, the region remains comparatively underrepresented in global art circuits relative to West and Southern Africa. This research investigates how East African visual artists navigate national and international career pathways and ecosystems, with a focus on the roles of intermediaries, informal (personal relations, art collectives, personal digital networks) as well as formal: curators, gallerists, cultural brokers, residency programmes, platforms such as biennials, art fairs, online marketplaces, and social media. By studying the interplay between national structures and global artworld systems, the project seeks to explain the factors that enable or constrain East African artists’ international mobility, visibility, and professional development.

Project Code: 2627-ACBB7
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Entry Requirements

This project leads to the award of a PhD in Culture, Media and Creative Industries. Before you apply, please check the specific entry requirements and once ready, complete the application via King's Apply. Remember to include the Project Code in your application.

Supervisors

​Professor Roberta Comunian, Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries
Professor Eka Ikpe, African Leadership Centre
Co-Supervisor: Dr. Maria Amelina – EAMAN, Managing director and institutional economist.

Project Partner

EAMAN is a museum project with a mandate to preserve, research, protect and display the works of Eastern African artists in digital and physical formats
Keywords
  • Visual artists' careers
  • East Africa Art scene
  • Creative intermediaries
  • International contemporary art markets
  • Creative/cultural cities
Area of research ​
The internationalisation of African art has been widely explored, but most studies have centred on West Africa (Mensah, 2025) or on pan-African narratives centred on major institutions in Europe and North America. The specificities of East Africa—where formal art markets are emergent and cultural policy support varies widely—remain understudied. Several gaps motivate this research. First of all, the lack of empirical career-mapping studies in East Africa means that existing scholarship often focuses on aesthetic analysis or national art histories, rather than systematic examinations of artists’ career trajectories across borders. Secondly, the often under theorised role of intermediaries, especially in connection to international platforms, shapes how artists achieve visibility (Comunian & England, 2022). The research could articulate the different approaches used by informal networks and informal intermediaries (e.g. self-styled curators) versus more formal intermediaries which are institutionally established.  Their influence in East African artworlds remains under-investigated. Moreover, the new role of digital platforms as intermediaries between online galleries and virtual residencies disrupts traditional gatekeeping. Yet, their impact on African artists’ global engagement is only beginning to be theorised (Obuo & Mensah, 2022). Finally, the role of policy and infrastructural constraints needs to be considered, including national funding, arts education, cultural institutions, and visa regimes, which profoundly shape mobility. This research should address these gaps by providing an empirically grounded, theoretically informed analysis of the international career development for East African visual artists.
The project draws on an interdisciplinary combination of theories such as the (1) Artworld Systems and Global Circulation, from Becker’s (1982) Art Worlds foundational framework to consideration of the role of hubs, intermediaries and cities (Castellote & Okwuosa, 2020); (2) Cultural and creative intermediation, from Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural capital and field (1993) illuminate how intermediaries facilitate or restrict access to markets and symbolic legitimacy. To more Contemporary scholarship on cultural intermediaries (Comunian & England, 2022) provides tools for analysing curators, gallery owners, and institutions as brokers of value. Finally, another contribution from the (3) mobility, migration, and transnational networks research project adopts theories of cultural mobility and transnational artistic careers (Rodríguez, 2011), focusing on how artists navigate cross-border movement, residencies, and international exhibitions.
Expected outcome ​
Bridging knowledge and expertise across the Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, and Public Policy, the project will contribute to some or all of the following outcomes: This research contributes to several academic fields:
  • African Art Studies: Provides new empirical insights into East African contemporary art scenes, which remain understudied relative to West Africa and South Africa.
  • Cultural Sociology: Offers a detailed analysis of cultural intermediation in non-Western contexts.
  • Global Artworld Research: Extends debates on globalisation, mobility, and cultural hierarchy through fine-grained case studies.
  • Creative Economy & Policy Studies: Illuminates how policy, infrastructure, and labour conditions shape artistic careers in East Africa.
  • Digital Cultural Studies: Demonstrates how online platforms reshape cross-border artistic visibility.
The findings will inform policy debates around cultural funding, support structures for artists, and international mobility, while also supporting East African arts institutions in understanding global engagement pathways.
 
 
Suggested readings
  • Becker, H. (1982). Art Worlds. University of California Press
  • Bourdieu, P. (1993). The Field of Cultural Production. Polity
  • Castellote, J., & Okwuosa, T. (2020). Lagos art world: the emergence of an artistic hub on the global art periphery. African Studies Review, 63(1), 170-196.
  • Comunian, R., & England, L. (2022). Access and diversity in South African craft and design: The work of craft intermediaries in Cape Town. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 25(6), 1597-1616.
  • Obuo, M. & Mensah, M. (2022). “African artists and digital opportunities in the global art market.”
  • Okeke-Agulu, C. (2020). Postcolonial modernism: Art and decolonization in twentieth-century Nigeria. Duke University Press.
  • Mensah, J. D. (2025). Rethinking the contribution of creative economies in Africa to sustainable development. An empirical research of creative intermediaries in Accra’s contemporary art sector. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 31(4), 551-568.
  • Rodríguez, J. B. (2011). Global Art and the Politics of Mobility:(Trans) Cultural Shifts in the International Contemporary Art-System. Thamyris/Intersecting: Place, Sex & Race, 24.