www.collectivecares-zm.net

We are thrilled to launch Collective Cares’ website on this day of solstice. It is when the energy on our planet shifts between regeneration and renewal (winter, southern hemisphere) and celebration and gathering (summer, northern hemisphere). Just like this astronomical cycle, this website is also living – meaning that it shifts as it grows, in response to the experience shared, knowledge produced and relationships nurtured. (Reference: “The Ancient African Science of Winter” by AFROSAVVY)

Please do visit and enjoy browsing, and grow with us.

Collective Cares is a peer-led curatorial initiative for contemporary arts in Zambia. Zambia’s artistic landscape is rich in expressions but lacks visibility, infrastructure, and support. To improve this, we are creating a hybrid physical/digital space for conversation, research, and collaboration. Framing curation as a practice of care, we root ourselves in solidarity over competition.

Collective Cares would like to thank everyone who has supported us so far, and donated our initial crowdfunding campaign. We are grateful for raising GBP £473.32, which is not huge but enabled us to kick things off, including the monthly Studio Visit series and the website building. Long-term sustainability is still a challenge, but we’re starting small and intentional. Thank you very much!

Established in 2020, EcoCreative Cluster has been focusing on natural dyes, pigments and the use of natural materials in creative practices. Grounded in the creation and ongoing cultivation of a community dye garden at The Rockfield Centre in Oban, it provides workshops and learning opportunities for the local community, led by textile artist Deborah Gray and invited tutors. The project also has an international network weaving dimension led by curator Naoko Mabon, including collaborations and online conversation series with practitioners across the world.

While deeply rooted in Oban, the Conversations With Artists series has been weaving a wider network of practitioners through holding a space for intercultural exchanges and critical discussions. To date, we have invited 17 artists/groups from 14 locations across the globe, all of whom engage with nature-based local materials and/or natural dye techniques in their practices. Not only producing fascinating dyes and dyed works, invited practitioners are using the creative process of natural dyeing to address local or broader issues, leading to a meaningful social change.

Season 1 (2021) Playlist: https://tinyurl.com/r4u89yxn
・Deborah Gray (Oban, Scotland)
・Monica Haddock (Isle of Mull, Scotland)
・Fernanda Mascarenhas (São Paulo, Brazil)
・Nanako Suzuki (Yubari, Japan)
・Boubacar Doumbia (Ségou, Mali)
*There was a dye garden planning session (private event) and an artist’s talk (public event) led by Lucille Junkere also carried out during the first season of the project, but no recordings are available for those events.

Season 2 (2022) Playlist: https://tinyurl.com/bdhk84y
・Thomas Keyes (Cromarty, Scotland)
・Jessica Giannotti (Oban, Scotland)
・Susan Martin (Pembrokeshire, Wales)
・Living Blue (Rangpur, Bangladesh)
・Firew Konjo (Arba Minch, Ethiopia)
・Katie West (Noongar Ballardong country)

Season 3 (2024) Playlist: https://tinyurl.com/5xd96vvw
・Lyndsey McDougall (Ards Peninsula, Northern Ireland)
・Rosalinda Tay (San Juan La Laguna, Guatemala)

Season 4 (2026) Playlist: https://tinyurl.com/ycxenkk5
・Timothy Siachibuye from Twaabane Creative Centre & Banji Chona and her youth- and women-led initiative Inkaya Studio (Zambia)
・Trees4Trees & Sodiqin (Kampung Laut, Indonesia)

Special thanks to those who have supported this online series:
Kase Juliana; Gil Gosch; Shimizusawa Project; Tiécoura N’Daou; Cheick Hamala Toure; Sahelien; Hannah Gray; Francesca Zappia; Leslie Mabon; CHARTS; Carol Alison Smith; Actuality Abroad; and Gladhys Elliona.

Collective Cares: Studio Visit #004 – Mwaba Chandia

For the 4th studio visit of Collective Cares, Naoko virtually visited Lusaka-based artist Mwaba Chandia. The conversation focused on Mwaba’s two recent pieces, which were informed by materials from the natural surroundings of the artist, including seedpods and sheaths of trees. Please click here to read Naoko’s reflection.

As they exchanged, the conversation touched and critically explored: relationship with materials beyond authority and control; politics of display and representation; and the challenges around traditional crafts.

Studio Visit is a series of reflections to encounters and conversations with artists/practitioners in Zambia, organised by Collective Cares. This is, however, not a series of mere recordings or documentations of visits. Through creating a critical response to the encounters or conversations, the series explores a way of working or thinking together that values relationship over extraction, conversation over interview, and care over capture. Studio Visit is a cultivation of conditions under which thinking can happen, knowledge can be shared, and solidarity can grow.

Image credit © Mwaba Chandia

Collective Cares: Studio Visit #002 – Loliwe Phiri

For the second studio visit of Collective Cares, Naoko Mabon visited Loliwe Phiri, an artist who specialises in humanitarian photography, to speak about Loliwe’s practice. Click here to read Naoko’s response to her visit and conversation with Loliwe in a form of short writing titled “Desire For Impact, Desire For Positive Change – Loliwe Phiri On Visual-storytelling”.

Loliwe Phiri is an artist who specialises in humanitarian photography. Based in Lusaka, Zambia. She often works in the fields across different communities in Zambia and beyond, capturing images that tell stories of the humanitarian efforts of international NGOs and local organisations who are making a positive impact to those communities or wider society.

Studio Visit is a series of commissioned responses to encounters and conversations with artists/practitioners in Zambia, organised by Collective Cares. This is, however, not a series of mere recordings or documentations of visits. Through creating a critical response to the encounters or conversations, the series explores a way of working or thinking together that values relationship over extraction, conversation over interview, and care over capture. Studio Visit is a cultivation of conditions under which thinking can happen, knowledge can be shared, and solidarity can grow.

Image credit:
Captured on 17th February, 2025 in Western Province, Zambia on the Zambezi River Plains during a story gathering assignment. © Loliwe Photography