Founded by Anesu Chikumba, Unpublished Africa’s Creative Business Studio responds to a critical gap in Africa’s creative economy, equipping photographers and visual storytellers with the business skills, digital tools, and community networks needed to build long-term, sustainable careers across the continent.
Jos Photo Walk led by Gil Dachomo, Nigeria. Courtesy of Unpublished Africa.
As Africa’s creative sector continues to expand, access to structured, entry-level opportunities remains uneven. Unpublished Africa’s Creative Business Studio (CBS) was established to address this gap, offering a six-week hybrid programme designed to support photographers and visual storytellers in navigating the realities of the digital creative economy. With a strong focus on digital entrepreneurship, publishing, and community-led practice, CBS equips creatives with the tools to monetise their work, build professional systems, and expand their reach beyond traditional gatekeepers. Now having completed its fourth cohort, the programme reflects a growing pan-African network committed to visibility, sustainability, and long-term creative growth.
What inspired you to start Creative Business Studio, and what gap were you most determined to address?
Anesu Chikumba: Creative Business Studio grew out of a clear gap in how African creatives, especially photographers, could turn their talent into sustainable careers. My background has been in working with entrepreneurs and organisations that serve entrepreneurs, so creating a programme that encourages creatives to embrace creative entrepreneurship felt like a natural extension of that work. Early in the process, I had a mentor who emphasised building platforms that served Africans broadly rather than focusing on one country. That guidance shaped the pan-African vision of Unpublished Africa and CBS.
Our first programming in Harare highlighted these challenges clearly. Some participants backed out because they could not print their work, did not understand how to work with other players in the industry, or were unsure how to price their prints. They had strong creative skills but lacked the business knowledge and networks to monetise or scale their practice.
CBS was designed to address this. It equips creatives to combine their craft with practical business skills, including collaboration, project management, and navigating the gig economy, while keeping their artistic voice central. We continued to focus on photographers because they remain consistently underserved in the creative ecosystem.
The programme is about creating structured entry-level opportunities that are foundational for long-term, sustainable creative careers across the continent. Today, CBS has trained hundreds of creatives across Africa, producing outputs like the Africa Published volumes, community Photo Walks, and exhibitions, while helping alumni secure exhibitions, awards, and international visibility.
Workshop on Costing for Creative Gig Workers during Unpublished Africa Photo Week 2024. Courtesy of Unpublished Africa.
Creative Business Studio centres digital entrepreneurship as a pathway for creatives. Why is this approach essential for building sustainable creative careers?
Digital entrepreneurship at CBS means using digital tools and platforms to create, market, and sell creative work while building sustainable systems for your practice. Many African creatives work in the gig economy, taking on projects or freelance work rather than following traditional employment paths. To thrive, they need practical skills to invoice clients, manage multiple projects, and keep costs low.
CBS introduces participants to a wide range of practical business skills. Over six weeks, participants explore areas such as monetising work online, integrating AI tools, accounting basics, and other workflows to operate more efficiently. For example, the workshop on AI in Creative Business in our fourth cohort covered the different ways participants could leverage it to save time on production and improve systems, while accounting sessions showed them how to track costs with simple spreadsheets.
This approach is essential because many online tools are either expensive or inaccessible for early-stage African creatives. By equipping participants with knowledge of accessible digital tools and platforms, CBS allows them to build their creative businesses while expanding their reach and income without relying solely on traditional gatekeepers. Digital entrepreneurship provides a practical path to sustainability and independence within the African creative economy.
Publishing is a core part of the programme. What role does publishing play in shifting visibility, confidence, and opportunity for emerging creatives?
Publishing is a critical part of the creative journey because it turns work into tangible outputs that carry visibility, credibility, and professional weight. Through initiatives like Africa Published, which is exclusive to Creative Business Studio participants, emerging creatives gain a professional milestone that signals their work matters. Publishing builds confidence by showing creatives that their perspective is valued, and it opens doors to networks, collaborations, and opportunities that might otherwise be out of reach. Alumni have gone on to secure fellowships like the Mandela Washington Fellowship, exhibit internationally, hold solo shows in their home countries, and appear in global publications. Platforms such as galleries, magazines, and awards recognise published work, making it both a portfolio value-add and a gateway to sustainable careers. At Unpublished Africa, publishing is a deliberate tool to move creatives from unseen potential to recognised voices while shaping how African creativity is perceived globally.
Nairobi Photo Exchange. Courtesy of Unpublished Africa.
Why is community-led practice such a vital outcome of the programme?
Community-led practice is essential because it extends the impact of our programs beyond individual participation. After completing Creative Business Studio, alumni are invited to mentor other creatives, facilitate workshops, speak on panels, or lead a Photo Walk in their local city. This creates a ripple effect, as other beginners start to see opportunities as achievable when they interact with people walking a path they one day hope to take. We’ve seen more people apply for our programs or submit work for our Pan-African exhibitions after attending an in-person event in their city. Confidence is vital in building a creative career, and this helps with this.
Also, the African creative economy lacks easily accessible information on career growth, monetisation, and professional networks. Community-led initiatives provide localised guidance specific to each city’s cultural and economic context. For example, Nairobi has a strong events culture, while other cities have fewer platforms; this will show what kind of support each community may need that you may not be able to easily identify at the Pan-African level.
Our alumni-led projects also support knowledge sharing, foster collaboration, and build long-term infrastructure for creative ecosystems. During our 2025 Unpublished Africa Photo Week, photographers in Jos, Nigeria, and Lusaka, Zambia received portrait photography training, which the hosts initiated in both cities. In Lusaka, the photographers then went to a market for a photo walk. Many alumni have initiatives such as galleries, photography magazines, or archiving projects, and we then go on to collaborate with their collectives and organisations too.
Creative Business Studio isn’t just about empowering individuals but also about equipping them to empower others, creating networks and structures that sustain and grow African creative communities.
To date, we have held in-person events in 16 cities across 9 African countries, namely Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, mostly led by Creative Business Studio alumni or in collaboration with a creative organisation.
Harare Photo Walk, Zimbabwe. Courtesy of Unpublished Africa.
Are there alumni stories that illustrate the impact of Unpublished Africa’s work?
There are many. From the first CBS cohort in 2023, Zambian photographers Mainga and Namukolo exemplify how structured support can transform careers. Their first photography exhibitions were with Unpublished Africa in 2022, and they then joined CBS in 2023. Mainga transitioned from a full-time traditional job to a full-time creative career and recently held a solo exhibition while working as a gallery manager at Everyday Lusaka. Namukolo now mentors within CBS and leads the Zambian chapter for Unpublished Africa. Both have also exhibited their work internationally.
Gil Dachomo participated in cohort four and hosted the first Joss Photo Walk in Nigeria. He trains photographers locally and started 21st Century Humans, an archival project with which we collaborate. Jorge Dachala has built a thriving community in Nairobi and has facilitated the Nairobi Photo Exchange, for which we collaborated with Baraza Media Lab and Cameras Africa. Photographers submitted their work for printing and exchanged prints after a panel on monetising photography. Several photographers shared that this was their first time printing their work.
Bontu Shiferaw in Ethiopia introduced us to a local photography magazine she has been working on called Tikur Qelem, which we have since collaborated with. Joyce Kipunga leveraged CBS to host her first solo exhibition, and she then led Kinshasa Photo Walks, creating spaces for local photographers in the DRC. Joyce has also led fully French Creative Conversation discussions with photographers from Benin, Senegal and the DRC who have also taken part in Unpublished Africa programming.
Since starting our virtual Creative Conversations, we have covered topics like Monetising photography, Photographers as custodians of culture, for which our alumni have been speakers, and we have received feedback on how the communities we have built wish they had more of these kinds of programs that provided information with an African context in mind.
These stories show how CBS supports creatives to grow their own careers while creating pathways for others, building leadership, visibility, and sustainable impact. After we send emails confirming the selection of work, we also tend to hear more photographers say it is their first time exhibiting.
Nairobi Photo Walk led by Jorge Dachala, Kenya. Courtesy of Unpublished Africa.
Looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest opportunity and challenge in building a sustainable creative economy across Africa, and where is Unpublished Africa positioned?
The biggest opportunity lies in Africa’s untapped creative talent. There is a generation of skilled creatives whose work can shape cultural and economic value both locally and globally. If entry-level pathways and networks are systematically created, the creative economy can grow into a thriving sector with sustainable careers.
One of the biggest challenges we have identified is the presence of structural gaps. Many creatives have inconsistent access to funding, mentorship, professional systems, and marketplaces. Without deliberate interventions, talent will remain isolated, and opportunities will continue to be unevenly distributed, which limits long-term sustainability for both individuals and the sector as a whole. Licensing, pricing, and monetisation are often complex and costly, and tend to limit early-stage creatives from fully pursuing their craft.
We focus on creating those first openings through our exhibitions,learning spaces, and community networks that give emerging photographers visibility, confidence, and practical pathways to build careers. By proving that early interventions have a lasting impact, we aim to model how targeted support can scale across the creative economy. In the future, Unpublished Africa sees itself not just as a platform for photographers, but as a reference point for how structured, intentional support can unlock Africa’s creative potential and connect it to global opportunities.
Learn more at Unpublished Africa.
