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From The Founder
There are many reasons why someone might start a business, but there is only one reason why someone stays with it. The reason to keep going, especially when the path of entrepreneurship feels like an endless uphill journey, is that the business they started is personal. The passion and desire to see it exist in the world is what sustains a founder through the unknown.
On the outskirts of Cairo, the government has an ambitious plan to build a new capital. A sprawling landscape of half-constructed condos and skyscrapers - a competition between concrete and desert. The large billboards milestoned along the motorway advertising luxury compounds, shopping centres and corporate headquarters; New Cairo... coming soon.
The American University in Cairo hosted the annual Tällberg Conference this year and I was honoured to have been invited as a part of this unique delegation of participants. With the AUC's impressive new campus situated in New Cairo, we gathered in the imagined future of an ancient civilisation.
When discussing contemporary Tibetan identities, we have to take the responsibly to look at each concept individually and question the framework of "identity" as a whole.
W.E.B. Du Bois coined the term “double consciousness” at the turn of the last century in an essay that discusses the experience of African Americans in the US. In the essay, Du Bois identified the feeling of having an identity that’s been splintered into several parts — of “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tale of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”
On International Women's Day 2016, we are incredibly excited to announce Art Represent's upcoming art initiative Flowers of Democracy (FoD) with our artist Maria Kulikovska. The FoD will be Part I to Kulikovska’s first solo show in London. Part II – 9th May – will open on the 9th May in our space in Bethnal Green.
2015 was a year of so many firsts for Art Represent, and what a year it's been.
It was only in December 2014 that I had the idea to create a designated platform for artists affected by conflict and social upheaval, a decision influenced greatly by my interactions with some fantastic artists from my homeland, Tibet. By January 2015, we began devising a sustainable, ethical business model that would offer artists the fair arrangement they deserve, without limiting Art Represent's impact.
This month's newsletter is dedicated to the merger between the artist and the business owner. We look at how to navigate through the complex art ecosystem to create more value, the relationship between ethics and the market, as well as the power of social media when mixed with conflict and art. It is my belief that by innovating the way we create and sell art, we can develop true sustainability and empower the role of artists.
