The Kaduna Fashion and Art Exhibition (KAFART) is an annual exhibition with the main aim of highlighting and celebrating the vibrant arts and fashion in Northern Nigeria. The exhibition is an annual platform by Northern creatives for creatives in Northern Nigeria to showcase their talent; improve their creative skills and stimulate Northern Nigeria’s creative economy through collaboration and purchase. The annual project is the vanguard art platform in the whole of Northern Nigeria – with heavy participation from Kaduna, Abuja, Kano and Jos.

With our bi-monthly events like our household Art Xcape, which seeks to expand the creative community and provide more education on the arts and fashion, we usually crown up the year with our annual exhibition where the whole essence of KAFART comes to life. And for our third edition, we decided to go big on Culture, to spread beyond the Crocodile city and our motherland to intersect the cultures from within Sahel Africa. We want to tell a story, and we believe that the fashion feel in Zaria can resonate with the people in Dakar, Khartoum, Bamako to mention a few.

In light of this essence, we have themed our 3rd edition Cultural Xchange: The Intersection. We are seeking to celebrate our cultural similarities in Sahel Africa where we can re-embrace a borderless ideology through fashion and art. Simple exchanges can break down walls between us only when we gather when engage with one another and share common experiences as Africans. Only then will we recognize the similarities in our differences.

The Intersection was born out of real events that have revealed the disconnect we are currently experiencing. There’s so much we don’t know about one another in terms of our cultures, beliefs and values. We want to keep positioning the fashion and arts as channels that reignite our connection as Africans.

We believe that only together, can we reimagine our future and redefine our past by embracing agelong practices as they fit in our world today.

Our upcoming Exhibition promises to be rich, entertaining and educational like never before seen in Northern Nigeria. We’re spinning out an exciting row of creatives from visual artists such as Abdulrazaq Ahmed, Ahmad Abdullahi, Almogera Abdalbagea, Nybe Ponzio, Barasketchbook, Zainab Isa, Vetum Galadima, Fatouma Akine , TJ Benson, Imran Tilde to fashion designers such as NioFar by Milcos, Romzy, Listo Creation, Nucy, Babayo, Sahmien, Hafmar by Susu and so much more. Ours is a promise of a rich web of colourful and contemporary fashion. We want to use this opportunity to encourage and promote the trade of cultural and creative goods within the Sahel region of the continent.

The exhibition is slated to take place from the 10th-13th November 2022 at the Umaru Musa Yar’adua Hall, Murtala Square, Kaduna. Activities such as exhibitions, panel sessions, masterclasses, workshops, fashion runway shows and performances will take place during the exhibition.

This year promises to be one for the ages, a new dawn for art and fashion in Northern Nigeria and the country as a whole. Each year we raise the bar higher, by giving our young creatives a platform to stand on, and a culture that lives on.

We hope that you can be a part of us as we carve out a space in the histories through our storytelling of Sahel African Art and Fashion.

This project is a beneficiary of ProgrammeAWA by the European Union, Institut Francais, ACP-Culture, Kore Cultural Center, Segou, Mali, which aims to support the structuring of cultural and creative industries in West Africa. The objective of the program is to promote the revitalization of the competitiveness of West African cultural and creative industries throughout the value chain.

Other partners include WakaNow, Maigaskiya Studio, Kaduna Markets Development and Management Company, The Scath Community, Gazelle Creative and ASIRI Magazine,Foundation, Berlin Art Institue, Visionary Art Collective, Women Aware of Rights Initiative, Rift Valley Grill House, The Moveee Magazine and Cik Studios