Tokini Peterside of ART X Collective discusses Africa's art market

In 2016, Tokini founded Art X Lagos, West Africa’s first international art fair. Financial Times embraced it as “Nigeria’s (art) potential on the global scene”. And over the past five years, Art X Lagos has gone from strength to strength. Last year, Art X Lagos became the only fair to take place physically in Africa since the pandemic. And what a success it was!

Art X, 2021, brought together 30 leading international galleries from around the world to showcase 120 artists from over 30 countries including Angola, United States, Martinique, Morocco, Egypt and South Africa. Of the 30 exhibitors, 15 joined Art X Lagos for the first time – making it a period of growth despite the challenges encountered due COVID-19.

I sat with the mastermind behind it, to find out about her vision and how she got here.

Tell me a bit about yourself? Where did you grow up, study and where are you currently based?

Tokini Peterside: I was born and grew up in Lagos. I had a lovely childhood. I was fortunate enough to experience different things – languages, Arts, creativity and Sport. Before my teenage years I went to boarding school in England. I decided to study law at the LSE in London. After graduating I strongly knew that I did not want to pursue a career in corporate law. I began exploring my interest in creativity and culture, knowing that I wanted to work on the business end. In 2008, 2 years after graduating I moved back to Lagos at the height of the boom in the creative industry. This was the year when the music industry was flourishing in an exciting way, Nigerian fashion was starting to make its mark and the film industry had been growing for a few years. I immersed myself in all that work. A few years on I started working with Moët Hennessy, LVMH group. The year I moved back to Nigeria is when I started collecting art.

You have had multiple career shifts from Lawyer, to luxury brand consulting to Art. Can you give us insights into how these changes came about? The motivation behind it?

Tokini Peterside: There was a lot I liked about law but I was much more passionate about the creative industry in general. In those years I immersed myself in the fashion, music and art that was coming out of Nigeria. I was an avid consumer of these sectors and was keen to get my hands into what was happening. When I was studying law a lot of people recommended that I become a lawyer for the creative sector, but this wasn’t quiet enough for me. The more times I spent in the creative sector the more I realised I wanted to be in the thick of things.

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I had studied the LVMH Group for many years, initially as a consumer, the more I studied these brands I realised how they were cemented in French artisanal practices. They have turned their artisanal practices into dominant brands across the globe. I wanted to do the same for African artisanal practices. I wanted to facilitate the creative industry to tell the world about us, as people but also for us to understand ourselves. Creativity is the bedrock of culture and how we see ourselves.

I spent 3 years understudying, at LVMH, the French way of doing things before I decided to launch my strategy consultancy. They had been successful in marketing local French artisanal practices to be locally appreciated, and become globally dominant brands. I wanted to learn how they build prestige around this.

The creative sector for me is a window into heritage, culture and identity. Culture, the creative industry as a whole, has exciting potential to help us interrogate and identify our identity. Beyond that how we, as Africans, relate to the rest of the world. I wanted to support creative and cultural entrepreneurs out of Africa to be able to build brands that can stand in their own right on the continent and globally.

This was the motivation that motivated me to start consulting on business strategy. Working with luxury Nigerian brands like: ALÁRA and Maki Oh. Throughout that time I knew I wanted to create platforms to change the game across the continent and from this ART X Collective followed.

We hear a lot about the importance of routine and habits to become successful. What is your morning routine?

Tokini Peterside: I am a very reflective person. In the morning the first thing I do is spend time with myself – thinking, reflecting whether it be in the personal or professional sphere. Every week I will assess the previous week – the growth I’ve had, then I will write what I want to achieve in the next week. Not necessarily a to do list but it might be who in my personal life I would like to touch base with this week, health goals and professional goals.

What I have found important for me is self reflection, on what am I doing presently, in the current week and what I would like to do 2 – 3 years ahead.

How do you deal with day-to-day challenges that come up?

Tokini Peterside: I have spent the last few years building a real strong core of advisors. Even as CEO of an organisation I have a core group of personal advisors – I respected whether it be on their professional careers, how they lead their personal lives or the values they embodied.

When it’s something monumental I discuss it with this close group of advisors that I have built over the years. My core group of advisors who understand my motivations, aspirations and career goals and they help me strategise and think through the problem.

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However, not every challenge warrants discussion with the core advisors. For smaller day-to-day challenges I avoid knee jerk reactions. I take time to breathe; I retreat and take time to think.

For me I am very big on dialogue and learning from others. I will often pull members of my team together and ask them how they feel about the problem at hand that has arisen. I feel that everyone had a value to add. None of us should be the brightest and smartest in the room. The minute you think you are, or believe you have all the answers, you are in the wrong room.

We have seen you command the stage at ART X Lagos and ART X Live!, with inspiring videos of you welcoming guests with so much confidence. What are your top three tips for overcoming nerves when speaking to a big audience?

Tokini Peterside: When I was much younger, at school and university, I was nervous about public speaking. I used to write word for word my full speech, I needed that crutch. Over the years I started making the written part of the speech shorter and shorter. Now, I usually have a small number of bullet points on my device. This allows me to have something to reflect on if I lose my train of thought.

My advice for public speaking is preparation in advance. Think through everything you want to say and plan the conversation.

Chunk down the conversation into bite size pieces. This becomes your written speech.

Another thing I have learnt over the years is to slow down whilst speaking. It gives you time to process what you are saying.

ART X has become an internationally acclaimed fair. What was the most difficult part of the process?

Tokini Peterside: It has been a real journey of learning and discovery. When I was launching into the visual artist space. I had been collecting for many years, I was friends with many of the artists but I hadn’t worked in the business of Art, per se. There was a lot to learn and I had to learn quickly.

I understood how to create desirability around the visual arts, brand partnerships, structuring an organisation but I had a lot of learning to do when it came to the intricacies of the business of art.

In the first year it was difficult to get various stakeholders to understand where we were going and what we were doing. Prior to ART X Lagos, an art exhibition at best would attract 300 guests. For the first Art fair, we were talking about 5000 guests. They didn’t see the picture we were painting. We had to work overtime to meet and beat expectations to establish a model for what it meant to create an Art fair on this side of the world

Learning to work with creative inclined people was also challenging. We attract bright young people. They are often less likely to have spent 6 – 8 years in an organisation. They tend to have itchy feet. Irrespective of how good an organisation is, it’s likely for them to move after 2 years having felt that they had learnt what they needed to.

How we as an organisation respond to the rapid change without losing organizational memory, the know-how. One of the ways we have combatted this is by building a strong alumni community. Previous staff members come to the office to share their learned experience. They continue to be a part of the overall vision of the organisation.

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Who are some of your favourite African Artist and Why?

Tokini Peterside: That’s tricky for me. I like the works of very many artists but here are a few that I am currently excited about: Female artists such as Nengi Omuku, Sungi Mlengeya, Modupeola Fadugba. Photographers such as Djibril Drame, and Mous Lamrabat. Multidisciplinary artists such as Dennis Osadebe. Digital artists such as Pr$dnt Honey, Niyi Okeowo, Idris Veitch. To name a few.

The artist as an individual as well as the evolution of their work excites me. In the Nigerian space, I get to interact with several artists and see their growth. There are artists outside Nigeria that I haven’t yet met but have encountered their work first and it’s their work that has drawn me in to want to know more about the artist and their raison d’etre.

What has been your greatest achievement to date?

Tokini Peterside: Within the ART X context, we have had many highs and many have been reported about.

I think this year’s fair was a great achievement, not necessarily our greatest. But coming from a global pandemic against this backdrop of today’s Nigeria, which is experiencing a number of challenges and being able to deliver the only physical fair on the continent this year. An Art fair that has been judged by many to be our best to date.

Despite the challenges of the environment we were able to push for greater moments and spaces for the artists and galleries. We came back with a bang and we did it in a way that demonstrated ART X Collective as a pioneering leader on the continent. That is not an easy feat following a pandemic, economic downturn and social unrest.

If you had to attribute your career success to three characteristics, what would they be?

Tokini Peterside: I can do that by speaking to my values, kindness, continuous learning and excellence.

Kindness is at the heart of everything we do. For starters I am always challenging and pushing myself to see how I can serve my staff better. The organisation cares and has attributes like a family. It champions values like loyalty. That has people feeling well taken care of. We are a small team – 8 of us that work full time with part timers who work with us year-round and others who join us during our peak seasons. We have many galleries and artists that fly in from all over Africa and the globe to participate in ART X. We go above and beyond to support them, beyond what many other art fairs may do. We support them with resources and personnel – reaching into our own personal networks to help them. Not just because it’s repeat business for us but also because we really want to see them succeed.

I am always looking for new ways of learning. Not necessarily in conventional and obvious ways – yes there are business books and postgraduate case studies that have been written. I am always looking for ways I can learn directly from people whether it is personal, professional whatever it may be.

I strive and push to present my work in a way that depicts excellence. It is very important to send that message of excellence out of Nigeria and Africa.

What do you see your legacy being to the Lagos culture and more broadly Nigeria?

Tokini Peterside: What I ultimately want to contribute to doing is to transform how we Africans see ourselves and how we relate with the rest of the world. I see culture and creativity as a great vehicle that I want to harness to do that. I want to reposition the way black people, African people, are perceived and treated in the world. This is not a one-woman mission but I see myself as a part of the movement on the continent and across the global black diaspora in our respective sectors and spaces.

At the end of my life if someone says by the virtue of the people she supported, the platforms she built not only did she create a strong and powerful creative and culture sector but she allowed that sector to live out its potential at transforming how we as people of African heritage see our identity, our true nature, and how we relate with the rest of the world, then that would be a statement I would be very glad for.

About the author

Saba was raised in Australia and graduated from Monash University in Business/Arts (Majoring in Marketing and Politics). She was a successful restaurateur in Melbourne, running Saba’s Ethiopian Restaurant. Later became head creative curator for Afro Hub, Arts and Entertainment Company. A multi-disciplinary Arts organisation, anchored on Afrocentrism.

Since re-locating to Lagos in June 2021, she has been working as an Arts dealing and a consultant in Hospitality and Entertainment.

She is a signed novelist with Murdoch Publications with her first novel being released later in 2022.

EXCLUSIVE: Tokini Peterside of ART X Collective discusses Africa's art market

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