The Lime Art Experiment

The Lime Art Experiment aims to be an online and offline community of creatives attempting to transform our own lives and the lives of others. The project is based in South Africa, where there is a high rate of unemployment amongst the youth. Those who are in the creative field are especially struggling as art is unappreciated and they depend on gigs, institutions, government support and the creating of small business or independent projects.

As Covid-19 tore apart life we know it, most cultural or economic activities have been put on halt or have reduced. Those in the creative industry have found themselves in a precarious situation of losing their income. Internationally, creative people have turned to the internet to regain their income, using social media sites like Instagram, blogging Youtube and Tik Tok to gain exposer and sell their products or have turned to freelance. In  South Africa, however, this hasn't completely caught on. Not with a youth that is struggling to even acquire a laptop for university, let alone a business.

How is the Lime Art Experiment going to help?

The main aim is to create an online to support under-resourced craft-based small businesses. We are looking into featuring 5 small businesses to begin with. We would like to gain mentors to help the businesses grow and eventually become independent enough to start their own individual online store.

We would like to feature visual artist's digital art and to help these artist transform their work into NFTS.

As a marketing strategy, we would like to invite freelance writers, experts and artists to write for our blog with compensation. We would like our blog to explore topics that educate the wider community on the benefits of creative practices for the individual and the community. We would like to encourage an appreciation for creative careers and their ability to transform society through economic practices, social cohesion and healing.

As a further effort to gain monetary support after the crowdfunding, the project would like to collaborate with film students to create a youtube channel, paid events and classes to further push the values that we are trying to achieve.

Why are we crowdfunding?

We do not want to depend on the government for funding. I am a firm believer that we cannot depend on the government. Also, we would like all of our profit to go back into the business and to continue our work. That means loans and investors are out. 

The money will go into start-up costs including but not limited to a workspace, web development services, equipment, marketing, and salaries.

About the Founder

Thembelihle Masiza is a Public Relations graduate through the University of South Africa. Inspired by the art community of her hometown, Port Elizabeth, a small community of resourceful who have always aimed to create conversations that benefit society and a commitment to improving the city that they came from.

Having experienced the transformative power of art personally has spent years studying artists and small businesses success stories. She has personally started businesses or fundraising drives and would like to bring the lessons that she learnt in those experiences into this project.

She has spent the past 5 years on the planning team of a University outreach, working with students to assist them to improve their lifestyle.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Ob9ZAWNPmPdlOKgza6HZb-yQ27Ih4lw…