Joburg’s winter can be deceptive. At the end of August, when the Contra.Joburg Art Festival unfurled across the inner city, the air was unseasonably warm. Sunshine streamed through studio windows and art spilled into streets alive with encounters. Behind the performances and open workspaces, another quiet innovation was under way, one that may prove as transformative.
For the first time, Contra.Joburg partnered with Africa Collect, a financial platform built to enable emerging collectors to pay for artworks over time. What seemed like a small detail revealed itself as a paradigm shift, and the circle of who can own art widened.
Fintech and art
Sure, fintech, at its heart, is simply technology reshaping how we handle money. How it’s accessed, moved, managed and invested. Applied to art, it restructures time. With Africa Collect’s model, instead of requiring a lump sum, a collector secures a piece with a deposit and pays the balance over six or 12 months. For artists, the sale is confirmed and cash flow immediate. For buyers, the price becomes a rhythm rather than a wall.
Founded in 2023 by Sara Hallatt, the cultural entrepreneur behind Contra.Joburg and the META Foundation, and financier Thabo Ncalo, Africa Collect was designed to enable emerging collectors. The process is simple: choose a work, apply online, pay a 10% deposit and take it home while repaying in instalments. Specialist art insurer iTOO Insurance covers the artwork against damage or theft for the duration of the payment period.
At this year’s Contra festival, the facility enabled R150,000 in sales across 11 artworks. For a new platform, the numbers are modest but encouraging, signalling proof of concept and a change in how collectors see themselves.
Some might worry that making art easier to buy risks fuelling a once-off indulgence. Hallatt has anticipated this. Alongside Africa Collect, she launched Introduction to the Art Market, a course that helps new collectors understand how value is built and how to approach collecting with confidence. Its purpose is to strengthen the broader arts economy by upskilling emerging collectors.
As she puts it, “if you can change the when of a purchase, you begin to change the who. Collecting stops being a closed circle. It becomes a conversation more people can join.”
Contra’s disruptive format amplified Africa Collect’s relevance. Over one weekend, the festival drew 1,200 visitors. For many, the chance to take work home on a manageable plan made collecting feel within reach.
This, too, was part of Contra’s ethos: to fold art into daily life, not leave it sealed behind gallery walls.
Yet this is more than a cultural story. According to the South African Cultural Observatory and the department of trade, industry and competition’s cultural and creative industries masterplan, South Africa’s creative industries contribute R74.4bn directly to GDP (1.7%) and R241.8bn including indirect effects (5.2%), supporting 1.14-million jobs. Visual arts and crafts account for R23.4bn, or 15% of that total, with multipliers showing every rand can generate nearly R3.81 in wider impact.
Africa Collect’s model, then, doesn’t just serve individual buyers or artists. It strengthens a value chain with measurable national impact.
Other pathways
South Africa has few comparable models. Latitudes Online, the continent’s largest digital art marketplace, now offers instalments at checkout, facilitated through Africa Collect. The Art Bank of South Africa acquires works from emerging artists and leases them to government departments, companies and individuals. While not a financing tool in the same sense, it broadens access and supports circulation.
As Hallatt notes: “Building an art economy isn’t just about buyers with deep pockets. It’s about creating pathways where artists can thrive alongside new audiences.”
International parallels show the range. In 2024, Christie’s introduced a “buy now, pay later” scheme for works under $1m, acknowledging that even at the top end, instalments broaden participation. Specialist lenders such as Athena Art Finance in New York and Bail Art Lending in Europe extend credit against blue-chip works. In Switzerland, Art Leasing & Invest AG runs lease-to-own models, often for corporate clients.
These examples set precedents, but highlight the gap: few are designed for emerging collectors at the scale Africa Collect serves.
The platform’s strength lies in its fit to context. The terms are short, the amounts realistic, the process designed for ease.
Still, the picture is not without its shadows. In a country like South Africa, facing the harsh convergence of a persistently high unemployment rate and soaring living costs, buying art on credit carries a premium cost. Democratising access may seem paradoxical when household budgets are under pressure. Yet art is also an asset. If chosen carefully, it holds the potential to appreciate, making it less a costly luxury than a form of investment. Hallatt’s course offers some mitigation in this regard.
For artists, the benefit is immediate: payment on approval. For collectors, ownership becomes possible in the present. The system balances liquidity with access, risk with trust.
As Hallatt reflects: “When an artist knows they’ll be paid promptly, and a collector knows they can afford the commitment, confidence grows on both sides. That confidence is the foundation of a sustainable ecosystem.”
Beyond the transaction
Finance alone doesn’t democratise culture; context does. At Contra, Africa Collect sparked conversations among buyers about originals versus editions, about framing, about care. The payment plan became a trigger for stewardship, not just acquisition.
Democratisation isn’t simply about cheaper art or higher sales. It’s about creating conditions where art circulates responsibly, where new collectors enter with confidence and where artists can rely on timely income. Together, this strengthens the entire cultural ecosystem.
Africa Collect revealed that finance, when carefully applied, doesn’t just change the mechanics of buying. It reshapes who feels welcome and how creativity sustains itself. That may be Contra 2025’s innovation: not only that art found you in the city, but that it stayed in your life.
Top image: Rawpixel/Currency collage.
Sign up to Currency’s weekly newsletters to receive your own bulletin of weekday news and weekend treats. Register here.
