The Curatorial Team
Factories of
The World
FOTWRLD is an independent research and production platform based at the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Kaduna.
What We Do
FOTWRLD’s work sits between cultural heritage and economic documentation: it produces investment-facing research on Nigeria’s artisanal sector, stages exhibitions that translate that research into public experience, and builds the institutional partnerships that give both the research and the exhibitions credibility they could not generate alone.
It is not a gallery. It is not a consultancy. It is closer to what happens when a research methodology and a production sensibility operate out of the same room — which is what has made it capable of staging, in its first year of operation, the kind of exhibitions that larger, better-resourced institutions spend years trying to pull off.
The argument that museums are not just preservation sites but production sites — that heritage institutions generate more value when they are active rather than archival — is the argument FOTWRLD makes with every project it undertakes.
Lead Researcher
Halima Abdul (Sadia)
Operations Manager, FOTWRLD
fotwrldinfo@gmail.com
www.fotwrld.com
NCMM, No. 33 Ali Akilu Road, Kaduna, Nigeria
Institutional Partners
NCMM Kaduna
Primary institutional partner & physical base
ABU Zaria
Academic partner — Departments of Archaeology, History, Literature
Kaduna Enterprise Development Agency
Business development support
Ministry of Business & Innovation
Government partner
What We Have Already Built
On 28 January 2026, FOTWRLD curated an interdisciplinary exhibition at the Kashim Ibrahim Library, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The event brought together faculty and students from the Departments of English & Literary Studies, Literature, Archaeology, and History around a display of original pottery by Dr. Ladi Kwali and Benin bronze sculptures from OBJ’s private collection.
Four university departments collaborated across a single event. The Head of Archaeology at ABU, the Kashim Ibrahim Library administration, and NCMM all provided formal endorsements.
What it demonstrated: when artefacts from a private collection are placed in dialogue with the right institutional setting and curatorial framing, they generate a quality of engagement that neither the institution nor the objects could produce independently. That is the model The Collector’s Game now extends to three venues and a national audience.
Key Outputs
Smithing Heritage Magazine
Investment-facing research on Nigeria's artisanal metalworking sector.
Into The Archives 2026
Digital archiving initiative for West African cultural heritage.
Artisan Documentary
Film documentation of Kaduna's craft practitioners.
Gwan Gwan Research Report
Economic mapping of Nigeria's artisanal industries.
The NCMM Incubation Hub
FOTWRLD’s Jewelry Incubation Hub, launched at the FOTWRLD Soft Opening at the National Museum Kaduna in October 2025, provides shared access to modern tools, training, exhibition space, and business development support for artisans in Kaduna’s metalworking sector.
More than 100 guests attended the three-day Soft Opening. The NCMM partnership was formally established. Revenue streams — subscriptions, exhibition curation services, styling — were activated. What began as a research idea is now an operating institution with a track record.