About

AKKA Project was formed in Dubai in 2016. Since its inception, AKKA Project has rapidly expanded into becoming an industry standard and a leader for African Art in the region.

Lead by a passion for the beauty of Africa and African art, the founders of AKKA Project, Lidija Kostic Khachatourian and Kristian Khachatourian, started their journey as African art collectors, which quickly bloomed into an expanded path as cultural entrepreneurs. Leveraging their profound interest, energy and motivation, they have been dedicated to ameliorating AKKA Project, as they have been expanding their efforts to promote African art and culture, while simultaneously distinguishing the nature of AKKA and the uniqueness of its approach to this intricate world of beauty and art.

AKKA Project has a distinct approach with a primary focus on:

discovering, promoting and providing resources to enhance the positioning of young, rising and experimental artists in a competitive industry
supporting art collectives
privileging cultural exchanges
hosting art residencies
organizing in depth trips to the major art capitals found throughout Africa

Beyond Lidija and Kristian’s unique approach to vibrant artists and enthusiastic collectors, they simultaneously maintain a strategy of managing the more traditional aspects of the art industry, including the traditional gallery and museum programming.

AKKA Project history arriving to the current place in the art industry is rich with vision, diligence and excitement.

The achievements keep growing along with its artists and the collection. After producing and organizing the National Pavilion of Mozambique at the 2019 Venice Biennale, the gallery in Venice has grown into one of the most vibrant galleries in the city. AKKA Project has given the possibility to the world art community, which regularly gathers and visits the lagoon, the first real opportunity to have an African Art and Cultural Hub to expand their horizons, right in the heart of Venice.

Today, AKKA Project offers and promotes a dynamic experience to collectors, visitors and supporters, showcasing unique and profound contemporary art from artists throughout Africa. Our galleries in Dubai and Venice are intimate spaces capable of showcasing a rich variety of mediums carefully procured for the viewers pleasure. Both gallery locations are unique and incredible centers to give a meaningful voice and international recognition to many of our emerging artists.

We ensure that every oeuvre and artists’ projects communicate a personal journey of unique experiences of the creators, their own exploration and interpretation of the world, and their messages all through the medium of African art, generating a kaleidoscope of diversity piquing the interest of all those around them and their work.

We cherish the freedom the gallery space offers to all that enter and all those that wish to create. We are striving to reinvent what a traditional “Gallery” typically represents. Ultimately, we strive to revolutionize the mode with new approaches to art, presentation, exposure to the artists and continued development into an agent of change within the wider world to the art community.

About Lidija and Kristian:

After maintaining a primary residence in Dubai for more than 15 years, Lidija, following a fulfilling career as a Swiss Federal Account, decided to make a bold move. She single-handedly initiated a cultural hub promoting artists from the African continent under the AKKA Project name. It was first opened in Dubai (2016) and then quickly expanded into Venice, Italy (2019).

Kristian, who called Monrovia, Liberia home for many years in the 1990s and has collected antique and contemporary art, has now unified with Lidija to promote her original project.

Since then, together they have built a great collection of established and emerging talents from the burgeoning African art market, they have explored 18 countries of the vast African continent, enriching themselves, AKKA, their collectors and most importantly, their fellow artists.