Art Crowdfunding in the MENA region, Friend or Foe?
Overview of Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is a relatively new phenomenon to take off in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which extends from Morocco in the west to Iran in the east, and it is as yet difficult to ascertain its full impact [Fig.1.]. The impact of crowdfunding in other parts of the world such as the USA and UK, where it is somewhat more established, can be used as a model from which to study the potential pros and cons and to work out whether crowdfunding can be seen as friend or foe in the MENA region itself. This paper aims to illustrate how art crowdfunding differs in the MENA region when compared to the USA and UK.
The economical and political implications behind the struggle of developing crowdfunding in the MENA region, particularly in the context of the art world of that region, will also be considered, alongside other factors that affect the development and rise of this phenomenon. Crowdfunding itself can be defined as is the practice of funding projects by eliciting capital investments from a considerable number of investors, typically through online forums.
This means that as a model, crowdfunding has three significant elements: the instigator of the project itself who puts forward a project or idea as a means of seeking capital to invest in the project; a number of individuals who agree to support the project through small financial contributions; and an online hosting platform which acts to connect the two and ultimately results in the realization of the project. While it has a number of associations, since its inception, the idea of crowdfunding has clearly been linked to supporting the arts.
Fig. 1 Map of the MENA region
