Wona Collective

Creating spaces to see and be seen.

WHO WE ARE

Wona Collective is a women-led arts collective, communications consultancy and media production company based in Lilongwe Malawi. Our vision as Wona is to have more documented stories of Malawians created by Malawians, particularly stories that are often erased or left untold: the stories of women and marginalised groups. To fulfil our vision, we use arts and media to create and curate this lost content.

Our style and our design is unique and it is intentional and this carries through to our communications work. Wona chooses its communications clients and partners carefully. We are storytellers and that is how we view our communications work, it is important for us to tell the stories of organisations that are doing impactful work, feminist work, heart work – and to tell them well.

INHOUSE PROJECTS

Our range of passion projects serve multiple purposes, to advocate for the causes we believe in, to give amplify voices that would otherwise not be heard, to create spaces of collaboration between artists but most importantly, to immortalise people, experiences and movements as they are now

COMMUNICATIONS PROJECTS

Our style and our design is unique and it is intentional and this carries through to our communications work. Wona chooses its communications clients and partners carefully. We are storytellers and that is how we view our communications work – storytelling, therefore it is important for us to tell the stories of organisations that are doing impactful work, feminist work, heart work – and to tell them well.

OUR HUB

On top of creating digital spaces for creatives and creativity, we also work to create physical spaces that nurture creativity. Our hub is a physical space that we have put a lot of care and intention into. The Wona Collective hub is a space that we have curated in order to:

Cultivate relationships between creatives

Foster collaboration between artists

Create a space for learning

Provide access to mental health services

Provide a venue for creative events, workshops and opportunities

Create a space that is conducive to feminist sisterhood

Your Mother is Just a Girl

Jeanette Phiri

Grappling with the concept of age as a fluid state of mind, Wendy has found herself perpetually anchored to a younger version of who she was, despite the inevitable march of time. Yet, amidst these reflections, she is consistently drawn to a deeper inquiry into her mother's own journey through adolescence and womanhood. In this essay, she contemplates this legacy of motherhood, mortality, and identity.

Girls Don’t Poop

Jeanette Phiri

This essay unpacks the uncomfortable reality of bodily functions often, and ironically, cloaked in silence. With humour and candour, Wendy shares her moments of defiance, realized by clogged toilets and unabashed declarations of bathroom intentions. This short manifesto navigates the complexities of societal conditioning and ultimately advocates for the reclamation of authenticity and humanity.

Jeanette Phiri

An introspective dive into the intricacies of what it means to be a woman in the Malawian landscape and how we all continue to circumvent the world’s expectations of womanness. In this essay, Timwa Lipenga delves into the connection between womanhood and motherhood and Malawi's difficulty in separating the two identities.