Scrap Metal Art King of Zambia, Africa

BY Paula Froelich 

Meet Frederick Phiri: the Zambian welder who turns scrap metal into stunning works of art

It is not often you meet someone who can turn scrap metal into luxury sculptures. Yet in the small town of Mfuwe, just outside Zambia’s Luangwa National Park, an artist is performing just such alchemy.

Frederick Phiri is the scrap metal-art king from Zambia. At just 22, he has started to earn an international reputation for being able to make intricate and elegant sculptures from scrap metal found in his community. 

As it is with most of life, his talent was aided by good timing and luck that came from a tragedy. According to Phiri, “My father died when I was starting [primary] school, So my mother and sisters moved to Lusaka and I stayed behind with my grandfather.” Phiri’s grandfather paid for his schooling through primary school but when he entered secondary school, he had to get odd jobs to pay for his fees. But even in school, “I was always drawing and making things in class,” Phiri says. 

After graduating, he did what he could to support himself in a country where an average gross salary is in the region of $1,500. He made animal sculptures from snare wires and sold them to tourists. His work was so popular, it caught the eye of Karen Beattie, director of Project Luangwa, a nonprofit dedicated to education and economic development in Mfuwe. “I introduced him to a local welder as an apprentice,” Beattie told this reporter. 

In 2017, Phiri apprenticed with welder Moses Mbewe during the rainy season, helping to make an intricate set of doors for Project Luangwa. The piece sparked an idea in Beattie’s mind: “I handed him a bunch of metal scrap and said, ‘Make something with this.’ And he did. It was wonderful.”