adminRaisedon Baya
THIS week sees another edition of Intwasa Arts Festival come to life. This is the 13th edition of the festival. As in the past two years the festivals is happening under serious resource challenges — this story has been told again and again. But the festival is happening.
Once upon a time, actually not so many years ago, Zimbabwe had over 30 arts and culture festivals sprinkled around the country and spread throughout the year. But today only a handful survive. Most have died with the drying up of foreign funding — a reason we strongly believe both local authorities and Government should start supporting arts festivals — the support we envisage is not about coming to officiate at some of the arts events and disappearing for the rest of the year but actually availing resources for the curation of festivals.
In Europe and various other African countries — for example South Africa — local governments are heavily supporting arts festivals and other arts initiatives. And their reasons are simple. Cultural festivals are the main drivers of cultural tourism.
Today, more than before, festivals have become important creative activities for developing countries, particularly when associated with tourism and the promotion and celebration of cultural diversity.
Festivals are now perfect platforms to appreciate, acknowledge and celebrate a nation’s tangible and intangible heritage. Festivals have become a popular mechanism to re-organise cultural products in the context of economic challenges and to make artistic works accessible to the general public.
Festivals promote inter-cultural exchanges and are critical cultural spaces for citizen participation and act as meeting spaces for debating communal issues. The above reasons are the very reasons why Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo and Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) partnered this year. The partnership has seen the introduction of the Bulawayo Carnival, with Zimbabwe Tourism Authority also partnering in supporting several events and artistes who will grace Intwasa. The carnival on its own is meant to involve as many people as possible and to also celebrate Bulawayo and the diversity associated with the city. The carnival falls on the day the world celebrates World Tourism. If this is done well then the carnival could become a permanent feature of the festival and World Tourism Day. The partnership between ZTA and Intwasa could, perhaps, be used in future as a model of how local governments and parastatals can partner with festivals and make more impact. There is room for all festivals in Zimbabwe to work towards a shared national vision for the preservation and promotion of Zimbabwe’s rich and diverse cultural heritage and even market Zimbabwe as an important tourist destination.
In light of Zimbabwe’s development vision under Zim Asset, local governments and even the national one might find it important and critical to support festivals because most of them are:
1. Rooted in their communities — this means supporting a festival will be as good as supporting and uplifting the communities in which these festivals are rooted or curated.
2. Promoting cultural diversity and inclusion — there is no better way to support inclusion and diversity than by giving the different communities platforms to celebrate their identity and diversity. As they say, festivals bring people together.
Zim Asset is also about eradicating poverty. Most artistes are poor and hardly find work. If Zimbabwe has a network of successful festivals that could mean a serious and stable base for artistes and technical people in Zimbabwe. Also with the new curriculum festivals would give young and aspiring artistes a bigger vision of what could be achieved in future, thereby inspiring them to take their art in schools seriously.
Online Reporter