Zim artists get talking

artists of race and creed thronging the art space.
The highly informative visual art talk often has presentations by both national and international experts such as curators, gallerists, net-workers and.

The plenary sessions are as exciting as they could be and often become oblivious of the speed at which earth obits around the sun.
The National Gallery gave birth to the “Harare Conversations” in 2010 after realisation of the need to liaise more with artists for the development of the sector. The recently held art conversations that took place on July, 15 2011 had the Gallery venue full to capacity.

The executive director of the national institution, Mrs Doreen Sibanda, her assistant as well as the curator Mr Raphael Chikukwa and artist Misheck Masamvu were giving feedback after their artistic journey to Italy for the 2011 edition of the international Venice Biennale exhibition.

Zimbabwe has a pavilion which it is showcasing artworks by Calvin Dondo, Barry Bickle, Misheck Masamvu and Tapfuma Gutsa.
Mrs Sibanda, Chikukwa and Masamvu spoke at length about what was involved to embrace the opportunity, the high level of art at the arena and the need for continual participation.
The meeting also focused on future possibilities of other big international platforms like France’s Lyon Biennale where young Zimbabwean female artist Virginia Chihota is expected to take part, and a host of other things.

A very critical issue that Mrs Sibanda also touched on, was the Gallery’s vision to improve the education curriculum of their art school, the “National Gallery of Zimbabwe Visual Art School” in order to keep abreast with global standards and trends to make it easy for artists to blend well when confronted by international platforms.
Artists were really moved by the feedback and during the plenary session you could feel how much the atmosphere had filled with rays of hope against the current depressing none enterprising scenario.

After the Gallery’s session and a break, the meeting continued with feedback from artist who participated in a Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust in collaboration with the African Regional Intellectual Property Rights Office (ARIPO) critical Intellectual Property Rights workshop for Harare metropolitan Visual Arts sector that took place at ARIPO in Harare on the July 8 2011.

The meeting was chaired by Stephen Garan’anga with assistance from Enoch Korimbo and Wiston Nyekete, who are part of the interim committee that was formed at the ARIPO workshop. The interim committee was formed to kick start the recording of artists’ ideas from the Harare Metropolitan towards formation of a strong representative visual art body that will come up with proposals of appropriate policies that can protect artists and their work from abuse, exploitation and address various artists’ concerns.

If formed, the registered art body in collaboration with other representative bodies from various regions of the country will speak with one voice when lobbing for formulation of sustainable policies that will also address the current grey areas in the country’s copyright legislation.

The very informative meeting that went on for hours had legitimate and fascinating issues of concern as well as proposals from motivated artists.
Some of the issues included having a knowledgeable leadership with art and artists at heart, dealing decisively with copycats and other exploiters, free circulation of information, conduction of workshops to bridge information gaps amongst artists and many more.

There will be more meetings in the near future that will be recording artists’ contributions and artists are requested to attend in their numbers if we are to succeed in having legal protection, sustainable policies and development in the sector amongst other things.

Forums’ dates and venues which will be either at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe or at the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust offices will be published in both print and electronic media as well as through artists’ email addresses.

• Stephen Garan’anga is an international fine art practitioner, independent art projects coordinator, chairperson of African Colours Artists, executive member Batapata International Artists’ Workshop, critical visual arts writer amongst other things. He can be contacted on [email protected]