Helping Artists Overcome Their Challenges

Kenya Sun 02-11-2008

Helping Artists Overcome Their Challenges
By Stanley Gazemba

One of the complaints often heard from local artists is about the difficulty finding funds to enable them take their acts to a level from which they can earn a living.

Performing artists, mostly from urban slums, often fault the government through the Culture Department for failing to come up with policies to assist them in raising their art to a professional level.

Now, this is a role outside donors have moved in to assume, realizing the immense potential that culture and the arts have to transform lives, especially those of the underprivileged, and in the process promoting awareness of the rich local culture.

^{Bird of Peace - Elkana Ongesa (L) with an assistant}

Noble idea

But one such fund has discovered an unusual situation that suggests that even with the best of intentions, the manner of approach can end up stifling a noble idea.

Changamoto, an arts fund based at The GoDown Arts Centre, is prepared to make grants of between Sh100,000 and Sh350,000 to individual artists or art groups that can demonstrate they can put the money to good use in promoting art in public places. But it seems that very few artists with genuine ideas are applying for these funds.

Changamoto, which was set up through a partnership between the Kenya Community Development Foundation and the GoDown, is interested supporting new, innovative and bold Kenyan art that can reach beyond the traditional audiences for visual and performing arts.

They are interested in funding groundbreaking ideas in theatre, dance, music and the visual arts as a means of encouraging local artists to push the boundaries of their creativity.

According to Mutheu Mbondo, Changamoto’s programme officer for arts and culture, the search is for things and ideas that will challenge Kenyan audiences in a new way.

“We are looking for ideas that have not been tried before,” she said at a recent workshop on critical art writing organized by Nairobi-based African Colours. “We are trying to move art from galleries and museums because we have observed that many people rarely go there.”

It is this quest for new audiences that saw the fund recently support a project by artist Evanson Njuguna to install a large donkey sculpture and a Vyombo vya Mikono installation at Ngecha shopping centre in Limuru.

Element of risk

“We are looking for an element of risk. We want someone to come to us with the idea of taking their art to the centre of town, even at the risk of annoying local authorities,” Ms Mbondo said. “These are the kind of ideas we are looking for.”

But, apparently, these are not the ideas that have landed on her desk since the exercise began July 1. And with the October 31 deadline looming, there is the fear that Changamoto might have to return the unallocated funds to the donor, The Ford Foundation.

On the seven-page form, applicants must present a convincing project proposal as well as clearly state their target audience, project plan and requirements as well as their budget.

But in a later discussion it emerged that these stringent requirements might be the very reason why Changamoto is having difficulty and that the organization is not speaking the same language as the artists, according to Ugandan art journalist Ben Bukenya who noted that the situation was similar in Uganda.

But this situation is not new to Kenya, nor is it limited to funding for the arts. Toward the end of the last financial year, it turned out that in some parliamentary constituencies, committees named to administer the popular Constituencies Development Fund were obliged to surrender some of the money to Treasury because the constituents had not come up with serious project proposals.

One of the reasons many performance artists from Nairobi’s informal settlements find it difficult to take their craft beyond their neighborhoods is because they don’t have basic documents such as national identity cards and birth certificates that would enable them enter into contracts with professional promoters.

Julius Ochieng ‘Ochilo’, an acrobat with the Sarakasi Trust-managed Rolling Spear group, said the mere prospect of approaching places like Sheria House and Nyayo House puts off many youths from his Ngomongo neighbourhood.

In an interview, he said that most of his friends have little or no formal education and find the process of filling out official forms intimidating, not to mention being wary of the bureaucrats handling them.

Luckily for Ochieng and his talented friends, Sarakasi Trust came to the rescue, and as a result of the exposure they have gained from their international tours, their lives have changed considerably.

Changamoto might take a page from Sarakasi’s book.

skip to top

Your Comments

skip to top

African Artists Portfolios

Innocent Nkurunziza is a Mixed Media Artist

Stephen Garan'anga is a Mixed Media Artist

Click To View All African Artist Portfolios

Kaafiri Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery

Shades of Time: An exhibition by Kaafiri Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery National Museum of Kenya

Features By Regions

Featured Artist Portfolio

Title: Making Ways
Name: Tabitha Wa Thuku
Country: Kenya
Medium: Mixed media on heavy canvas
Size: 149 X 140 cms
Click here to view