AfricanColours Artists’ Association (AAA) Seminar Findings 2007.

Zimbabwe Wed 19-12-2007

AfricanColours Artists’ Association (AAA) Seminar Findings 2007.
By Stephen Garan'anga

AfricanColours Artists’ Association (AAA) supported by the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust has been conducting countrywide visual arts seminars to discuss and find ways to the challenges that the visual artists are currently experiencing; encouraging artists to the use of computers and internet for various international opportunities and more importantly creating a platform for the artists to be global participants by creating web portfolios of their artworks on the AfricanColours website www.zimbabwe.africancolours.net at no cost.

The artists raised various concerns ranging from relationships between artists and exhibiting art institutions (galleries), art bodies, media houses, general perception of visual arts by the public, how e-commerce function, fear of abuse of images when publicized on internet, to lack of computer literacy ...

Lack of exhibitions and exhibiting houses in various provinces, loss of work through the use of the middle-men when marketing, raw deals from buyers because of the artists’ desperation, lack of funding to ship artworks when artists get outside contracts.

Also cited as was the problem of damaging of artworks during transportation and exhibitions.

The role of art critics and curators especially the damages they can induce on the young and upcoming as well as the struggling artists amongst other things.

The artists also asked about how viable it is to earn a living out of visual arts and how an artist could sustain his or her art career in the current harsh economic environment prevailing in the country.

The artists talked about the need to have AfricanColours Artists’ Association (AAA) provincial offices for wide art news coverage and requested the association to revisit them to conduct computer literacy workshops that will enable them to use computers and internet in public spaces for various international opportunities.

Many questions were answered to the artists’ satisfaction as they also contributed a lot to answering the various questions. It is now up to the AfricanColours Artists’ Association, various art organizations, art institutions and other stake holders in the country to come together as well as engaging the international community to ways to redress the various challenges the artists are currently facing.

We hope that at some point the livelihood of the artists will improve and will be able to contribute to the growth of the country’s culture sector.

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