The Sunday News
Pabalelo Tlou Sunday Leisure Reporter
THE Visual Artists Association of Bulawayo (VAAB) has invited visual artists in Bulawayo to participate in this year’s edition of the annual VAAB exhibition.
The exhibition is expected to begin on 28 August at the National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe (NGZ) in Bulawayo and will run for three days. NGZ curator Clifford Zulu said the VAAB annual exhibition will likely motivate artists to create art that is inspired by the history of the city of Bulawayo, while celebrating 120 years.
Zulu said this year’s exhibition would introduce new ideas in the local art industry, with researchers, curators, artists, photographers, anthropologists, historians and interested members of the public being invited to take part in the three-day long exhibition.
“Artists can submit works in the following categories: sculpture, painting, video art and photography. The art work to be submitted should be inspired by the history of Bulawayo,” said Zulu.
He said artists are required to bring and introduce new ideas that have never been exhibited before in any gallery in Zimbabwe.
“We expect artists to introduce new ideas to the industry and they can do so by exhibiting their work during this event,” he said.
Zulu said the exhibition was open to all categories in the visual arts field, poets with a strong interpretation of art history in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and Southern Africa.
“We expect and are inviting artists in these various fields to take part in this exhibition and also hope to see artists working on 3D media,” he said.
Zulu also urged artists to book for the exhibition in time to avoid confusion.
“Artists can e-mail up to five colour digitalised images of the actual proposed works or installations to be exhibited, accompanied by reference text on art history of their area, biography and artist statement. For art historians and academics we invite all prospective speakers to send the expression of interest form with a 250 word abstract,” he said.
Zulu also noted that since the inception of the association in 1983, VAAB continued to be a creative, artist driven, people focused, self-sustaining and development oriented organisation, which was visually artistic and craft oriented.
VAAB is registered as an association with the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) and is working in partnership with the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and other arts organisations in and outside the country.
