The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube Sunday Leisure Correspondent
MORE than 50 artworks have been submitted to the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo for the “Khula Udweba” art exhibition, which opens on Thursday. A committee is set to sift through the submissions and come up with 40 pieces that would be on display during the exhibition.National Gallery director Vote Thebe said he was satisfied with the quality of the entries although they were still expecting late works to be delivered as the deadline was 28 March.
Khula Udweba is an arts contest for young artistes below 21 years old and is mainly targeted at schools and arts learning institutions such as Mzilikazi Arts Centre and Bulawayo Polytechnic, which has an Applied Arts Department.
The exhibition titled “Preliminary Bent” will feature.
The exhibition is being held in partnership with the Alliance Française of Bulawayo and is meant to promote the development of art among the young people in the region.
There are prizes for winning painters who are going to walk away with an assortment of art material.
Art material worth $150 has been earmarked for the first prize while the artiste who comes second will get art equipment valued at $100 and art tools worth $75 would be given to the second runner-up.
The competition is reserved for artistes at schools, colleges and the youth while ten individuals not attached to any institution would be allowed to take part.
Art works in drawing, painting, digital work, photography, sculpture, video, ceramics and design were all eligible for entry.
Winners will be announced on the opening day of the exhibition.
Meanwhile, the Gallery held two workshops last week for art teachers from Bulawayo schools.
A total of 45 school teachers attended the workshops that were held at the Gallery’s John Knight Cinema.
Zulu said the workshops were part of their outreach programmes to interact with people involved in art.
“The two workshops were held over two days as we could not accommodate all the teachers at once and the first session had 20 teachers while on Thursday we had 25.
“There is no coordinated art education in schools and different institutions seemingly put emphasis on one aspect of art or the other while relegating others. Personal influence in staff seems to motivate what is taught and what is not,” he said.
Zulu said art is treated more as an extra-curricular activity than as a part of the main syllabus.
“Others are using the Botswana module while some have formulated theirs because they do not believe what we have is the right one. It is creating divergence among pupils.
“The fact that at primary school art is not examinable is another disadvantage because there is no serious effort to teach children art at that level. We are hoping to interact with teachers and bring convergence of the subject in schools,” he said.
Zulu added they were worried by the fact that there were no fresh, talented artistes emerging from schools.
