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Sunday, September 26, 2010

VISUAL ARTS DEVELOPMENT IN ZIMBABWE A CONCERN!

Art is often regarded as luxury and the discipline is relegated to the people who viewed highly as sufering from mental insanity and is a noble profession.
Art is not a luxury but a necessity , from a very young age to think critically and to adults to use their hands in making artworks for sale.Art is more critical ,for developing artistic skills in growing children as they are being prepared for the very real possibility of taking art as a profession.And for inspired Artists to make a decent living from their profession. Some artists become part of the informal sector benefit from an ability to make products based on their cultural backgrounds and their skillful hands.
Since independence 30 years ago Zimbabwean Art was delineated along lines of talented artists. Art was taken as a profession of the very few and the rest of schools only allowed to teach craft in conformity to its general complexity. Which geared for producing semi-skilled labour. Although the education systems improved to some extent in the education of the majority since independence. Art is still maginalised up to today. The ministry of education sports ,arts and culture is not yet developed a tertiary visual arts syllabus to cater for those who need to further their own artistic skills.
The main goal of tertiary visual arts is to develop aesthetic literacy of the adult . Prior to making art the child should understand what is art and its various functions. Hence this embraces the knowledge and understanding of art and aesthetics in the development of critical faculties which foster analysis of the art of individual and others.Art form that gives primacy to an idea over craftmanship.
French artist and theorist Marcel Duchamp(1887-1968) the ideas of conceptual art,emphasising the elimination of objects as marketable products.The likes of Tashinga Gondo are the other skilled visual artists Zimbabwe is proud of simply by making art products on the international markets. There are prominant Zimbabwean artists who proved beyond any reasonable doubt that there is need to formalise art education in Zimbabwe from primary school,secondary up to tertiary level.To have more artists in sector. The likes Tapfuma Gutsa, Nicholas Mukombaranwa ,Dominic Benhura , Egnes Nyanhungo and the list is too large to mention.
The other elite group which comprises of Celia Winter -Irving ,Tom Blomefield ,Dr Frank Mckwen ,Father Groeber ,Edward Canon Patterson and so on, are the pioneers who shade light to the mordern Art as of prime necessity in any state and Zimbabwe in particular for its cultural Artistic beliefs , activities and products.
These days we have more sophisticated understanding of the world around us ,than the last 50 years or so where on world was not yet developed in information technology. Visual literacy ,stimuli and exposure to media based technology brings about artistic expression and response to the needs of visual Art framework.
The education policy should look forward not only to teach the history of own country ,but should put more emphasis on learning of arts and its cultural beliefs.
The only unique way of teaching arts and cultural aspects successfully, is through public education. This help to know our children better and shapern the other sectors of economy which is art industry.
The ideal place to educate public is in the schools near their communities.
A lack of general formal education made aspects of visual arts appropriate for any prospective artists. However for variety of reasons which had nothing to do with any form art we easily need to have visual artists.There is always a link between informal and formal art education .
From the onset the teachers and the children should show art as a means of making a living,thus establishing a relationship between art and the society.
The direction of early artists ,a genuine belief in spiritual beliefs for the systems of the real world as visualised in art become a tradition of those view the success of artistic sector in economic sense.
In this computer and internet age there are increasing employment opportunities for artist in particular fields of graphic desigh,web design and advertising industry. Art as a curricular subject is gaining its awareness of its importance in all civilised disciplines of communication technology.
In Zimbabwe art sector fully need to develop artists who can start from priortising it in its education system and cultural backgrounds which can nurture and perfect those with talents in art as far as visual art sector is concerned!!

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