Zambia must market art as a tourist attraction - Kaale

By Andrew Mulenga

In Zambia, the arts have been espoused with tourism under an umbrella ministry for just over two years now, however, in art circles there is still an air of disappointment coupled with a commonly held belief that the ministry pays more attention to the tourism sector than it does the arts.

Art is an important tourism product -
Senior lecturer - tourism, Jack Kaale

But in an effort to break the ice and strengthen the relationship between tourism and arts, the Hotel and Tourism Training Institute Trust (HTTI), Zambia’s prime hospitality, tourism and travel industry training institute has launched an art awareness programme that involves study tours of museums and art galleries. Last week a group of students and lecturers lead by HTTI senior lecturer-tourism, Jack Kaale visited the Henry Tayali Gallery and the Art Academy without Walls (AAWW) in the Lusaka show grounds.

“For a long time we have not taken art seriously particularly in the tourism sector. But now we have realized that art is one of the most important products that we can use to enhance tourist operations. So we need to start marketing art particularly as an attraction. Fine, we have the Victoria Falls, but art is one important aspect that we can sell as a tourist attraction,” said Kaale in an interview at the Henry Tayali Gallery.

Kaale explained that this was the groups second trip, the first one being a visit to the Lusaka National Museum. He said that HTTI hopes to create an inventory of museums and art galleries in order to see what they had to offer and to make students more well-informed so that they can be able to give museum and gallery tours as well as speak knowledgably about art.

Visual artist Sarah Chibombwe (r) engages the
tourism students at the Henry Tayali Gallery

“There is a lot that we didn’t know. Surely, the product knowledge we have gathered during this trip will definitely help the students with the tour guide aspect of the course, it will also help them when they enter the industry full time. They will be able to conduct art tours,” he added.

During the study tour, students inquisitively engaged the artists whom they found working. They quizzed the artists on everything from how they managed to survive on art alone to whether as artists they felt any benefit of being incorporated with tourism under one umbrella ministry.

All the students appeared honestly interested in art, for many of them it was a first experience in an art gallery and studio space and during their tour of the AAWW were entertained to a soulful rendition of the hymn Yes Jesus Loves me performed by David Makala who was found working on a sculpture in readiness for a forthcoming exhibition.

Art appreciation should be included in the tourism
training syllabus - Zangose Sakachoma and Mirriam Kaluba

“To be honest, the trip has ended up being more interesting than I thought it will be. I’ve seen a lot of paintings that have inspired me to take a deeper interest in art, from now I can promise that I will be visiting regularly”, said Zangose Sakachoma a HTTI first year student.

Mirriam Kaluba, another student concurred with Sakachoma and proposed that the art tours should not only be part of the study tour programme but should be a key component as part of the curriculum, the two students collectively suggested that art appreciation should even be included in their syllabus.

HTTI is rated as one of the world’s leading hospitality training institutes offering courses in tourism, travel and IATA in association with the Fairview Hotel it also offers students hands on experience in handling accommodation, conferences, outside catering, banquets and the culinary arts. Its traditional Zambian cuisine served from Monday to Friday is a crowd-puller.

Artist Kelvin Zangata (r) with tourism students
at the Art Academy Without Walls

For the moment, today, Saturday 27th June, Foxdale Court along Zambezi Road in Lusaka’s Roma residential area hosts Arts Day 2016 from 9:00 - 17:00hrs. Scheduled for family fun, the event is aimed at celebrating visual art, poetry, music, drama and dance. All activities will take place in the court yard and entry is free. The show opens with music by Ngenda Konoso and Chembo, a poetry session with sculptor Charles Chambata, performances by Circus Zambia, live painting and sketching by Sarah and David with puppetry by Usher Phiri, viewing of artwork will be throughout the day, the display will feature a variety of works from leading Zambian visual artists.

Meanwhile, Barclays Bank has announced a call for entries for the 2016 Barclays L’Atelier art competition for emerging artists aged 21 to 35. In a press release published by Barclays Africa Group Media Relations Manager Lexi Ball this week, the announcement states that the judges will be looking for ‘thought-provoking works that push traditional boundaries’.

According to the release, Lerato Bereng, L’Atelier head adjudicator, states that bold and daring work will make the grade in this year’s competition where, with 10 African countries now participating, the stakes have moved higher.

“This year we will be looking for thought-provoking and well-executed work that challenges and pushes boundaries. We are not only looking for pieces that demonstrate formal qualities, but rather for artists who really make us think,” states Bereng who is also an associate director at Stevenson Gallery in South Africa and a member of the finalists’ judging panel in two previous L’Atelier competitions.

“Don’t hold back. That’s my advice; nothing is too much or too subtle. Artists should focus on why they are making that particular work, and the sentiment behind it, and bring that to life,” she maintains.

Tourism lecturers, students and visual artists at the
Henry Tayali Gallery in the Lusaka Showgrounds

In the same press release, Dr Paul Bayliss, Absa Art and Museum Curator, declares it is an exciting time not only in the evolution of the competition, but within contemporary African art as well.

“In addition to South Africa, we’re delighted to welcome artists this year from Botswana, Zambia, Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, Uganda, Tanzania, Mauritius and Seychelles. It’s fitting the competition enters this new phase at a time when there is a lot of new energy fuelling our young African artists, and I hope this translates into exceptional entries this year,” states Dr Bayliss.

Both Bereng and Dr Bayliss reiterate that the 2016 prizes present unrivalled opportunities for emerging artists. These include a six-month residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (main winner); three-month residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (Gerard Sekoto Award winner – for South African artists only); a three-month residency at the Bag Factory Artists’ Studio in Johannesburg (merit award); a two-month residency at the Sylt Foundation in Germany (merit award) and a one-month residency in New York (merit award). Barclays L’Atelier 2016 is hosted in conjunction with the South African National Association for the Visual Arts (SANAVA).
Artists are reminded that the registration process this year is being facilitated exclusively online at www.lateliercompetition.com. Registration is open until 4 March 2016, and all entries must be received at your nominated collection point by 16:00hrs on this date. Entrants can make their drop offs at their nearest collection point between 29 February and 4 March 2015, Zambia’s collection point is the Henry Tayali Gallery.

Perspectives of urban life

By Andrew Mulenga

Over the years, perhaps the signature interpretation of city life among Zambian painters is the bustling market scene that depicts colourfully clad traders with their stacks of fruit and vegetables, or hawkers with their wares strewn across pavements.

One Zambia One Nation (2015), oil and acrylic
on canvas by Christopher Simbule

A host of cityscape artists from maestros such as Poto Kabwe to snapshot painters like Raphael Chilufya and Albert Kata or the ever entertaining Mulenga Chafilwa, the urban market scene has been a long-time favourite. Now, judging from his recent work, Christopher Simbule can be added to the lists, but what is exciting is that he brings a whole new touch to the genre.

A good example is the painting One Zambia One, the title in itself, derived from a nationalist slogan evokes notions of a Zambian utopia but so does the whole scenery when taken in. The composition splits the painting in half horizontally, with a market scene in the foreground and an urban skyline with towering skyscrapers in the background. The high-rise buildings, although meant to be in the background, are not faded out as is often the rule of perspective, instead they are bold and just as vivid as everything in the foreground lending a frame to the painting, and one of the buildings has a golden cross on top of it that draws the eye like a focal point, perhaps the building is a church alluding to the declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation.

The painting’s foreground may be even more interesting, unlike the average market scene that depicts littered surroundings, it appears exceptionally clean and gives the impression of an airport instead of a market place, all the individual figures in the painting appear well dressed some even over-dressed, the stalls are fully stocked and the shoppers have both hands full with parcels, by all means, it perpetuates a positive extrapolation of city life, perhaps how a perfect African city is supposed to be.

A painting entitled Another Day is yet another cityscape that reflects the daily hustle of

Another Day (2015), oil and acrylic on
canvas by Christopher Simbule

urban life. More than half the painting is covered by multi-storey buildings, a chaotic skyline with a multi-point linear perspective that again casts tonal gradation to the wind. In effect the buildings subdue the foreground giving the painting an abstract impression. A closer look reveals that the painting is framed by two ominous looking characters, one to the left with a hat and cigar and one to the right with a hard brow line. These characters have a similar line of sight as the viewer and their eyes seem to be fixed on the small group of people up and about their daily lives in the city, maybe they intend to snatch a handbag from the lady concentrating on her phone or from the gentleman in a suit, who knows. The perspective is so cleverly laid out that again it is only under close scrutiny that one would notice the groups of people at the base of the buildings. Essentially, as the name suggests, the painting depicts just another day in the city, with merchants, shoppers, passers-by and pickpockets.

 The Club, another of Simbule’s urban scenes gives a glimpse of nightlife. This too has an interesting composition that places the viewer as an observer in a night club, sitting at a table full of drinks, with cell phone in hand.  In the immediate background is a group of about 12 revellers, all male, save for one in a short, tight yellow dress who appears to be the only one in the group that is seated. Their eyes are all fixed on the game of pool in the middle of the composition, behind them is the silhouette of a live band that stretches from one corner of the canvas to the other and frames the top of the painting. The painting no doubt mirrors the party scene that has become the essence of city life any many cases. But again in artistic terms the composition is a play on perspective in four distinctive layers from the observer in the foreground, the pool table, the revellers behind it and the live band in the back.

In the three paintings reviewed here, Simbule’s horizontal perspectives can be easily sliced into layers because they have a deceptively naïve composition that is further accentuated by the geometric nature of his subject matter as well as the flatness of colours and occasional disregard for tonal gradation.

The Club (2013), oil on board by Christopher Simbule

“Well, all the cityscapes come from my imagination and are not based on actual cities, but are supposed to remind you of some place, and these paintings I like to play around with perspective, you know foreground and background” explains the artist.
Simbule is in fact a multi-media artist who is also a worthy sculptor that works with found objects and papier-mâché from time to time, but depending on his mood or drive, he will switch from painting to other materials.

As for his proficiency, the artist can boast a solid art foundation having attended the Mzilikazi Art Centre in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe where he attained a two-year Fine Art Diploma in 1992. For the record, this is the art centre that laid the ground for the late Zambian virtuoso Henry Tayali who showed there between 1964 and 1965 at the age of 15 becoming the first African to exhibit in Bulawayo. Like Tayali, Simbule is testament to the long existent cross-pollination between the Zimbabwean and Zambian art scenes.

Before attending Mzilikazi, Simbule attended Founders High School which he explains laid a very strong emphasis on art education. Born to a Zambian father and Zimbabwean mother, Simbule and his siblings moved to Zimbabwe when his parents divorced, but his stay in Zimbabwe would end up being a good turn on his part.

“The goodness when I was in secondary school in Zimbabwe, we had a full, professional art studio, right in the school that we used to attend four times a week. Also every week we used to display our work at Mthwakazi Youth Centre,” he explains.

He says in Zimbabwe every township had a youth centre where art would be displayed regularly and this is what gave him gallery confidence. By the time he started exhibiting in the Bulawayo and Harare National galleries after college, he had already gained confidence as an artist. He recalls it was shortly after this period when he decided to return to Zambia to see his father, now a retired Zambia Airforce pilot who was flying local routes with Zambia Airways.

“I remember it just like yesterday when my father took me to the Lusaka show grounds to show me where my fellow artists were found. It was Valentine’s Day 1993 on a Sunday just like this year. This was my first time at the Henry Tayali Gallery,” he recalls.

Untitled cityscape (2015) oil and acrylic
on board by Christopher Simbule

He remembers being received warmly by the senior artists who were still trying to get the building expanded at the time; these were the early days of the Visual Arts Council (VAC).

“Even though they were busy they were all very good to me. Most of them are late deceased now. All the legends Martin Phiri, Godfrey Setti, Eddie Mubanga and Lutanda Mwamba. Its only David Chirwa and Smart Banda who are still alive. Smart was the gallery attendant and he was ordered to show me around,” he says.

He recalls that he immediately enrolled with Imiti Ikula Empanga (loosely today’s seedlings are tomorrows forests), VAC’s youth programme where the founding chairman, Phiri would personally assist the group with free materials.

“A was having a nice time working at VAC but a year later, my father died and I found myself disorganized always traveling from Zambia to Zimbabwe trying to get things right. I haven’t been to Zimbabwe since 2000 though,” he says.

Simbule was born in Mbala in 1971, he is a happily married father of four girls and like his late mother, and his wife is a medical practitioner. Dependant on art alone, one can only imagine how he gets by with huge family obligations, seeing there are no support structures for artists like him no matter how gifted you are. How artists survive in between the sale of a painting remains a mystery. All works shown here can be viewed and purchased from the VAC at the Henry Tayali Gallery in the Lusaka showgrounds.

Zambian art scene, emerging power house - Wilkinson

By Andrew Mulenga

Internationally recognised economist Betty Wilkinson is renowned for her expertise in financial inclusion, public management systems and rural development across Asia and the African continent, but on the Zambian art scene she is also well known as a voracious art collector and all round friend of the arts.

Art collector Betty Wilkinson at the
Lusaka National Museum, Zambia

Last week she flew in from Manila, for a job interview and was willing to take a moment to chat about her passion for art. Speaking at the Lusaka National Museum where she was found enjoying Twashibuka, the on-going graduation exhibition by Zambia Open University (ZAOU) students, she gave insights into what she thinks about the Zambian art scene, why she started collecting art, as well as what it is that draws her towards particular works.

“Let me start with a funny story of when I first came to Zambia in 1991. So we arrived in the country and my husband was an artist, then he says I am going to check out this Visual Arts Council where he bumped into William Miko. When my husband introduced himself as a sculptor, William put two blocks of soap stone and some chisels on a table and asked my husband to prove it, and he did, he carved an elephants head from the two pieces to which William responded, yes you are an artist, this was the beginning of a long-time friendship,” she said remembering the 1990s when she lived and worked in Zambia.

She explained that she developed an eye for art through interaction with her great grandmother who was a painter, although her mother also had a strong influence as she used to take Wilkinson and her siblings around museums and art galleries when she was a child growing up in Pasadena, California in the United States.

“When you are young, you don’t understand the value of this. What I realized growing up is that you develop an eye by looking all the time, which is why when I came here to the museum today, I almost wept with joy when I saw a group of four classrooms of school children coming in for a tour. I realized that in Zambia too, young children are being exposed to art, they are seeing art, experiencing it and feeling it,” she added.

She stresses that despite having a great-grandmother who was an artist as well as having been married to one, she does not possess any artistic talent; however, she is a very visual person, who knows what she likes when she sees it.

“When I came to Zambia, the first thing that struck me when I started looking at art is what a gift Zambia is to the world. Artists are extremely visually expressive in whatever media, and so I used to spend time with artists looking at what they were doing and how they were doing it. Then I would ask them how is the work connected to their history, family or world view, I realised that sometimes it’s just about rich expressions of daily life. So expressions of your world, expressions of your life, this is uniquely strong in Zambia” she said.

Although Wilkinson’s collection spans an array of work from all over the world, she has about 50 paintings and sculptures by Zambian artists on permanent display at her home, making the bulk of her collection. During her years in Zambia, she became a collector because she fell in love with the art but also because she had the resources and there were artists that she wanted to encourage their developmental stages.

“Another aspect that has been important to me as a collector is getting to know artists personally, I’m fortunate this is a developing art scene so all the artists have been accessible over the years. Also being around artists is fun, when they are working, I remember how Lawrence Yombwe would use actual grass to paint grass instead of a brush, I was fascinated by this,” she added.

She admitted that many times she has felt in the wrong when she buys a work by a Zambian artist and carries it abroad so she has found herself in the habit of donating them locally, citing them as examples of Zambian heritage.
 

Wilkinson is pleased that Zambian pupils are being
exposed to art galleries and museums

“There are some works that I believe should not leave the country, this is why I often donate work to the Lechwe Art Trust the trust is one of the unique aspects of the Zambian art scene, you actually have a fundamental collection of art development in the modern scene, no place else I know of has this, over the past 40 to 50 years you have outstanding representations of artists from this country,” she explained.

Wilkinson summed up her thoughts by pointing out three aspects of the Zambian art scene that she is pleased with at the moment.

 

“First is the advent of the open university, if you can have 50 graduates from all the provinces every year, people will realize how important art is and that it can be central to their lives. Second is the emergence of new galleries, 37d gallery is an important one, of course there has been a lot of agreement and disagreement about the gallery, in my view there is room for everyone,” she explained.

“Third is the aspect of children visiting art galleries like I have seen here, perhaps this is also because there are  more teachers getting higher education in art, also you have an education system that is beginning to support art more actively, all these things are very exciting.”

She had been talking to European and South African collectors recently and a good number of them have taken interest in visiting Zambia because they believe good things are happening here.

“I think the African Art Museum in the Smithsonian will have to wake up and see what is going on here. I also think with the increase of Chinese investors in Zambia we will hopefully see them collecting Zambian art. The Zambian art scene is without doubt an emerging power house. I’m here to interview for a job, if I get it I will make it my business to work on supporting the documentation of artists through books and online media,” said Wilkinson.

 

She is currently back in Manila awaiting the results of the said job interview and is hopeful that she will be able to return to live and work in Zambia. For 12 years she worked for the Asian Development Bank as Director of the Public Management, Financial Sector and over the last 35 years, she has worked worldwide as a banker, a donor representative, a field researcher and policy advisor, and a developing country government senior official. Her academic qualifications include a degree with honours in Business Economics from the University of California, and graduate studies at Cornell University in Agricultural Finance.

Meanwhile, on 23 January, during its annual general meeting in Lusaka, the Zambia National Visual Arts Council voted in a new National Executive Committee. According to a press statement published this week, the new executive is as follows: National Chairperson: Geoffrey  Phiri, National Vice Chairperson: Kate Naluyele, National General Secretary: Oliver Sakanyi, National Vice Secretary: Othiniel  Lingwabo, National Treasurer: Adrian Ngoma, and the Committee Members being, Sydney Siansangu, Sarah Chibombwe, Albert Kata, Ngandwe Mwaba and Tom Phiri. The release states that with immediate effect the new leadership intends to find a corporate organization or NGO that would be willing to help renovate the Henry Tayali Gallery, reach out to schools and other organizations in creating awareness of the visual arts, partner with Hotel and Tourism Institute and form a memorandum of understanding, encourage more visits to the Henry Tayali Gallery through quality exhibitions and strengthen communication with the National Art Council.

For the moment, the Henry Tayali Gallery in the Lusaka Showgrounds is hosting  Vision Galore 2, a solo exhibition of paintings by Zenzele Chulu,  the show also introduces Neil Shaw, a filmmaker from Cape Town, South Africa who will be documenting Chulu’s Schematic Tantrums project.