Mandela museum 'boot camp' inspires artists
South Africa: Artists pore over their computers - drawing up
work experience and not sketches -in a rigorous "boot camp" inspired by
Nelson Mandela that combines practical business sense with talent.
The five students are in a six-week residency in the isolated hills
of Qunu at the Nelson Mandela Museum, overlooking the icon's childhood
home where he has been living for the last four months.
The programme is part of the museum's outreach efforts and aims to
give the artists, who are from the impoverished Eastern Cape, the
business savvy they need for success while making better art.
Outreach all too often means "running into a disadvantaged area with
a bag full of sandwiches and crayons and pencils and the kids have a
sarmie (sandwich) and they scribble on a piece of paper and that is the
end of your outreach," said University of Pretoria lecturer Peter
Binsbergen.
He and other visiting mentors wanted this program to be different-
and effective. It aims not only to make the five artists more visually
literate but also to teach them skills like drawing up a press release
and how to work with a gallery.
"This is the first programme in the country where money is invested
in students to perform, and they are put in residence," said Binsbergen.
He likened it to a "Big Brother house" - the television show where a
group of people live together in a large house, isolated from the world
and constantly filmed - "where they are grilled and drilled 24 hours a
day. They eat, think, sleep art. They are almost ...destroyed and bought
back from the ground up."
Since the programme began last year, one participant has been named
runner-up prize in an emerging artists competition. Another finalist is
in the current crop.
Surrounded by idyllic rural views, the sessions start in the morning
and run to late at night with a gloves-off approach. In one workroom,
the students' sketches are displayed on opposite walls while their
colleagues and lecturers pull their concepts apart.
"It's tough but you have to accept it because it's the way of
growing, it's the way of learning," said Monwabisi Ngcai, 30.
The incubator project was developed by professional artist and
consultant Churchill Madikida.
"I was born in the area, I grew up in this area and I struggled to
gain access to art facilities or art institutions," he told AFP.
"I already knew the challenges that were facing artists from this
area."
Nelson Mandela Museum project coordinator Bongiwe Qotoyi said the
workshops were in line with the icon's values. "It is about developing
an individual, instilling the leadership skills, so that at the end of
the day this individual is able to plough back to the community."
AFP |