20 Jan 2015

Coordinator of Thapong Visual Arts Centre, Reginald Bakwena says a lot has to be done to develop visual art in Botswana.

Speaking in an interview on what he hopes for the visual art industry in 2015, he said facilities outside Gaborone should be developed and that will in turn encourage artists outside Gaborone to take up visual art.

“We should not only build infrastructure in Gaborone, but rather look at other places like Francistown, Maun and Kasane among others and this will generate interest on those artists that are far from the capital city,” he said.

He said it was his wish that in 2015, more artists would come into the industry. “More numbers mean that the industry will be able to sustain itself and contribute to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP),” he said.

Bakwena further said they were looking to develop artists by holding more exhibitions and workshops. “Last year during the Thapong Artist of The Year competition, we noticed that most artists still lacked some necessary skills on making their art pieces more desirable to consumers,” he said.

He said they noticed that artists lacked skills in presentation of their work. “There is shortage of education and this year we will be looking to correct that by holding informative workshops for our member artists,” said Bakwena.

He said they would also hold member exhibitions and individual exhibitions for artists to get feedback on their art pieces and what consumers liked. “Exhibitions are all about visibility and making sure artists get constructive feedback on what they could have done better and to also sell a few art pieces,” he said.

Speaking on how the visual art industry grew last year, Mr Bakwena said he was happy with the new faces he had seen. “The integration between the new faces and old faces has been amazing and we need more of that to happen,” he said.

He indicated that in partnership with Botswana Society for The Arts, they would be hosting a presentation on photography and will engage with photographers that took part in the Thapong Artist of The Year competition last year.

Ulf Nermark, vice chairperson of Botswana Society for the Arts, said the presentation that will take place at the Thapong Visual Arts Centre on February 5 would be to give constructive feedback to those that took part in last year’s TAYA.

“It will be a photography presentation and it will benefit those that take photography seriously and I encourage every photographer to attend,” he said. He said photography had over the years seen a significant increase in Botswana and it is a good thing. ENDS