19 Jun 2016

Kgosi Mosadi of Balete says the key objective of the President’s Day Competitions is to showcase and nurture artistic talent for economic empowerment.

Speaking at the Gaborone and South East district regional visual art exhibition, Kgosi Mosadi said since the inception of the annual President’s Day Competitions in 2008, there had been notable progress in achieving its objectives.

“This is evidenced by the increase in participation through various art categories. Further, the continued growth in both quality and quantity of artworks submitted,” she said.

She stated that the increased uptake and participation in the event clearly demonstrated both the creativity of Batswana and the value placed in the arts at individual, institutional and national policy levels.

Kgosi Mosadi said over the years, there had been an increase in awareness, participation and appreciation of culture and creativity through diverse means.

“We have seen events such as the Kuru Art Festival, Domboshaba Festival, Dithubaruba Festival, and many others develop, grow and continue to take place year after year,” she said.

She noted that Batswana were creative and other nations enjoy Botswana’s creativity, adding that art has the potential to improve cultural tourism sector of the country and the country’s socio-economic and cultural development.

Kgosi Mosadi urged Batswana artists to realise their talent as potential for them to establish businesses, create employment, alleviate poverty, diversify economy and contribute to the country’s development goals.

“I urge you to take advantage of platforms such as the President’s Day Competitions to explore the horizons. And, if you are going to look at deriving sustainable economic gains from your artistic abilities, allow me to challenge you to continue sharpening your skills in your vocation in order to produce quality works. While it may be difficult to attach a price tag to a skill or talent, it is equally important for artists to produce quality artworks so that consumers may receive value for their money,” said Kgosi Mosadi.

Government, she noted has since recognised the importance of creativity to the socio-economic and cultural development of the country, hence a number of initiatives had been put in place and resources continued to be set aside to promote creativity and art work.

“The Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture (MYSC) has various youth empowerment programmes including those in the art sector. The programmes include the Youth Development Fund (YDF) and the MYSC Grant,” she said.  The MYSC Grant (besides youth and sport development components), she said had arts and culture component that targets artists, cultural practitioners’ organisations to improve the lives of their communities through various sustainable projects.

Kgosi Mosadi further said government had also enacted the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act [Cap 68:02] of 2006 , which protects the rights of creators of artistic works and authors of literary works from unauthorised use and commercialisation of their works.

“This Act establishes the Levy on Technical Devices Fund through which grants are given to fund projects geared towards the development of creativity in Botswana,” she said.

Some of the categories at the exhibition included beadwork, painting, photography, ceramics, printmaking, graphic designs, textile, drawing, sculpture, woodcarving, pottery, leatherworks and glasswork. The winners got P3 000, while the second and third prize winners got P1 500 and P1 000 respectively.

All those who made the cut made it to the nationals and their works would be displayed at the National Museum.Some of the categories did not have winners, such as glassworks, pottery and woodcarving.

Mr Tom Ketlogetswe, one of the judges, indicated that the criteria used for the competition was to see if the artworks submitted were eye-catching, original, craftsmanship and conceptual message of the artworks. He said there were a considerable number of entries for most categories even though some categories did not have participants.

“But, what worried us most was the fact that most artists are not creative and keep on doing things we are used to,” he said, adding that another worrying factor was plagiarism, where artists pass other people’s work as theirs.

Some of the winners were,  Gosego Motlogelwa (sculpture), Shirley Molefe (New Media), Onkabetse Mpolokeng (Painiting), Kedumetse Tshidiso (Painting), Eric Chibuwa (New Media), Keoagile Mosanawe (Sculpture) and Mogomotsi Selei (Drawing). ENDS