Khama�s final lap

Tom Ketlogetswe | Friday June 23, 2017 14:35

 

When President Ian Khama ascended to the country’s highest office on April 1, 2008, many thought it was an April fool’s play. He came with countless promises amongst them the four Ds, which were later increased to five. He proclaimed the President’s Day in July a holiday through which the arts should be celebrated.

It will be 10 years next year when he leaves office, just a day before April fool’s day. This cultural initiative will certainly form the hallmark of his legacy. There is no debate as to whether the arts under his leadership have grown in leaps and bounds. In the process the competitions have unearthed unknown gems in areas such as polka dance, from the Kgalagadi district. This new found art is threatening the likes of Setapa and Phathisi, as a new national dance phenomenon.

Every year the Department of Arts and Culture, with pomp and glowing faces reveals the swelling numbers that this activity continues to attract in terms of participation. The patron, in return, only marvels at his creation and the accolades that the award recipient heaps on his noble idea.

It is however the quality of these celebrations that could be a topic for debate. In the visual arts, a lot of positives and negatives have been realised. A lot more artists in this field have been kept motivated by prospects of what the competition might bring for them in the coming year. But what boggles the expert’s mind is the absence of the more seasoned and experienced artists who have chosen to shun this noble activity. They would have served as a reference guide to the aspiring lot that seems to swim in a tide of confusion, only choosing to emulate successive winners at every given chance.

The national gallery for the better part of the competitions remained a white elephant save for the period leading up to the President’s Day celebrations. Before these competitions, it was a revelation of both local and international talent, showcasing quality artworks. But all this has now been relegated to history with very little prospects for the future.

Staff at the Department of Arts and Culture has, due to intense preparations that come with traversing the length and breadth of this country every year, complained of fatigue. This could have led them to neglecting other roles that come with their job descriptions such as art education and other exhibitions.

The only surviving gallery that has kept a feeble sparkle in this Presidents’s ay ‘capture’ of the arts, has been Thapong. It has come to the rescue of those whose eyes yearned to feed on the spectacle of creativity, but with its own limitations such as limited space and a deliberate tendency for development. A majority of its exhibitions have rather remained below par in terms of quality, mainly because it is more of a developmental focused entity.

The traditional areas of the visual arts: painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, photography, suffered annual quality presentation in this competition. The entries have shot up in numbers but the quality and key messages have been relegated to the traditional themes of portraits, landscape, human figures, with very little to deduce in terms of communication and a far cry from what the world at this pointing in time is consuming as far as contemporary art is concerned.

The organisers themselves have offered very little in terms of stimulating quality entries, citing a lack of time and resources, despite calls to organise workshops to train participants to improve the artists’ work.

The crafts on the other hand have been a revelation in terms of quality, specifically the intense competition from Ngamiland baskets. The quality and quantity of these crafts have grown, as one officer once remarked, ‘how daunting a task it was to collect the baskets for the national exhibition’.

He said he found the entries lined up, trickling into the distance as far as the eye could see. He was also concerned with the extent of forgery that could be at play in this lucrative industry occasioned by the competition.

In addition to the baskets the nation was treated to other crafts from different areas, offering a peep into the diversity of the cultures that this country possess. 

With the coming of the new administration in 2018, on April fools day, it remains to be seen what the future holds for the arts. Maybe an opportunity to go back to the drawing boards and bring back the creative quality aspect, which over the recent years, when the industry was captured, has been lacking at the national gallery.