Sisonke Tavatose 2019
Calling
young artists of Bulawayo!
The Sisonke art competition is your opportunity to represent your school in a local and National art exhibition! The nationwide competition will be run in the first term of 2019. The most promising artwork of Bulawayo will be exhibited in the National Gallery of Bulawayo at the end of March, opened with a festival celebrating the talent and creativity of our city’s young artists. After this, the works will travel to Harare for the Capital to see what the city of Kings delivers.
Your art teacher will be given more details on how to enter in January.
Be ready to dazzle the city!
Teachers: we look forward to working with you in the first term of 2019.
Feel free to contact the gallery for further details!
BACKGROUND
Sisonke Tavatose- Visual Arts Competition is the National Gallery of Zimbabwe’s endeavour to foster art education in schools. This is a project whereby Schools from all the provinces in Zimbabwe are invited annually participate in the thematised exhibition with the assistance of their schools. Every year the theme changes, but the methodology remains the same. The exhibition is sponsored by various partners and centres mainly of environmental awareness issues.
Schools can submit their works at the closest National Gallery in Bulawayo Harare or Mutare submissions can also be submitted through the Environmental Management Agency Districts and provincial offices Nationwide. We accept work that is clearly labelled with the name of the student, age, grade/ form, name of school, province, name of teacher and contact details such as cell phone number and email at the back of the artwork. Nothing should be written on the front of the artwork. Selected artworks will be exhibited first, at the two regional galleries in Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare and those outstanding works from the provinces will compete with the rest at this National Gallery of Zimbabwe.
This expansive project could not be realized without the support of organizations with similar agendas – that of development of society through the management of the environment in a sustainable manner; hence the coming in on board of the Environmental Management Agency in support of this visual art exhibition. Over the years, the National Gallery through its Department of Education and Outreach, has worked hard to reach out to various communities in Zimbabwe, including children’s homes, rural and urban schools that have not been offering art a subject at primary, secondary or even at community club level. It is with this in mind that these efforts to reach out to young people must continue creating synergies with like-minded institutions and individuals who share the same vision with us; through sustainable environmental management.
We are proud, our efforts are bearing fruit. As evidenced by the ever increasing number of submissions every year and that more schools now have Art as an examinable subject at ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level. For the majority of Zimbabwean schools, there is very little or no funding for visual arts education as compared to other subjects and activities. In a basic Q & A survey, Educators continue to admit that the creative arts, in general, is basic to the acquisition of a well-rounded education. It serves as a vehicle for acquiring skills which educational reformers have said students should acquire as it aids in problem-solving, higher order thinking, persistence and cooperation.
For this reason, the National Gallery is grateful to the partners in helping to change the status quos and make a difference, by supporting art education in Zimbabwe through the Sisonke initiative. We want to go further, now that most schools have art as a subject we have realised a gap amongst the teachers and this has prompted the gallery to begin holding training workshops for teachers in various provinces, in order to help them inspire the students.
The first National Art Subject Transformation Conference held in Bulawayo from 26-30 May 2015, where University Art Educators, Teachers’ College lecturers, Provincial Art Education Officers, Polytechnic Art Lecturers, Zimsec Art Subject Managers, Art teachers from the country’ ten provinces as well as other affiliate organisations were represented, makes us realise as National Gallery that there are many of us working towards realising the same goals
The Partnership between the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and the Environmental Management Agency brings a new dimension in the school’s visual arts teaching and exhibition funding matrix, enabling many school children from across Zimbabwe’s ten provinces to lend their voices in the discourse of sustainable society through visual narratives at the same time improving their artistic skills. This platform for young people to showcase their creativity in a way that contributes to a better society is what the National Gallery aims to achieve through Sisonke Schools annual visual Art exhibition. We are excited by this development and we call upon every Zimbabwean and other like-minded institutions including corporate bodies, Embassies, Local Authorities, churches and private individuals to come on board to support this worthy cause and help make this country beautiful
For more details please contact the National Gallery of Zimbabwe on 00263292270721 or email: sabona@mweb.co.zw