East Africa art programme launched

The British Council has launched the East Africa Art Programme, an initiative to promote East African art within the region and in the United Kingdom (UK).

"There will be five parts to the East African Arts programme, but the main one will be ‘new art, new audiences'. So there will be an open call in June for artistes and organisations to apply with their projects to make new art that connects to East African cities," said Rocca Gutteridge, the head of arts for East Africa at the British Council told the New Vision.

Speaking on the sidelines of a networking session of the Creative Enterprise Training organized by the council in Kampala on Tuesday, Gutteridge said the programme will be in phases.

"The second part will be about brokering and skills, getting younger creative people to meet their more experience counterparts to share experiences. Thirdly, we will be connecting artistes and businesses with their UK counterparts, and then finally, we will provide the mobility and publishing support."

Artistes will apply to be funded to travel to any part of East Africa to do a new piece of art. Flights will be offered, artistes shall be able to choose which part of East Africa they want to go to, and who they want to work.

To qualify to be part of the programmes, one will have to write a one page proposalwith their idea, which will be looked at by experts from within and without the British Council

"Basically, this will be about creating new art and getting new audiences. We shall wait to how to see this work."

The programme will attract people from Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Ethiopia and UK.

The five day workshop, designed for creative entrepreneurs, catered for entrepreneurs in the following industries; advertising, Architecture, art, antiques, crafts (cultural, traditional and contemporary), design (corporate and domestic interiors, furniture, graphics, web-design), designer fashion (accessories, footwear, millinery), film and video, interactive leisure and software, music (writing, performing) performing arts (theatre, dance, comedy), literature, publishing (digital books, magazines), software and computer services, television and radio.