Beyond Teaching: Providing Platforms for Artistic Talent

The Human Rights Day, on 21 March would be meaningless if children and the youth were not included in celebrating this important day for every citizen, for it is a day enshrined in the Constitution of South Africa for a restoration of human dignity to our people. I amen thralled by the gesture of the municipality to extend the invitation for me speak as part of the Human Rights Day Art Exhibition celebrations. Worth mentioning here, is the ability and resilience of the council to include the arts, through the young people’s exhibition, to commemorate the occasion. The gesture brings hope not only for the arts to prosper but for the society to reflect on its own socio-political make-up.

The City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) is fast becoming a leader in arts development and youth empowerment initiatives around Gauteng Province with one of the most important visual arts competitions, Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Awards, for the young and upcoming visual artists and the Ekurhuleni Arts Development centers across the municipality. This goes beyond teaching visual arts in the classrooms to making art part of the communities. The SRAC Portfolio Committee and Council should be commended for making arts development one of the priorities in community services.

South Africa as a country is faced with challenges of high illiteracy and high youth unemployment. The creative sector may help to effectively address these challenges.It may be advantageous for other municipalities across the country to follow the example set by the CoE to offer cultural experiences and opportunities to youngsters from poor backgrounds in particular. From my experiences of conducting outreach programmes through the non-profit organisation, Samanthole Creative Projects & Workshops, which I founded in 2010, the significant declining number of state schools that offer arts subjects by specialist teachers is worrying. Through these workshops I came to understand the dearth of knowledgeable and competent art teachers in our art schools. Specialist art teachers or rather art practitioners teaching creative subjects in our schools can make a major impact as they are well-versed and they live the experiences of the profession every day.

Arts should be made one of the key subjects in the curriculum of our public schools which is taught by competent teachers. There is a universal agreement within the cultural and creative industries that the government’s focus on science, technology, engineering and maths should be inclusive of the arts.We need more artists from across the disciplines of visual arts, theatre, music, dance, literature and poetry. In order to achieve this objective we need an educational system that focuses on the future needs of the cultural and creative industries which privileges innovation and growth. The constitution of the Republic enshrines clearly that everyone has the right to artistic expression and it is a basic tenet that our young people have access to quality arts and literature education.

Generally youngsters who are born into poor families with less scholastic qualifications are likely, and that is when supported by their communities, to work and be successful in creative and cultural industries thus encouraging a South African identity. I am the living proof of this fact. When the government at the municipal level invests in arts facilities, it does not only help build arts infrastructure but it also increases interest and appreciation of the arts by the communities. Reflecting on his realisation of becoming a writer, the humanist and late Professor Es’kiaMphahlele wrote in 1993 that: “It has been my fate to be a teacher and a writer. The imagination is my regular beat as it is also the workshop of my mind; a territory of ideas, knowledge, thought and emotion is my hunting ground.” We should not deprive our children the human right of imagination, thought and the activation ofideas and knowledge in the workshops oftheir minds. 

More platforms such as art centers must be opened in order for the youth to be afforded opportunities and platforms to meaningfully contribute to the local and global arts landscape.We need more of‘Beyond Teaching’ exhibitions as part of monthly events on municipality calendars because such shows will create opportunities for the youth, boost their confidence and set them on the path to greatness. When I was about 10 years, still at primary school, my former art and English teacher used to take our drawings to the city of Polokwane and these pieces where exhibited on the then national television programme called Mopani News. This gesture on its own really made a significant impact in making me believe that I am an artist, the career that I subsequently followed with passion. It was because of my former art teachers that I establish SCPW and volunteer my time offering the rural community creative arts workshops to youngsters who could otherwise not have access to their artistic expressions. 

I would like to take the opportunity to thank and congratulate the SRAC Department of the City of Ekurhuleni’s Visual Arts and Crafts Section team for giving our youth the voice thereby affording them the opportunity to use their artistic talents to commemorate the Human Rights Day. I am a firm believer that children and the youth are our natural resources (especially when their artistic talents are encouraged through platforms like this exhibition), far precious than ore and we need to tap into them to invest in the future of our country,continent and the world. Nurturing the youth’s talents today will make it easy for them to contribute to our future economies. Here we are celebrating a crop of budding artists who, when supported their artistic acumen will contribute to the country and the global art market thus give the world what Steve Biko aptly called‘a human face.’

I hope that we are going to invest in the talents of our youth by buying and taking their original pieces home. I am buying a piece by Eleloang Soko, a fifteen year old girl whose piece spoke to me.

I THANK YOU SO MUCH. ENJOY THE EXHIBITION. I DECLARE THE SHOW OPEN!!!

Khehla Chepape Makgato is a Johannesburg-based independent artist and arts writer, regularly contributing articles to ART AFRICA and The Journalist. He works at Assemblage Studios and is the founder of Samanthole Creative Projects & Workshop, a community-based art organisation focusing on arts and literacy youth programmes. Chepape is the ImpACT Award WINNER for Visual Arts 2016 from the Arts and Culture Trust of South Africa and The Mapungubwe Visual Artist of The Year 2016.