Story; Rahamatu-Lahi Zakaria
Come 31st of January, Sanatu Zambang will treat people of Tamale to a great art exhibition dubbed at the forecourt of the office in Dungu, Tamale on the theme ‘’Memories of the past and future’’.
The event dubbed SCCA Tamale Art Challenge will see talented artists from the city to showcase their creation to people and we will also have a panel discussion on how we can develop the sector as part of our creative arts industry in the region.
At Sanatu Zambang, we believe in the creation and imaginative work of people and want to give everyone in the creative arts industry a chance to be heard, we do not reduce the creative arts industry to just music but a collective sector that has to do with crafts creation.
The SCCA Tamale Art Challenge is in collaboration with the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts. the center will be providing training and assisting the artists to come out with their creative work.
On Friday 17th January 2020, Ibrahim Mahama, the Founder of Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art met with Sanatu Zambang team and the participants for the SCCA Tamale Art challenge.
The meeting was to formally introduce the team to him and also for him to get insight to what kind of art they did that will form part of their exhibition.
Ibrahim Mahama tasked the participants to look beyond just the normal drawing and painting for sale. But rather, they should let their environment helped them think outside the box.
According to Ibrahim Mahama artists needed to make art that challenges the very premises that art is built on. The notion that artists needed to be perfect in drawing human beings is not true.
Art is about creating some new. Art to Ibrahim Mahama is not supposed to make any sense. Art can be futuristic but without distorting the past.
At the end most of the meetings, the participants unlearn a lot of misconceptions about what art is, due to the structure of our educational system. He encouraged the team to learn more artists who have broken boundaries with the kind of art they do.
I want to use art to create a job for myself and other – Rashid Asirigi
People go into art for a different reason but for Rashid Asirigi, he does arts basically to create employment for himself and others. The self-taught artist is a graduate from the Tamale Technical University.
He started drawing and painting at an early age. According to Rashid he always loves the art of drawing and painting and hence wanted to pursue that cause at the senior high level but was unfortunate not to get a school that offers visual arts. but he still pursued his dream.
His biggest cheerleader, his Mum has always supported him to build his dream from the onset.
According to him, the master will always let them prepare the canvas and take it to his house where he does the rest of the job without letting his apprentices learn how he did the painting.
This reason led Rashid to leave the place and sort for a new opportunity. He proceeded to TaTu to where he did ceramics.
At tertiary, he was advised by one of his lecturers to consider ditching painting and go into pottery. Though the lecturer loved his paintings, he still gave that advice because he thought the only place to make money is through pottery.
I want to use drawing to drive societal change- Salma Abdul Rashid
Salma Abdul Rashid, a student of University for Development Studies has disclosed to Santau Zambang how she wants to use her drawing to impact the kind of work that she does, thus voluntarism and social change.
Though she does not want to take drawing as a full-time job, her passion to see a better society will see her incorporate drawing to her line of work. According to her, not all can read so with illustration, it helps to get the message out.
She has previous use drawing to campaign for social change and also for good sanitation. This work was a voluntary work for ActionAid Ghana after completing senior high school.
She started drawing at an early age and pursued visual art in senior high school. Her biggest cheerleader is her dad. She says her dad has been supporting her from the onset when he realized that she could draw.
But the perception of people on females drawing does not create an enabling environment for them to explore says Salma.
