ABOUT 12 artists from across the globe are undertaking a 200-day road trip from Cape to Cairo titled the Great African Caravan meant to explore challenges from different countries using art as the medium for social change.
BY ANESU MUSHAWATU
The group, which consists of artistes from the United Kingdom, India and Netherlands, will travel across 12 African countries, sharing their knowledge and holding conversations on sustainable development goals.
Indian artist and Great Africa Caravan curator GP Charan told NewsDay Life & Style that the idea behind the debut event was to use art as a medium for social change.
“The main goal is to use travel and art together as a medium for social change, it is all about how we can facilitate conversations between people and connect artistes from across the globe to Africa,” he said.
“Local people will benefit because we want to spark conversations between artists on peace and problems that we as people are having.”
Charan said the initiative is aimed at exchanging knowledge skills and practices to promote art as a medium to drive cultural inclusion.
“We will engage in workshops, dialogue creation, and artworks as a way of raising awareness, offer sustainable tools for problem solving and peace building, and spread the spirit of interconnectedness, peace, and global citizenship,” he said.
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The group, which started with South Africa, joined the world in commemorating International Peace Day last Friday by exploring different avenues on how to get organisations and youths who are working towards peace together and use art to bring people together and spread peace.
They held an open mic event at Allan Wilson School in Harare on Friday night, during which artists came together to perform and discuss how to promote peace.
The caravan has roped in the Zimbabwe United Nations Association as well as Junior Chambers Internationals as their local partners and will be travelling to Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi Rwanda, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda enroute to Egypt working with the artists and various local humanitarian organisations and youth groups.
Local musician Pauline Gunduza, who was among the facilitators, described the project as “God-sent”.
“The movement is God-sent and as artists, let us participate and take advantage of this initiative, which will not only spread peace in our country but provides an opportunity for us to market and expose ourselves, especially different creative disciplines such as poetry that are usually marginalised,” she said.
