BY LIFE & STYLE REPORTER
CULTURE Fund, with support from the European Union (EU) delegation to Zimbabwe, has injected over US$214 000 to support 13 new Zimbabwean creative sector projects.
In a statement, Culture Fund said CreativeACTIONs will support bold, innovative, exciting and COVID-19-related projects selected under a public and highly competitive call for proposals.
“There was an overwhelming response from all over Zimbabwe. This will be the second time CreativeACTIONs has awarded grants to Zimbabwean creatives since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,” part of the statement read.
“CreativeACTIONs is helping boost the momentum of creative movements in Zimbabwe and strengthening capacities for more sustainable creative ecosystems.”
There are eight projects under lot one, namely Art Lab — Fusing Art and Technology to Benefit Artists, My Beautiful Home, Building Careers and Enhancing the Resilience of Urban Performance Artists, Intwasa Digital Arts Festival, Zimbabwean Music Online, Re-thinking Arts and Pandemics, Bambelela Arts on Radio and People-Centric.
Lot two has five projects: Our Handcrafts on the Catwalk, Through the Eyes of Zimbabwe, Visual Arts Mentorship Programme, Centre for Contemporary Art Bulawayo, Women and Youths in the Arts Economic Empowerment Initiative.
My Beautiful Home project will promote the existence and continuity of creative capacities of Ndebele women living around the Matobo Hills Heritage Site.
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The initiative promotes social harmony by running competitions to design and paint over 1 000 homesteads using authentic Ndebele art and architecture dating back to the Stone Age.
Intwasa Digital Arts Festival is expected to increase its digital content creation and curate a big part of the 2021 festival virtually.
The focus of the festival is theatre, dance, visual arts, short films, music, spoken word and literature. In the virtual festival, three pieces of art per genre in different languages — English, Ndebele and Shona — will be produced and showcased.
The project will encourage creatives to embrace digital storytelling and migrate their programming to digital platforms.
People-Centric project will showcase and stimulate employment for talented young creatives riding on digital media openings. It will produce a radio drama series focusing on pertinent social issues and do skills training for active digital content creators, helping them adjust to and survive the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Visual Arts Mentorship Programme will empower 15 talented young visual artists in 2/3 dimensional art and mixed media work.
The programme will capacitate emerging visual artists and crafters through honing their artistic skills, enhancing aesthetics and the quality of their products, improve e-marketing and sales capacities targeting local and international markets.
Mentorship will also be extended to marginalised visuals in Gweru.
Through the Eyes of Zimbabwe project will produce short edutainment videos drawn from inspirational values of orature, whose influential capabilities lie in oral Ngano/Inganekwane traditions.
Through the Eyes of Zimbabwe is a storytelling initiative set to promote positive attitudes and influence young audiences and children’s cognitive development, to enhance intercultural understanding and to foster dialogue for social cohesion.
Produced content will be showcased on social media platforms and national television.
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