Visual Arts Association of Malawi (Vaam) has said that lack of funding was the biggest challenge faced in 2017, a development that forced it to postpone implementation of some of its planned programmes.
\nVaam Pres ident, Mike Chilemba, said yesterday that they tried to source funds from different sources but were not successful.
\n\u201cWe did not succeed to get any financial support from donors except funding from Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) Cultural Support Scheme which was phased out. With the Cultural Support Scheme, we managed to do a number of things, including reviewing our constitution,\u201d Chilemba said.
\nThe Cultural Support Scheme, driven by Cosoma but supported by Royal Norwegian Embassy, was phased out and now artists have to rely on the Cultural Fund Malawi.
\nCultural Support Scheme supported several arts associations in the country, most notably the payment of rentals at Claim Mabuku House in Blantyre.
\nFollowing its phasing out, many arts associations have failed to pay rentals and there was a suggestion that they move and occupy offices at the Blantyre Cultural Centre (BCC).
\nBut the move failed to materialise as the government is yet to rehabilitate the offices at the facility.
\nThe rehabilitation of BCC is moving at a snail\u2019s pace.
\nChilemba said Vaam will be meeting soon to discuss feasible activities.
\n\u201cWe will soon meet to reflect on which feasible activities we can carry out in the short and long term as stipulated in our strategic plan. So, we will make sure that we secure funding from both the private and public sectors,\u201d he said.
\nVaam has failed to stand out, playing second fiddle to other art fields in the country.
\nThe association has also relied heavily on festivals to give its members the platform to showcase their artworks. Ironically, Vaam does not have its own festival.
\nHe said, despite facing challenges, the body managed to fly some of its members outside the country to showcase their works and fly Malawi\u2019s flag.
\n\u201cWe managed to send some members outside the country, and these include former Vaam president Chrisford Chayera, who exhibited his works in Japan,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cAgain, Vaam Vice President Gilbert Mpakule went to Asia on an art residency programme and our recent export is Kenneth Namalomba, who is in United States of America,\u201d he said.
\nChilemba congratulated artists for putting Malawi on the global map.
\n\u201cI just want to urge artists, mainly Vaam members, to desist from always waiting for someone to bail them out [of problems] both materially and financially. We have to fight to get the spot; second, we must be aware that the spirit of individualism stagnates the growth of groupings. So, we need to unite and work together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Visual Arts Association of Malawi (Vaam) has said that lack of funding was the biggest challenge faced in 2017, a development that forced it to postpone implementation of some of its planned programmes. Vaam Pres ident, Mike Chilemba, said yesterday that they tried to source funds from different sources but were not successful. \u201cWe did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58517,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58512\/revisions\/58517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}