Can We Inspire the Next Generation Of Zimbabwean Artists?

Whenever I see the art created by youngsters in Zimbabwe I am so impressed by their process, ideas, and what they pay attention to. For example, look at these pieces by Delight (above) and Munashe (below) that capture some of the power and violence of a “Terrible Storm” inspired by Cyclone Idai that hit Zimbabwe in 2019 (I’m particularly amused by the juxtaposition of the terrible storm and a man on the mountain losing his hat).

Despite youngsters in Zim having vivid imaginations, many of them may not continue to develop their art or other creative skills beyond a certain age and I think this is a loss, not just for the individual, but for the future of our country.

What does art teach us?

If I had to distill art down to its most basic steps it would be this:

1. Search for and identify a need

2. Imagine ideas to meet that need

3. Turn the ideas in your head into a reality

The needs identified might be:

• The need to express an emotion

• The need to tell a story

• The need to share a vision of the future

• The need to share how you see the world

Imagining ideas to satisfy your needs could involve:

• Choosing what media and tools to use

• Figuring out how it will look, sound, feel or even taste

• Figuring out the process to turn this fuzzy idea in your head into something real that others or even just you can interact with

Doing the work of turning your ideas into a reality involves:

• Play 

• Making mistakes

• Experimenting

• Perseverance

Learning this process is so valuable because it’s what I believe leads to innovations; those ideas that have now become a part of our daily lives, and that have changed the way we understand the world and live our lives.

Be it art, like Barry Lungu’s piece below that expresses the mood of a nation when words fail us.

Or the invention of the internet which has connected us to just about anyone in the world. Creative thinking and innovation change the world.

What’s Happening in Zimbabwe

In many of our schools in Zimbabwe and many other countries around the world, however, much of the focus is on maths and the sciences. These are important but I feel the most basic steps of how these are often taught are this:

1. Here’s a need or problem

2. Here are the tools to solve it

3. Solve it

Step 3 has some similarities to the artistic process I mention above but Step 1 and 2 are often dumbed-down versions of the steps of the artistic process and have been turned into a paint-by-numbers operation in the name of efficiency and getting people through the system with the best grades (Sir Ken Robinson talks about this most eloquently in his TEDtalk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” which is one of the most-watched TEDtalks of all time)

So the question is, how can we encourage the arts and the development of creative thinking and skills in the next generation?

What We Do

Our social enterprise, Zimbowties is hoping to encourage the next generation of creatives with Creativity Awards and after awarding them to more than 40 youngsters in Zimbabwe we’d love to share how we’re doing this.

Zimbowties is based in Mutare, Zimbabwe. We work with talented artisans who use offcuts of beautiful fabrics from across Africa to create one-of-a-kind bow ties and other fashion accessories that we sell around the world. Check them out at zimbowties.com.

A portion of all our sales goes towards our Creativity Awards. The awards pay for one term/semester of school fees and are given to school children in our community who have been hand-picked for doing something extraordinary. This could be creating a painting, writing a story, or even just what they do daily as they interact with their peers.  

We don’t actually give the award based solely on the quality of the outcome of what the individual was creating but rather on the process, skill or behaviour that helped them get to that outcome.

For example, when we gave Stanley a Creativity Award for this awesome painting of a musician it wasn’t for “a great painting of a musician”.

We don’t necessarily want him to think that that one painting was his greatest achievement at the tender age of 14 but rather we awarded him for experimenting with colours and being prepared to try out new things. 

So one day in Stanley’s future, if he’s stuck or has a problem he’s trying to figure out, we hope that our award gives him something to reflect on and he will think, not that he’s passed his prime, but that he has the ability to experiment and create something new (This way of encouraging a “growth mindset” is explained best by the incredible work of Carol Dweck which you can learn more about in her book Mindset and this great TEDtalk).

Create!

We haven’t figured it all out, so we’re taking our own medicine and experimenting with how best to implement our Creativity Awards.

One thing we’re investigating is working with “Creative Professionals” in Zimbabwe to teach and mentor the kids we identify, outside of the schooling system.

We’ve already started working with musicians like Taffie Matiure, who’s run mbira classes with creative youngsters for us.

And paper craftsman John Custom who’s started running craft classes.

Whatever model we end up settling on we’re guided by the belief that creativity is an essential tool for life. Neil Gaiman says this comically in a brilliant commencement speech in 2012: 

Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do.

Make good art.

I'm serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it's all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that doesn't matter. Do what only you do best. Make good art.

Make it on the bad days make it on the good days too.

We always have the ability to create and we will continue to do our bit to inspire the youth who will create the future of Zimbabwe, and Africa as a whole, to believe this.