By Kudakwashe Vhenge
The British council has called on Zimbabwean artistes to fill in an online survey in an effort to create a database to help and raise the profile of arts industry in Zimbabwe.
The survey is available on various online platforms.
The arts sector which has been cited as one major economic player with an estimated contribution of 7% into the country’s growth domestic product has not been taken seriously despite its impact on the economy.
People in the arts and cultural industries as musicians, visual artistes, digital
story tellers, designers, festivals hosts,
and creatives are highly encouraged to participate.
Under the theme “Unlocking the Zimbabwean Creative Scene”, the British Council together with Connected Sahara, Savannah Trust and Andani Africa saw the first phase of desktop data gathering in order to have an appreciation of the current creative industries and identify areas of potential gaps.
The second phase will see interviews of artistes in music, visual arts, digital storytelling and festivals from Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare being conducted in order to understand the opportunities in the creative industries.
“These interviews are being undertaken in all three cities. The interviews are oriented toward understanding the identified opportunities and gaps in the sector that might significantly impact the Creative Industries if
approached strategically.
” Understanding the work that is currently being done, policy changes and new programs underway will help clarify this,” reads a statement.
Under the #creativesZWunlocked, an online survey and crowd sourced map which seek to gather a large base of data on various arts organizations in order to understand the country’s creative potential is currently being carried out.
Artistes and creative businesses are therefore being urged to participate by adding their creative business, organizations and work to the digital portal created for the creative arts in Zimbabwe.
Artistes have since been called to participate in the survey by logging on to www.andani.africa to add their information.
This initiative came at a time when the creative industries have known no statistical data largely due to the informal nature of the trade in Zimbabwe.
However, there are quite a number of people solely depending on the arts to survive.
