Networking New Opportunities for Artists in East Africa

This interdisciplinary research project Networking New Opportunities for Visual Artists in East Africa draws together visual artists, arts organisations, funders, policy makers, academics and other stakeholders in the visual arts from Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda. Through hands-on, collaborative workshops and the creation and exhibition of temporary new artworks it will explore how new opportunities and career pathways can be developed for artists working in East Africa. The goal is to help them build sustainable livelihoods, an international development priority, and to build capacity in the creative industries in East Africa.
A recent report for the British Council states 'East African countries are set on a path to become middle income countries in the next twenty years.' The creative industries are an area of growth. 'We are getting better at understanding and valuing the impacts of a strong creative industries sector... underpinned by excellence and distinctiveness. The creative economy will play a central role in delivering the next phase of growth, increasing prosperity and enabling a greater diversity of cultural expressions to reach new audiences and for people to make a living from their creativity. Whilst the extraction of poverty remains the No1 priority, there is growing realisation that the creative and cultural aspirations and needs of citizens cannot wait forever to be met'.
The Uganda National Culture Policy (2005) asserts that 'Cultural industries have the potential to promote livelihoods...create employment opportunities and produce economic gains at all levels, promoting creativity and expressing messages that foster understanding and peace'. The policy's key interventions include 'promoting and supporting budding creative artists: ...visual arts...have the potential to reduce income poverty if their quality and quantity is deliberately enhanced'. 'Collaboration amongst stakeholders' and 'the setting up of networks in culture' are stated priorities.
The East African Community Creative and Cultural Industries Bill (2015) was seen as a boost for artists, but very little has happened since. The proposed Creative and Cultural Industries Development Council that was to lead developments has not been established. There continues to be minimal investment in the creative cultural industries: in Uganda there is still no provision for teaching creative arts subjects in schools.
Within this context, the network will address challenges facing artists who want to build sustainable careers and decent livelihoods. It will partner with leading organisations working in the field: the British Council in East Africa, the African Arts Trust, 32 Degrees Ugandan Arts Trust and grassroots organisations. Working in collaboration with these partners it will develop a series of network workshops which will facilitate artists and arts organisations to scope and define tangible new opportunities and career pathways. The make-up of the network and the design of its events has been developed through intensive discussion in Africa with its prospective participants, many of whom will lead workshop events. Each workshop will be given innovative focus through a series of temporary artwork commissions, sited in high profile sites in the public realm close to the workshop venues, each created by an East African artist specially for the event.
The network will develop thematic challenges identified by its participants, addressing these from multiple perspectives, sharing the knowledge and experience of East African scholars, artists, art professionals, policy makers and audiences, and the international research team. Working together in three workshops in two cities, each workshop led by a different organisation, bringing new voices and approaches to bear on the problems, participants will devise, debate and concretise opportunities that can achieve real and tangible impacts on artists' lives and on the creative economy in the EAC

The project will impact on those communities identified in the reports and policies and identified in the Case for Support. These are creative artists working in East Africa whose career opportunities and livelihoods can be enhanced, the organisations who support creative artists working in society and encourage greater public engagement with the visual arts, and the creative industries more broadly,which is set to have an increasingly important profile within the EAC. (see evidence in CfS). Development of the creative industries is a priority both for their potential for positive economic impact but also for their capacity to bring less quantifiable benefits: to 'promote creativity, optimise skills and human resources...and express messages that foster understanding and peace' (Uganda National Culture Policy 2005 p20).
Within this international development context, the network is designed to impact on its direct participants: visual artists and arts organisations active in East Africa, on those who fall within this group but do not participate directly, and more broadly, over a longer time-frame, on stakeholders in the creative industries in the EAC. There will be impacts on the local academic sector, and on the public who visit the 'case study' art commissions. Workshop focus will be on practical methods and strategies for practitioners to improve their livelihoods, sharing experience and gaining new knowledge of: the potential benefits of collaboration, professional development, mentoring, entrepreneurship, opportunities offered by new modes of art production (particularly relevant in Africa) and working in the public-realm.
Visual arts organisations, funders and policy makers will gain new knowledge through discussion about new strategies for artists' careers, particularly hearing the responses to these ideas articulated by the artists themselves. Through this process, the network will impact on development of future strategy. Organisations will also gain new understanding of the relevance and potential application of academic research to their activities. The six on-site commissions will give network participants and audiences an opportunity to engage with contemporary art made in response to specific environments, including museum and heritage contexts. For the public the commissions will provide an introduction to art in different contexts that could stimulate future interest in and enjoyment of the contemporary arts and their appreciation of the relevance of creativity within developments in East African society.
Through these new engagements between policy makers, art agencies and the public with art and artists in East Africa, the network will positively impact on the profile and status of artists within their communities, challenging stakeholder perceptions of role and value of creative practitioners, and the importance of them establishing sustainable careers within a creative economy which is set to become an increasingly significant segment within the overall EAC economic context. Given a political context where recognition of the value of growing the creative economy has been demonstrated through measures such as the Creative and Cultural Industries Bill (2015), but where there is still little evidence of the will to provide significant support, the impacts this network aims for are pressing.
Once the network is established, its impact will be sustained through continuing dialogues and exchanges between participants, and by seeking to concretising these into tangible opportunities for change. Situating our activities locally in East Africa with locally based network partners and Co-Is positions the network well for ongoing impact. We anticipate that proceedings will generate ambitious long term ideas that would benefit from further development support from regional and international sources. We will be keen to contribute to future research that responds to opportunities to capture this support.