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Blantyre Arts Festival calls for artists

Genre : Calls for papers
Principal country concerned : Column : Arts and crafts
Release/publication date : 2015
Published on : 29/01/2015
Source : http://timesmediamw.com/blantyre-arts-festival-calls-for-artists/ 27 January 2015


The Blantyre Arts Festival (BAF), which has recently been criticised for lacking growth since it started, is calling for applications from artists ahead of this year's festival scheduled for October 2 to 4 October, 2015.



A press release from BAF indicates that the festival will be held at the Blantyre Cultural Centre, where they also held the event last year.



BAF Executive Director, Thom Chibambo, Monday said they were set for this year's festival.



He also said that they have already discussed with the government on the venue.



"Last year we had a successful festival and now we want to work things out in good time and so we are calling upon applications from artists for the 2015 participation," said Chibambo.



He said, with the support from Hivos and other local and international partners, they are ready for the festival and that they are calling for artists in various categories to apply for participation.



"They can do that through our website www.blantyreartsfestival. org and fill the application form," said Chibambo, adding that the deadline is June 30, 2015.



He then revealed that just like last year, they are set to organise art workshops this year in various disciplines.



"BAF is currently working in a project with Visual Arts Association of Malawi to promote visual arts on international level with the support from an organisation known as Imago Mundi from Italy," he said.



He said the project will see visual artists have its database produced and a catalogue for every individual participant to to this project published.



Chibambo said in this project 130 visual artists will have their work and their contact details in the catalogue and that this will be online.



"As BAF we are looking to expose all the various arts disciplines and, since we started, we have worked with different arts associations," he said.



He also revealed that this year the Photography Association has benefited in that its president, Lucky Mkandawire, travelled to Germany for a photography exhibition with support from their partners.



The exhibition started on January 20 and runs up to January 30 and according to Chibambo, this will provide a rare chance to Malawi's work to get international exposure.



Having been in the limelight the past years where the festival has worked with Poetry Africa bringing big name artists including Jamaica's dub poet Mutabaruka, Mali's Salif Keita, the past two years has seen the festival bringing new acts strange to Malawians.



Last year the festival which started in 2009, brought international acts which included Soul Samvaad Band from India, Zimbabwe's Munyaradzi, Namibia's Shishani and German poet Tobias Kunze.

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