21 Mar 2019

Maun Senior Secondary School art teacher, Legodile Seganabeng in collaboration with the United States of America has introduced an initiative dubbed ‘America on the move’, which aims to explore artistic expressions with young art learners.

Recently, a group of 21 learners from junior and secondary schools in Maun attended the America on the move programme, where they were engaged in a series of workshops to spark inspiration as well as to share the ingenious ways of the ground roots of art.

Through the workshops, the learners were taught art history with focus on America’s greatest visual artists such as Jackson Pollock, James McNeill Whistler, Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Wyeth and Grant Wood.

Seganabeng explained said he came up with the initiative after realising that there was something lacking in the art syllabus.

He revealed that art learning environment in secondary schools in Botswana was dominated by creative skills development of the student and a little was exerted toward harnessing conceptual expressions and art history appreciation.

Seganabeng also explained that they had selected learners, who were exceptionally good in their daily art expressions in school and who also demonstrated interest and commitment in art and the willingness to explore new avenues, which would augment their academic proficiency.

“The programme is offered only on weekends so that it does not clash with normal school lessons,” he said.

Seganabeng said the eight-week programme would give the learners an opportunity to learn new ways of making art as they would become thinkers and explorers who were able to not only express themselves visually but also put together great concepts when creating artworks.

He said the programme would also help the students perform better academically as they would link what they did with their school projects.

“This initiative also will give them an opportunity to build their portfolios and stand a better chance to pursue art in future and also to have an entry in American universities, which specialised in art subjects,” he added.

Each student, he said would pick one American artist of their choice, study their works such as the periods in which the artists were active, the movements that inspired the artists, the techniques and materials used by the artists to create the artworks, and, most importantly, the messages that the artworks carry.

The student, he said would then explore ideas for a new artwork in the style of the chosen artist and by the end of the programme, learners would have produced American artists inspired artworks, which would be exhibited.

He said different stakeholders including school heads, officials from education ministry, district leadership would be invited to come and appreciate the students’ work.

Since the programme was conducted mostly in English, Seganabeng said the American embassy had assigned a tutor, Susan Wells to assist learners in the language.

The first session would focus on polishing the participants’ grasp of the language and that would be done in a creative way as they would be expected to write briefs of what they had learnt at the end of the project.

By studying language, he said they wanted learners to be able to critically analyse art and eventually become art reviewers. ENDS