24 Nov 2022

The City of Francistown is planning to host a week long event dubbed Francistown week to showcase the talents in the second city next year.

The event is expected to attract various artists and performances, and the famous Blue Jacket street is expected to be the melting point for the festivities.

Officially opening the instalment of the third week long Francistown Arts Meeting (FAM) on Wednesday, Francistown deputy mayor, Lesego Kwambala averred that if fully utilised FAM could be the right vehicle to brand the city. 

“FAM is quickly becoming the premier visual arts exhibition to look out for, not only for the second city, but in the country as a whole,” he added.

He explained that visual artists in their various niches could now work with a focus towards having that opportunity to not only showcase, but sell their products to local and international buyers of art.

Kwambala also said that monumental facilities such as the Kenneth Nkhwa interchange commonly known as ‘spaghetti’ presented FAM with an excellent opportunity to leverage on and grow the meeting.

He thanked the organisers of the event, photojournalists, Keoagile Bonang and Mpho Hakim and their team for realising the vision of making FAM a truly international event that drew participants and interested parties from all over the world.

Curator, Motherk Masire said arts spoke where words were unable to speak. 

She felt most visual artists underpriced their products despite the lot of work they put into their artefacts.

Masire explained that the past two years had been difficult for artists due to COVID-19, especially taking into cognizance the expensive nature of the raw materials procured by artists, some of which she said were imported.

To this end, Masire commended FAM organisers for having made this year’s event a success despite the challenges they faced that included lack of funds.

In her welcome remarks earlier on, Francistown District Youth Coordinator, Tiny Gontse challenged the leadership of Francistown to establish a visual artists’ garden where artists couldshowcase their work.

She said the garden would help market and sell both the local talent and the city to the rest of the world.

 Gontse said many people had made a living out of visual arts and therefore called on artists across the country to commercialise the trade and eke a living out of it.

Ms Gontse said the art industry also had a huge role to play in the economic space of the country, hence government’s continued investment in it.

She was elated that lately FAM had become a craze for the women folk whom she said were now making an impact in the industry.

The founder of the event, Bonang said the main aim of the activity was not to make money, but to showcase talent.

This year’s visual arts guest exhibitors included Wilson Ngoni, Rachel Hutton, Prince Tom, Timothy Dike, Boemo Lunga, Wilson Libita and Loratta Mekgwe. Ends