ARTISTS & ART EDUCATION IN AFRICA, Elsbeth Court, ed | THE TRIANGLE MODEL IN AFRICA, by Robert Loder

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International Artist Workshops Based on The Triangle Model as They Relate To Africa, 2005

Robert Loder

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Introduction he first Triangle Workshop, established in upstate New York in 1982 by the sculptor Anthony Caro and myself, developed from the conviction that emerging artists would benefit from the stimulus of creative exchange with artists from different countries. Originally, three countries were involved, United Kingdom, Canada, United States, hence the name Triangle. The format devised then has proved durable over more than twenty years during which time more than 4,000 artists have participated in about 100 workshops and residencies worldwide exchanging ideas and practice with each other. The network of Triangle Workshops has been growing steadily as artists return from workshops to their country and start their own. Triangle Arts Trust has become the instigator and facilitator of this expanding network, which has grown to include residency programmes in associated studio buildings in some six countries.

The Triangle Workshop Model

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riangle Workshops create spaces for artists to exchange ideas freely and develop their practice. Artists can work without the limitations imposed by the day-to-day concerns of everyday life. In the intense atmosphere of a two week workshop, artists push themselves in directions that might not be contemplated in the familiar situation of the studio at home. Workshops involve between twenty to twenty-five artists in a location where they can live, make work and exchange ideas and information. The locations differ: from a bus garage in Maputo, a leper hospital in Uganda to an art centre on Lamu Island, a World Heritage Site on the north Kenyan coast. It is best if the situation allows the energy of the workshop to be contained in a single defined space.

1 Tapfuma Gutsa. Untitled (Cyrene), 1989. Mixed media, assembled sculpture of a guitar that references Modernism and popular music in Zimbabwe. Photo: E J Court, 1989 The Triangle Model • Robert Loder | 237

Management of all aspects of the workshops including fund-raising is the responsibility of a Working Group of artists in each country who determine the character of the workshop and invite the participants. This leads to each workshop having a distinct identity related to local needs. It is always the case that a majority of the artists participating in any workshop come from the country where the workshop takes place: they are in effect the hosts of the event. The Working Group changes annually, so that artists are invited from different groups and localities, which guards against developing into a clique. More will be said of the process of selecting artists later but repeats are not encouraged beyond having three or four artists in each workshop who have had workshop experience in order to provide continuity. The co-ordinator of the Working Group, being responsible for day-to-day management of the project, is the only participant to receive a fee; more often than not he or she is also an artist.

Certain features of the Triangle model differentiate it from other workshops. These distinguishing features which mostly relate to the artist-led nature of the workshop and its ownership by the artists who are also the organisers, contribute to the dynamic that develops and makes the experience of attending a workshop an intense and often lasting inf luence in the lives of the participants. Everyone attending the workshop as a participant, including technicians, makes work.

All participants, whatever their achievements or age, come as equals. On occasions workshop organisers need to take steps to create a level playing field. San artists, for instance, who have attended the Thapong Workshop in Botswana since its inception in 1989 found that their click language created severe barriers to communication. Artists with no formal academic training sometimes find difficulties in communicating with more sophisticated artists from urban centres who have learned to use the language of ‘art speak.’ Because of their f lexible format and with goodwill, the workshops can to an extent level these differences through the shared experience of making work.

No theme or agenda is proscribed. Artists are free to work within the cultural environment they find without restriction. They are encouraged to respond to the situation of the workshop and develop new ways of making art including the use of new materials and forms. During the evenings, artists give slide talks and discuss their work with each other, which allows participants to gain understanding of differences in aesthetic environments between countries and communities. Local students and critics are sometimes invited to take part in these occasions, but the public at large is not invited until the open day at the end of the workshop. Experience has shown that a longer period than two weeks does not add significantly to the experience: it merely prolongs it. In any case, artists may find difficulty in spending longer periods away from teaching and gallery commitments.

The work made during the two weeks of the workshop is generally work in progress, not finished work. In showing the public what has been done at the end of the workshop the commitment to process rather than product is explained. Once this has been understood we have found that the audience at open days greatly enjoy being involved in the process of art making through engaging with the work and discussing it with the artists. This interaction is an essential part of the workshop.

Participating artists often undertake lectures or educational workshops in universities or schools after or even during the workshop developing links with the local community 238 | ARTISTS AND ART EDUCATION IN AFRICA

in this way. Initiatives by artists often develop into further exchanges. After attending the Tulipamwe Workhsop, Dias Machate from Mozambique took up a teaching job at the University of Namibia, Windhoek. Following the Ngoma Workshop in Uganda, Roger Palmer from Glasgow returned to teach at the Margaret Trowell School, Makerere University, Kampala. In turn, during Africa 2005 in London, the Gasworks studios arranged residencies for visiting artists who were involved in the conferences and exhibitions—all developed from workshops. In this sense the workshops are very effective catalysts. At a more informal level, friendships made at workshops create links with ramifications that for the most part are unrecorded. The continuity of commitment of artists to the workshop over twenty years, involving huge commitment by the participants and organisers, is a telling indication of the value that artists attach to the experience of workshops.

Art Making in Africa

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roduct and process are two sides of the same coin. While the workshops are orientated towards process they are always involved in the problems artists in Africa have in establishing a career as an artist. The workshops attempt to keep alive some wider ambition to make work that illuminates and informs its audience but at the end of the day harsh reality rules and artists need to find ways of buying materials and selling work.

Conditions for art making in Africa are often so unfavourable that it is a wonder art making survives at all outside the tourist trade. The fact that it does is due to the determination of individuals with a true vocation. Unstable politics, the lack of infrastructure and the small size of the local market have made it exceptionally difficult for artists to maintain a professional practice even in the main urban centres of South Africa and Nigeria. The story of the survival of Reinate Sadhimba in Mozambique during the Renamo war is awe-inspiring. Similar turbulent conditions have also affected the work and lives of artists in Zimbabwe where Tapfuma Gutsa struggles to maintain his Surprise Studios. In South Africa itself, artists under the apartheid regime lived and worked in impossibly harsh and deprived conditions. In these situations the workshops have contributed by keeping alive some hope and by confirming that artists can look to their peers for support.

The workshops have an intrepid record of offering artists an outlet for their creative energies even in the most daunting political circumstances. The workshops in Mozambique in 1992 took place in Maputo with war raging just outside the suburbs. In Egypt in April 2003, artists at the Wasla Workshop looked out on the shores of the Red Sea at night to see American bombers on their way to drop a deadly cargo on Iraq. (See Annexe 1 for the author’s account) In Africa, artists reach their vocation in very diverse ways. Some like Jackson Hlungwani come to it through religion. Others like Antonio Ole have rediscovered a common cultural tradition, such as the use of pigment painting in rock art (in Matopos Hills, Pachipamwe Workshop, 1989). Sometimes artists are helped by the charismatic intervention of individuals like Frank McEwen in Zimbabwe, Ulli Beier in Oshogbo or Bill Ainslie who inspired the workshops in southern Africa before his tragic death in 1989. Galleries such as Ruth Schaffner’s Watatu Gallery in Nairobi, Derek Huggins’ The Triangle Model • Robert Loder | 239

2 Zimbabwe’s International Workshops Pachipamwe II, V and VI were held at Cyrene Mission, south of Bulawayo and near the Matopos Hills (also known as Matobo National Park; Matobo was the name given to the hills by Ndebele leader Mzilikazi). The mission is associated with the introduction of school-based art education in the then Rhodesia by the Rev Edward Paterson. The chapel’s murals depicting Christian narratives in an African idiom were painted by students between 1948-51. Photo: E J Court, 1989

Delta Gallery in Harare and Linda Goodman’s Gallery in Johannesburg have developed a market for work of quality. The Biennials in Cairo, Dakar and Johannesburg have helped create a market in Europe and North America for work from Africa. However in all this activity the contribution the Triangle workshops and the studio buildings (see below) have made to the process of art making, providing space and stimulus by which new ideas develop and new work, made remains unique.

Governments everywhere are intolerant of criticism, and governments in Africa are no exception. Artists are often seen as troublemakers hostile to political agendas.

Against this background it is no surprise that support for culture, except the culture that is allied to the tourist industry, features low on the agenda of most African governments.

There is no change to this situation on the horizon except perhaps in South Africa; so it is important that artists work together to do what they can for themselves and the workshops have had an important role in giving artists the confidence to undertake these tasks themselves.

Networks and Learning by Exchange

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he Triangle network has evolved (2014: more than 30 years) and the importance of establishing forums for exchange of ideas and practice has been increasingly recognised as an activity established independently of exhibition structures and

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3 Scenic view of Matobo Hills, an area of cultural significance for more than 1000 years: location of Zimbabwe’s finest rock art paintings, the burial sites of Mzilikazi and Cecil Rhodes and a game park; now a World Heritage Site. Photo: R Loder

outside formal educational institutions. Networks are a means of communication particularly appropriate for artists who derive creative energy from a free association and exchange with other artists dealing with similar creative problems but in different ways.

The development of this process of exchange has been greatly facilitated by the internet and the relative ease by which images and information can now be transmitted. However the digital communication can only supplement rather than replace the need for artists to meet face to face and work together in physical proximity.

The basic constituency of the Triangle network comprises the artists who have participated in workshops and residencies now links together artists from over twenty countries, eight in Africa. The extent of the input by artists to this network is a measure of the need to share information and enter a wider world where opportunities can be found and some escape made from the isolation of living in communities where the concerns of artists are of interest to a small number of people.

The Triangle network also functions as a learning process in which the purpose and means of art making is communicated to a public through open studios and exhibition.

In the wider context of the growth of so many recently established independent nations in Africa workshops contribute in a small way to helping communities to a deeper understanding of their own situation in Africa and in managing the social changes that are taking place. But the most important contribution of the network remains rooted in the experience that artists find in participating in workshops.

The first Pachipamwe Workshop in Zimbabwe in June 1988 resulted in a poem by Vote Thebe that expresses the passionate involvement of artists in the workshop process The Triangle Model • Robert Loder | 241

and the importance they attach to it.

Pachipamwe Workshop Art is as powerful as death, Art is as strong as itself.

Who knew that I’ll behold the painted Murewa Cave Painted on rock canvas Using the latest technology of that day Paints—maybe of blood—a sacrifice Blood the essence of Life—a sacrifice.

Therefore I came to Murewa to present my body and art as a living sacrifice.

The problem with a living sacrifice is that it keeps rolling off the altar.

My body rolled off the altar when I first saw David Koloane’s abstract painting. My body said “anhh! anhh! this is not African” --Art needs no nametag.

Studio Buildings

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orkshops have been held consistently in southern Africa over a period of nearly 30 years (they began in 1985). Amongst the most important developments has been the establishment of studio buildings in London, Johannesburg, Gaberone, Nairobi, Cape Town. A resident community of local artists occupies the majority of space in these buildings but two or three studios are kept for visiting artists from abroad who are invited for residencies lasting up to three months. The visiting artists work alongside the residents and exhibit work at the end of the residency either in a gallery or open studio.

A less intense and longer term exchange than is possible at workshops is instituted in this way but the principles on which these residencies are established relate to those of the workshops, the focus being on interaction and response to the local environment.

The Bag Factory (Fordburg) started in Johannesburg in 1990 and guided by David Koloane was the first of a network of studio buildings associated with the Triangle Arts Trust. Opportunities for artists from Africa to experience residencies abroad are developed through this network. Artists in southern Africa, and much of the rest of the continent, tend to produce work as and when market opportunities or commissions arise. Since the end of apartheid and the growth of international interest in South African art, it has become easier for artists to earn a living from their work and establish themselves as full-time artists. In 1990, when David Elliot’s pioneering exhibition of South Africa art was showing at MOMA in Oxford, one of the most talented artists at the Johannesburg Art Foundation taking part in the exhibition gave up his practice to run a dry cleaning business. Moitsepe Madebela, a prominent sculptor from Botswana, still only practises in his time off from a government job.

The Bag Factory has made it possible for artists without a studio in Johannesburg to work consistently in a space they can call their own. Some of South Africa’s leading 242 | ARTISTS AND ART EDUCATION IN AFRICA

4 Watercolour painting of rock formations in the Matobo Hills by Pat Pearce, UK/Zimbabwe.

Photo: E J Court, 1989 The Triangle Model • Robert Loder | 243

5 Matopos mixed media sculpture by Tapfuma Gutsa, Zimbabwe. Photo: E J Court, 1989

6 Matopos experiment with handmade paper by Antonio e Costa, Angola. Photo: E J Court, 1989 244 | ARTISTS AND ART EDUCATION IN AFRICA

7 Medusa by Antonio Ole, Angola.

Acrylic paint with ground pigment.

Ole interprets the Greek myth of Medusa in which a monster with a penetrating gaze transforms viewers into stone. The subject relates to the prevalence of rock and stone in Zimbabwe art, from rock paintings to contemporary stone sculpture; four stone sculptors were participants in Pachipamwe II. Photo E J Court, 1989

artists, including David Koloane, Sam Nghlengethwa, Kay Hassan, Bongi Bengu and Pat Mautloa, have been long-term residents. The Artists Press, situated there until recently, enabled artists to edition prints and develop another source of income. Visiting artists, often coming from other parts of Africa, work in an outreach programme involving students in schools and colleges in and around the city.

The success of the Bag Factory prompted the start of Greatmore Studios in Cape Town, which opened in 1996. Greatmore is following the same pattern of development and experiencing the same teething problems. Specifically, artists have problems in establishing themselves in a consistent and regular practice and in being able to afford rent for their spaces. A similar development took place at the Godown Arts Centre, where artists associated with the Kuona Trust occupied seven studios and a residency programme was established. The first residents were Tapfuma Gutsa and Rashid Jogee from Zimbabwe in 2003. In Botswana the artists of the Thapong Workshop, co-ordinated by Veryan Edwards, have established themselves at the Old Fort where studio space is available for local artists and a residency programme for artists from other countries.

So many artists in Africa start out with work that achieves some critical success and then lack the means to develop it. The provision of studios, coupled with the benefits of working together with colleagues on a consistent basis, will help to establish professional groups of artists who have the kind of consistent and developing practices which are necessary to feed the growth of a local market as it develops.

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8 Matopos acrylic abstraction by David Koloane, South Africa. Photo: E J Court, 1989

Selection

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am often asked how we select artists and I always say that artists more or less select themselves. Any other method would involve an unacceptable level of bureaucracy and expense, but the procedure is not haphazard.

Selection of the artists for workshops and residencies is made by the Working Groups putting the residencies and workshops together. In many ways it is the most important decision that the Working Group has to make. Without the right “chemistry” between the participants the process of exchange is less effective than it might be. The working Group in the country where the workshop or residency is situated has the final say in the selection though the onus is on the Group to consult and listen to suggestions from other workshops and seriously to consider applications from the wider art community T h e r e a r e q u i t e we l l understood and respected principles at work. It is important to understand that these principles are not imposed 9 Discussing Pachipamwe III, 1993: Vote Thebe, artist but have been developed by artists and curator, National Gallery Bulawayo, and Anna participating in the Network over Kindersley, co-ordinator for Triangle international many years. The monitoring of the Workshops. (Anna’s article on Pamoja is in this volume). Photo: R Loder process of selection to prevent abuse 246 | ARTISTS AND ART EDUCATION IN AFRICA

10 Kenya: Wasanii Open Day. Performance devised by Yvonne Droge, the Netherlands, Lake Navaisha, 1997. Photo: R Loder

11 Kenya: Wasanii Open Day. Rob Burnet playing the bagpipes amongst the new sculptures at Elsamere Lodge, Lake Navaisha, 1999. Photo: R Loder The Triangle Model • Robert Loder | 247

12 Mozambique’s pioneer painter and cultural worker Malangatana Valente and Chris Spring, artist, writer and British Museum curator in M’s studio, managing details for Ujamaa International Artists’ Workshop, Maputo 2007. Malangatana also took part in the 1992 Ujamaa Workshop. Photo: R Loder

13 South Africa: Greatmore Studio, Capetown, with Delele Soha at work screenprinting, 2004. Photo: R Loder 248 | ARTISTS AND ART EDUCATION IN AFRICA

has been very effectively maintained by the artists forming the working groups and any attempted nepotism or political manoeuvring, for example, has been quickly stopped.

1 The intention is to invite emerging artists whose careers are developing strongly but have not yet achieved star status. These artists tend to be some years out of art school but not too set in their ways and interested in developing and changing their practice.

2 Repeats are not encouraged unless they are needed for reasons of continuity.

3 Quality of work as judged by artists and co ordinators who are involved in running the workshop or residency programme is crucial as is the personality of the artist with regard to working well with colleagues in a group situation.

4 Gender balance and opportunities for artists from communities that are disadvantaged or very isolated are both important factors.

5 Interest in outreach and in making a contribution to the community through participating in educational workshops, discussions and slide talks at colleges and universities and knowledge sharing generally is both useful for the host workshop or studio building and at the same time enhances the experience of the artist.

A successful selection process has even wider social implications. By finding artists who are able to develop the network across the region, the Triangle Network brings together artists to establish a viable system of non formal learning while at the same time strengthening the visibility and advocacy of the artist community.

14 South Africa: In front of the Bag Factory Fordsburg, Johannesburg. David Koloane (right), founder of the studio, with Sam Nghlengethwa, Dominic Tshabangu and others.

Photo: R Loder The Triangle Model • Robert Loder | 249

Exchange between artists from Africa and the wider world

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rtists seek exposure to inf luences from all points of the compass and the workshops provide the information and opportunity in a free environment that enables them to accept or reject these inf luences as their practice develops.

The workshops and studio building in Africa relate to the Triangle Network around the world. A look at some of the exchanges that have gone on between African artists and their counterparts in other countries shows how extensive this process has become.

Of some hundred participants in the Gasworks Studios residency programme in London a significant number have been from Africa: Flinto Chandia, Friday Tembo and David Chirwa from Zambia, Ndidi Dike from Nigeria, Lisa Brice, Robin Rhode, David Koloane, Amos Letsoalo, Leora Farber and Sophia Ainslie from South Africa, Atta Kwame from Ghana, Shepherd Mahufe from Zimbabwe and Omega Ludenyi from Kenya to name some. Artists from Africa have also been to workshops in New York, Cuba, India, Trinidad, Egypt, Jamaica and Taiwan. In the reverse direction, artists visiting African workshops from the UK have included Godfried Donkor (Botswana), Sokari Douglas Camp, Sonia Boyce and Chris Ofili (Zimbabwe), Yinka Shonibare (Senegal). Robert ‘African’ Cookhorne from Jamaica made his first visit to Africa to attend Pachipamwe Workshop in Zimbabwe. Artists from the UK, India, Pakistan, USA and the Caribbean have attended residency programmes in Africa. These exchanges leading to cross fertilisation of cultures across/within Africa and between Africa and other continents continue to break down barriers and lead to the development of richer and more diverse artistic practice and well as fostering mutual understanding.

Communications Network

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he extension of the workshops into the virtual world of the internet has become an important development of the Triangle Network. Each workshop and studio building in Africa now has a web site and the intention is to develop these sites to enable opportunities like residencies and exhibitions to be accessed through them. Artists pages on each site will give examples of work and include their CVs. Curators and exhibition organisers will be able access images of the artists’ work and the artists will be able to keep up to date with the practice of colleagues. The websites will also provide a platform for publication of views and opinions and important texts. These sites will soon become interactive so that artists in Africa can form discussion groups.

With the growth of internet cafes and availability of computers in libraries and educational institutions, in Africa the web is becoming one of the most important ways of communicating across frontiers. With the help of the Ford Foundation, Triangle Arts Trust is organising an extensive education programme in association with the individual workshops, instructing artists how to develop their own pages and use the communications system to their best advantage. The Working Groups are also learning how to alter and maintain their sites. Access to all workshop sites can be made through the Triangle site www.trianglearts.org, which can also be used to search historical information about each African workshop.

It is too early to assess the significance of this communications network and it is no substitute for the live experience of working together in specific locations. But in Africa, 250 | ARTISTS AND ART EDUCATION IN AFRICA

15 Zambia: Rockston Studio, Lusaka, 2003. Robert Loder with artists Baba Jak and Kate Naluyele, who was also a workshop co-ordinator. Photo: R Loder

where communication between countries is often more difficult than with Europe, it should make an important contribution to the artists’ practice and increase its visibility.

Structure

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t will be apparent from everything that has been said, that the workshops and studio buildings associated with the Triangle Arts Trust form a sort of loose association in which each individual part is independent. The trust acts as a facilitator helping to establish new workshops and providing links between parts of the network and contacts that can help mobilise funding. Each workshop and studio building has a different name and there is no attempt to brand the network under the Triangle or any other name. Each constituent stands in equal relation to others. There is no hierarchy. Sharing common objectives and the need for information and connections with other parts of the network is what keeps it together. There is a sense in which the whole network grows as the parts expand.

All this has been achieved without any significant expansion of overheads which in turn has been made possible by the commitment of artists themselves. Ownership of the parts of the network rests with the artists who put the workshops and residency programmes together. This generates the energy needed to accomplish some of the more difficult and arduous tasks involved in keeping the network expanding.

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By and large all the workshops have adopted the philosophy and method of the first Triangle Workshops established in New York over twenty years ago. The Triangle Network has become a sort of family and the ties of trust and commitment that hold families together everywhere have helped to create a f lexible and durable enterprise with sound foundations.

The participation of the public in workshops and residencies is an important part of the Network programme. Audiences have the opportunity at these events of meeting the artists and gaining insight into the process of art making. The interactions at the end of the workshop or residency become forums for the dissemination of ideas and provide information about art making in other countries that are often inf luential. Through press publicity, the workshops spread information about contemporary practice and provide artists with feed back that is useful in establishing a local market for their work.

Workshops almost always generate substantial press coverage mainly on account of the artists visiting from other countries.

The well established collective studios such as Gasworks (London), CCA7 (Port of Spain) and Bag Factory (Johannesburg) have exhibition programmes that are related to the Network but aimed at local audiences and involve artists who may not have workshop experience. This is proving to be a useful way of keeping the Network growing.

Another set of spinoffs has resulted from the collection that I have put together from artists whom I have met through the workshops in Africa, whose work has been striking. There have been five exhibitions in England and Scotland resulting from this resource, which are Image and Form: Prints, Drawings and sculpture from Southern Africa and Nigeria at the Brunei Gallery, London and Edinburgh (1997), Cross Currents: Contemporary Art Practice in South Africa at the Atkinson Gallery in Somerset (2000), Voices of Southern Africa at the British Museum (2000), Action and Vision: Painting and Sculpture in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda from 1980 in the Rochdale Art Gallery (2002), and Transitions at the Brunei Gallery as part of Africa 2005. These exhibitions and their catalogues are a way in which audiences in the UK can experience the quality and scope of art being made in Africa.

Opportunities arise for artists attending workshops through connections that have been made at Exhibitions, Open Days and Open Studios. Sometimes career development has resulted from offers to participate in exhibitions or residencies. From time to time a sale of work has been made possible or a teaching post offered. While these spinoffs from the Network programme are useful to artists they do not provide the energy that drives the network which relies on the need artists feel to develop their practice and find a local audience with whom to communicate..

Conclusion

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he lack of infrastructure makes it hard to establish successful enterprises in the arts in Africa. Despite these difficulties it has been possible through the organisation of workshops and residencies to bring about important changes in the practice of individual artists and to develop interest amongst the general public in Africa in contemporary art making. While the Triangle enterprise cannot substitute for the lack of art education at school and university, it can and does offer stimulus and opportunity 252 | ARTISTS AND ART EDUCATION IN AFRICA

to artists and promotes learning by exchange. The Triangle Network of workshops and residencies provides a forum for this exchange and at the same time, through Open Days and Exhibitions, encourage audiences to engage with the work and with the artists. In these ways the Triangle Network makes a significant contribution to the development of contemporary art making in Africa particularly where artists live in isolated communities and where the formal structures of the art world, which we take for granted in the West, are not in place.

Editor’s Postscript The basic information contained in this essay was put together in 2005 and ref lects the situation of the Triangle Network in Africa at this time. Robert Loder resigned as Chairman and Executive Trustee of Triangle Arts Trust in 2008 not long before his 75th birthday. Alessio Antoniolli has been Director of Gasworks Studios and the Triangle Network since 2006 and David Elliott has been Chairman of Triangle Arts Trust since 2009. For further discussion about the Triangle method, please see Triangle variety of experience around artists’ workshops and residencies (2007, Triangle Arts Trust), a jointly authored handbook edited by Mitch Albert, Alessio Antoniolli, Lorna Fay and Robert Loder and designed by Lucienne Roberts, The conference, NETWORKED: Dialogue and exchange in the global ecology, 26-27 November 2011, was convened by Alessio Antoniolli and Triangle Arts Trust; it can be accessed at http://www.thetriangleconference.org The activities of the Triangle Network have changed with the times over the past decade but essentially grown from the objectives that were established by Anthony Caro and Robert Loder at the formation of Triangle in New York 1982.

A new book, Making Art in Africa. by Robert Loder and Polly Savage (forthcoming, autumn 2014), contains interviews with some seventy artists in Africa, many of whom have been associated with the Triangle Network.

• In late 2009, Nairobi’s Kuona Trust Centre for Visual Arts moved to its own premises in the Hurlingham area of the city. Its compound includes a main building (with offices, exhibition space and shop) and some thirty studio spaces.

• The Margaret Trowell School, Makerere University, became the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Arts (MTSIFA) with faculty status in the late 1990s.

More recently, in 2010, after years of planning, MTISFA merged with the Faculties of Engineering and Architecture to become the College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology: CEDAT.

Annexe 1 Case Study Wasla Workshop and Open Day, Nuweiba, Gulf of Aqaba, Egypt. Excerpts from Robert Loder’s trip diary, 3-6 April 2003 The war in Iraq started mid-March.

But the Wasla Workshop went ahead, led by the Egyptian artists’ Working Group who felt that cancellation would give the wrong signals to artists in Egypt and abroad.

Ford [Foundation, Cairo, the key sponsor] was in agreement and we decided to proceed.

All the artists invited to Wasla had been able to get visas; there were only two last-minute cancellations. This was all the more remarkable as artists came from as far a field as The Triangle Model • Robert Loder | 253

16 Gaza, by Safaa Erruas, Morocco. Installation using stone, gauze, needles, bandages. To the right is Basma Elhussainy, then of the Ford Foundation, Cairo. Photo: R Loder

17 Glint, Mohammed Al-Riffai, Iraq/Canada. An element in his hillside installation. From the Workshop catalogue (2003: p16): “Constructing traces of an unborn prophet/Devoid of memories, the wandering fills the need to revisit/The echoes recount a past distant and ruptured/ Of nomadic reworks and volumes of absence…” Photo: R Loder 254 | ARTISTS AND ART EDUCATION IN AFRICA

18 Golden House by Iman Issa, Egypt. Wood and glitter. From the Workshop catalogue (2003: p18): “An expression of value is forced upon a sparse environment. The road provides the promise of an ambiguous audience and the pleasure of things being seen and re-seen.”

India, Mexico, Ghana, South Africa and Argentina. … The Egyptian artists were of the younger generation …

The Castle Beach Hotel at Nuweiba was a collection of beach huts on the sea looking out to Jordan and Saudi Arabia across the Gulf. Limpid calm clear sea in front and behind the mountains of Sinai rising in jagged splendour. The light ref lected from the sea illuminated the colours of the rock and sand which in the evening were a fiery yellow and red. The night fell suddenly at around 8 pm. … I met the artists whom I did not already know and heard some of the high points of the workshop.

On Friday 4th April, the Open Day, two buses from Cairo arrived at lunchtime, bringing 80 or so visitors. Attendance from the local community was disappointing despite promotion but this was hardly surprising. … Just before lunch Basma el Husainy, the Ford Foundation’s Regional Representative heard that her son had been arrested at an anti war demo in Cairo; so she left having only seen some of the work. I later heard that he had been released that evening.

I spent the day looking at the work and talking to the artists.

The war had a profound effect on what had happened at the Workshop. Television in the Manager’s office was the only source of outside information and this coverage was very partial. …The extent of the Iraqi collapse was not evident at all; I even heard some fears voiced that Iraq might invade Egypt as a result of Mubarak’s American alliance.

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… In fact, Nuweiba is only 250 miles from the Iraq frontier: at night aeroplanes could be seen f lying over to drop their bombs on Baghdad.

There had been reluctance to talk about the war though it was on everyone’s minds the whole time. Mohamed Abdullah, from Iraq but living for some years in Holland, was deeply worried about members of his family. This tension emerged in some of the work but was also resolved by drinking and talking until the early hours. The situation reminded me of when the Khoj workshop in Delhi coincided with the escalation of the conf lict in Kashmir. The proximity and enormity of war seemed too much to assimilate; [and here] it was that much closer and more immediate. Wasla brought together the artists at a personal level and there will be benefits from this in the future.

A successful response to the war was made by Gonzalo Lebrija from Mexico who made a short video of a car driving through the desert that ended at the moment an oncoming car turned on its headlights. ... Luz Maria Sanchez also from Mexico built a tunnel out of galvanised metal sheeting which ref lected the light from the sea and sky and through which could be seen the distant mountains of Saudi Arabia. Safaa Erruas from Morocco made an installation from cotton wool, razor blades and bandages. Jumana Aboud from Palestine made drawings hung against raw brick.

Some of the work from artists avoided the issue of war directly. Iman Issa built a cabin in the desert covered in gold glitter. The success of the installation depended on the relation of this obtrusive, square object to the surrounding landscape which offered the promise of something precious which on entering, turned out to be a simple sanctuary. Ghassan Maasri from Lebanon played with shadows from wooden structures which worked rather like a sun dial in creating significant patterns at certain moments of the sun’s traverse. Mohamed al-Riffai, an architect by training, worked with sound and light effects in the hills behind the Castle Beach. The work of Maha Maamoun, a photographer, was a collage of the landscape offering differing textures and perspectives in the same image suspended on the walls of one of the beach huts. David Chirwa from Zambia made an installation out of ashtrays on tables in one of the beach shelters that was entirely abstract in character.

The work of artists who came with plans already in their heads was not as interesting as the more innovative work. For instance, Amina Mansour said to me that she wished she had come with less preconceived ideas. Though her work was fine, she made a piece that might have been done at home. This underscores the point of using a workshop to experiment with ideas and practice that might not develop in the artist’s studio.

Undoubtedly, the site was difficult in that there was not much alternative but to work with the landscape. Objects made inside the beach huts tended to look insignificant in relation both to the events and to the landscape outside. The Workshop also had to contend with difficult weather conditions. During the first week, it was unusually very cold. When the wind was strong, it was impossible to work outside.

Every workshop has its own character; Wasla was no exception. Something of the spirit of the occasion will live for a long time. The Working Group and in particular the Co-ordinator Mai el Dahab showed so much guts and determination in getting it off the ground. Our intention to offer opportunity to younger artists was realised; some participated in an additional Open Sudio in Cairo gallery. In the end about 120 visitors 256 | ARTISTS AND ART EDUCATION IN AFRICA

attended the Open Day itself, stranded tourists in need of a distraction joined our friends and supporters from Cairo. We all had supper together at the Hotel where we squatted on a huge carpet spread with cushions and bolsters. Brian Kuan Wood’s catalogue captures the spirit of Wasla, offering his account of a very remarkable experience.

The Triangle Model • Robert Loder | 257

Art Criticism and Africa 1997 ISBN 9781872843131 • 96pp, 38 images, 16 in colour Katy Deepwell, ed, with Fatma Ismail Afifi, David Koloane, Murray McCartney, Tony Mhonda, Barbara Murray, Everlyn Nicodemus, Olu Oguibe, Chika Okeke, Ola Oloidi, John Picton, Colin Richards, George Shire and Ola Bisi Silva Published as part of African Art and Society Series (Series Editor Sajid Rizvi) in conjunction with the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). Financially assisted by the Arts Council of England (ACE).

Focused on contemporary art and art criticism in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt, Art Criticism and Africa sheds light on many institutional and administrative issues in contemporary culture: highlighting the role of public and private galleries, art magazines, the press, art schools, groups of artists and critics and the work of government. This ground-breaking work has received wide acclaim from critics and educators

Table of Contents Acknowledgments by the Series Editor Heather Waddell | Tribute to Jock Whittet 1913-1996 Katy Deepwell | Introduction Olabisi Silva | africa95: Cultural colonialism or cultural celebration John Picton | Yesterday’s cold mashed potatoes Everlyn Nicodemus | The art critic as advocate Ola Oloidi | Art criticism in Nigeria, 1920-1996: the development of professionalism in the media and the academy Murray McCartney | The art critic as advocate: a Zimbabwean perspective Barbara Murray | Art criticism for whom? The experience of the Gallery magazine in Zimbabwe Tony Mhonda | Art critic as advocate David Koloane | Art criticism for whom?

Colin Richards | Peripheral vision: Speculations on art criticism in South Africa Chika Okeke | Beyond either/or: Towards an art criticism of accommodation Fatma Ismail Afifi | The Kom Ghorab project in Cairo Olu Oguibe | Thoughts towards a New Century George Shire | Art criticism of Africa outside of Africa: A reply to Olu Oguibe Contemporary art in Africa | A select bibliography Tribute to Stephen Williams Index

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El Anatsui A Sculpted History of Africa 1998 John Picton, ed, with Gerard Houghton, Yukiya Kawaguchi, Elisabeth Lalouschek, Simon Njami and Elizabeth Péri-Willis ISBN-13 9781872843148 • ISBN-10 187284314X • 96pp, 33 images Published by Saffron Books, London, as part of Saffron African Art and Society Series (ISSN 1740 3111, Series Editor Sajid Rizvi) and in conjunction with October Gallery London

Highly regarded in Africa, where he is considered to be one of the leading sculptors of his generation, Ghana-born El Anatsui now enjoys an international reputation. This book looks at El Anatsui’s work as it began to be known two decades ago.

While there were already in the late 1990s numerous articles in print about El Anatsui’s three-dimensional works, A Sculpted History of Africa was the first attempt to draw together in one volume the many aspects of his career as it evolved at that time. The various texts in English, French, German and Japanese in the book reflect growing international interest in El Anatsui’s work from the 1990s onward.

In addition to discussing El Anatsui’s work, the book gives both general and specialist readers a timely introduction to contemporary African art. The texts are complemented by colour and black-and-white reproductions of El Anatsui’s work in wood.

Just as El Anatsui’s work is concerned with the hidden histories of many different African cultures, so too this book is a composite of diverse resources distilled in texts written from refreshingly different angles in four languages.

The contributors are: John Picton, Professor Emeritus of African Art at SOAS, University of London; Gerard Houghton, writer and linguist at the October Gallery; Yukiya Kawaguchi, Curator at the Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo; Elisabeth Lalouschek, Artistic Director of the October Gallery; Simon Njami, Editor of Revue Noire, Paris, France; and Elizabeth Péri-Willis, a specialist on West African visual artistic practices.

Order from Safnet www.saffronbooksandart.net Or write to Saffron Books P O Box 13666 London SW14 8WF, United Kingdom