| Artfacts Tourism –
When not to play to the gallery
By Sun news publishing
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Joe Musa, Director-General, National Gallery of Arts is sure
not playing to the gallery as he plans to give the sector
a new face writes Frank Meke.
Visual arts and paintings may not hold water with the ordinary
Nigerian but the over N2Billion sector is sure attractive
for a federal presence. Joe Musa, an accomplished visual artist
and painter saddled with turning around the fortunes of the
sector, said the strategy is hinged on training and retraining
of all stakeholders.
“We are looking at training and retraining needs of
our people and on this score, we had secured good exchange
programmes from Spain, France and the United States of America.
And after such training, the beneficiaries would come home
to share their experiences and with such efforts, we hope
that in the next five years, we would have built a knowledgeable
and marketable visual art community.
And talking about visions and dreams, Musa longs daily to
see a vibrant community of visual artists who can hold their
head high anywhere in the world and their works making waves.
“The infrastructure to realize this dream is not on
ground when we came in and we were targeting the next five
years to ensure that the necessary enabling environment is
in place which would form the meeting place for all artists
and even for the down stream sectors.
Already, NGA is planning an arts exposition which is expected
to help discover talents and also afford less financially
endowed ones the opportunity to exhibit their works.
Said Musa “We are mobilizing for this talent hunt in
which the best from each zone of the country would have opportunity
and privilege to see his or her works exhibited at our zonal
galleries.
According to Musa who himself is a top gun in visual arts
community before his appointment to lead the organization,
Nigeria is projected to be the hub of visual Arts in Africa.
“It is part of my dream and strategy, an ambition I
wish to drive with the abundant talents in this country”.
On the role of visual arts in tourism, the amiable Director-General
says tourism is usually driven by good attractions, paintings
and destinations adding “that’s why we are partnering
with Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) to showcase
the best of Nigerian Paintings.
On this score, Musa thumbed up the good works of NTDC in tourism
promotion, saying the National Gallery of Art is proud to
be associated with the new vision in Nigerian tourism.
“All heads of parastastals in the Ministry of Tourism
and Culture are challenged by the run-away success of Segun
Runsewe led NTDC and as for me and NGA, we wish to also replicate
the same drive in our mandate”.
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