Section1: Technical
We desperately needed tents, welding equipment, metal, so much stuff. The suggestion was Oserian [ large floriculture organization ]. So I called their MD, Mrs Zwager, and she agreed over the phone to help.
Once the tap was opened, they became really helpful sponsors: they gave us safari tents, so much kit. They gave us access to their workshops- they had an amazing metal workshop and gave us raw material, all the off cuts we wanted from their huge scrap heap, we just picked whatever we wanted. It was brilliant. They also bought a lot of artwork that came out of the exhibition. Afterwards Mrs Zwager asked what else they could do for us- they wanted to be involved more. She then offered to lend us a little house which was close to Elsamere, but no money. And we needed money.
Shortly after Wasanii I, I went to the Ford Foundation and said,“ We’ ve got a cottage in Naivasha which is worth 100,000 dollars a year that’ s been given to us. So we’ ve raised 100,000 dollars a year towards the cost of running an international residency programme, and Triangle is ready to help us connect with interesting artists from all over the Western world. All I need now is some cash to lubricate this thing. I have raised a lot and I need the other half”. And Ford gave us
180,000 dollars which totally and completely changed the game for us.
At the same time HIVOS – who liked Wasanii I- came back and started giving us full support, so we never looked back after that. Now we were no longer limping along on the scraps that we were getting from the local commercial companies, great though they had been.
Danda: And what about the projects that helped the artists apart from the international stuff? Rob: All through this period we were running monthly artists’ workshop and it was all about technical skills. My position was very much that if artists said they needed skills training, we would try and provide it, but we’ re not going to create any sort of curriculum, or dictate what a painting should be, or which direction an artist should go. Just let the artists work
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