Speech by Jill Coates Director of British Council.

Good evening ladies and gentleman

It is not only a great honour but also a pleasure to be invited here this evening to the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.
I have been very fortunate during my short tenure here as Director of the British Council to work with the National Gallery on some extremely exciting projects. Under the leadership of Doreen Sibanda and Raphael Chikukwa the Gallery has become one of the most vibrant, brave and challenging in the region. This summer the Gallery will again break new ground when it takes the first ever Zimbabwean Pavilion to the Venice Biennale 2011. As many of you will already know the Biennale is the Olympic Games of the visual arts. Now in its 115th year, it is where artists, curators, museum professionals, dealers, collectors, the press and the general public converge. Representation at the Venice Biennale will provide a positive image for Zimbabwe, and cast a spotlight on the creative communities not only of Zimbabwe, but of sub-Saharan Africa as a whole (encouraging others to participate in future years).

Working with the Gallery team on this project has been one of the highlights of my first six months in post. So happily for me the Gallery has become a sort of home away from home. I think that I have probably spent more time here than anywhere else in Harare apart from my own office. Through the exhibitions, performances, films and talks that I have attended over the last seven months I have learnt a great deal about my host country. The Gallery has many amazing old masters in its permanent collection and exhibits many exciting new artists. But for me its special genius lies in the work that Raphael does in bringing art from such a wide range of often overlooked communities and creative groups and giving it a space in which to be seen.

Two of my favourite exhibitions last year were Basket Case which showcased woven art from women’s groups across the country and the World Aids Day exhibition of children’s art. Both exhibitions opened for me a window into the lives of ordinary people in Zimbabwe while astonishing me with their creativity and skill. I first saw Shepard Jangano’s work in the Township Art exhibition here at the Gallery last November and it bright to mind a quote I once read from the Japanese/ American abstract painter Howard Ikemoto. He wrote: When my daughter was about seven years old she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college, that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous and said ‘you mean they forget?’

The beauty for me of Jangano’s work is that he didn’t forget. He may have lacked formal training but he retained something far more unusual and precious, a natural ability to capture a scene from his environment or imagination and render it wih astonishing immediacy and honesty in a way that directly engages the viewer. His pictures capture stories from a specific time and place, Harare in the 1960s. The dance halls and bars where he and his brothers’ band played. When I first saw Jangano’s work I fell in love with the colour and the character of the pictures. On that day I was lucky enough to be able to buy two of his works which now take pride of place on my sitting room wall. They make me smile every time that I look at them. Raphael later told me that this was the first time the work had ever been exhibited.

Not everyone can represent their country to critical acclaim at the Venice Biennale. Many artists like Shepard Jangano will work their whole lives without the opportunity of exhibiting their work at a Gallery. But does that mean that their work lacks value? Like many of us here this evening I am not an art critic but I am an art lover. I treasure all the pictures and sculptures that I have collected because they say something to me. We should never underestimate the popularity among ordinary people like myself of folk or township art. And we should support every initiative which aims to nurture and develop this work. After all, as the British Council’s Creative Enterprise project has shown through supporting the creative industries we can bring real change to communities. The National Gallery is leading the way in giving the young artists of tomorrow a space for their work to be seen. We should all support that.