KONSTANTIN FISCHER, HANIA, CRETE

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

A Matter of Perspective art workshop for youth

run by Konstantin Fischer in July 2008 at Livingstone Museum

Africa in Detail

photography by Konstantin Fischer

at Livingston Museum, Livingstone, Zambia July, August 2008

A Matter of Perspective youth art exhibition

organized by Konstantin Fischer in July, August 2008 at Livingstone Museum

The art workshop “A Matter of Perspective” run at Livingstone Museum, Zambia in July 2008 aimed at exposing a a group of young people to contemporary art as it has evolved over the centuries in the Western world.

The emphasis on the Western view on art history was chosen as it constitutes the most likely framework today's young African artists will (have to) work in, and furthermore because is necessarily exposed the participants to the idea of experiential art, an art form that cannot be underestimated when working with young people in Africa who are inheriting a history physical, psychological and economic abuse, on personal levels as well as members of their societies. A decade of exclusion from HAART (medical treatment of HIV to prevent Aids) and the neoliberal blackmail of governments and hostage-taking of entire countries may be mentioned here as the most recent of various perverted Western attitudes towards the African continent. Young African artists have to be supported in expressing their personal experience artistically, both as therapeutic attempt and as a means of communication with the societies that are immediately responsible for the disaster.

In terms of techniques the emphasis of the workshop lay on available and affordable media and materials (pencils, colored pencils, collage, assemblage), in terms of style decorative aspects were rather neglected or even discouraged in favor of personal expression and the idea of experiencing the creative process.