Painters’Cultural Sojourn
The five members of the “walking paintbrushes” visit the University of Malawi as part of their artistic exchange activities COURTESY PHOTOOf all the important methods for achieving deeper mutual understanding between people of different nations, cultural exchange remains a vital cog in the wheel of global engagement.
In the relationship between China and African countries, cultural exchange and learning from each other’s experience stand steadfast as a pillar supporting Sino-African mutual trust and economic benefit as well as political equality.
The significance of culture in the mix of transnational engagement components was in evidence at the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in South Africa in late 2015, when Chinese President Xi Jinping and his African counterparts witnessed the signing of the FOCAC Johannesburg Action Plan 2016-18.
In all these action plans, issued every three years after the FOCAC Beijing Summit was held in 2006, cultural exchange and mutual learning have been key components, which have been largely implemented by China’s Ministry of Culture (MOC) together with its African counterparts. One of the standout programs in this category has been the program for exchange visits between Chinese and African cultural personnel.
Sharing experiences
This program was the brainchild of the Africa Division of the MOC’s Bureau for External Cultural Relations (BECR). The division is tasked with drafting and then overseeing the implementation of all plans in the cultural agreements between China and African countries. Initially, the program started out as a one-way program - just for visits by African cultural personnel to China - following the 2006 FOCAC Beijing Summit, and later evolved into its current format of two-way exchange visit program for Chinese and African cultural officials at department level. This was a major step forward from the previous bilateral visits just between Chinese and African cultural ministers, performing art troupes, and exhibition groups.
From there, the program grew to embody a “round-table meeting” for cultural officials, at which they introduce to each other the cultural policies of their respective countries with an aim to better mutual understanding. For example, the MOC has hosted visiting cultural officials from 40-plus African countries over the past three years. The speeches and papers delivered at the round-table meetings by these officials are later printed and given to Chinese cultural officials at both central and local levels for them to get a better knowledge of African experiences.
Focus on artists
The program then shifted gears and brought its focus onto the artists, setting up an artists exchange visit mechanism under the umbrella of the cultural exchange program, operating alongside the officials’ round-table meeting. In 2011, for example, five African painters from Botswana, Ghana, Seychelles, Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, sponsored by the MOC, visited Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu Province, where they spent two months working and living together with their Chinese counterparts. These African artists produced many new art works with a Chinese theme, each donating two or three works to the Chinese MOC’s collection before departing for home. Over the years the collection developed into an exhibition titled As Others See Us: China in the Eyes of African Painters, shown in China and across Africa.
The popularity of the program was evident in November 2011, when Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong inaugurated the exhibition in Botswana, where it was said by Shaw Kgathi, then Botswana Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture, to have inspired Botswana artists and the art community. Kgathi said it was the embodiment of good bilateral cultural relations.
After the one-way program became a two-way exchange visit program in 2010, it has been included in the subsequent action plans ever since. This was mainly due to Chinese artists welcoming the program and calling for its two-way extension to Africa. Over the years, many Chinese painters and photographers have been sponsored to visit Africa for inspiration, the latest group calling themselves the Walking Paintbrushes, a brainchild of Network of International Culturalink Entities (NICE). NICE is a major content provider commissioned by the MOC to supply China’s overseas cultural centers with programs. NICE has co-organized a number of events since 2014, with either China Cultural Centers overseas or foreign art organizations around the world.
In January of this year, NICE received funding from the MOC for the exchange program, enabling the debut of its artistic tour to Africa as the “walking paintbrushes.” Five young Chinese painters working in media that included ink, oil, and watercolor toured Malawi, Tanzania, and Mauritius. These countries were carefully chosen as China and Malawi are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their diplomatic relations, and China and Mauritius celebrate the 45th anniversary of their diplomatic relations, both in 2017.
In addition, there are China Cultural Centers in both Tanzania and Mauritius. These factors, among others, will make the results of the tour more sustainable, as an exhibition and review of their paintings could eventually take place back in these countries.
However, prior to that happening, these artists will no doubt share their experiences about these countries in China. The Walking Paintbrushes: Three African Countries in the Eyes of Five Chinese Painters is set to be exhibited by NICE and its partners in Sichuan Province in southwest China on April 15, followed by a touring exhibition around the country.
The works of these five artists did not focus on the beautiful African landscape, but on the lives of the people they encountered there. The examination of the culture, lifestyle and history is best illustrated in the paintings by artist Chen Cheng. She produced four paintings outlining a Mauritius lady of Indian origin, father and daughter of European origin, two girls of Chinese and African origins, and local workers toiling in a sugar cane field. Her works clearly show the harmony in diversity of life in Mauritius.
The link between BECR and NICE reflects the hope that cultural exchange should encourage cooperation of making and creation, not only be a mere showcase of ready-made works and products. Governments are responsible for facilitating the process by which artists, particularly young artists, learn from each other and widen their horizons through the innovation of cultural exchange programs, which are sure to enrich creative minds.
(The author is director general of the Network of International Culturalink Entities)
Chen Cheng’s painting of two young women in Mauritius symbolizes the island’s strong cultural diversity