R18m arts injection for Bay
The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality will be making R18m available for artists in the metro over the next three years.
Taking charge of how these funds will be dispersed is the Mandela Bay Theatre Complex, which has been appointed as the implementing agency.
On Friday, the city held a successful creative industries public engagement event, where artists from various clusters approved the Creative Mandela Bay Programme.
The clusters represent artists from Zinyoka, Missionvale, Walmer, Kariega, Despatch, Motherwell, Wells Estate and New Brighton.
Mandela Bay Theatre Complex chief executive Monde Ngonyama said the purpose of Friday’s session was to discuss the implementation plan they were intending to propose to the municipality. Ngonyama said they needed to consult with artists to come up with ideas on how to spend the funds and which projects to prioritise.
“All clusters [gave] the programme a thumbs-up.
“The next stage is for the municipality to take that into account and confirm it to the legal department so that we can start with our programme.
“What will then happen is that adverts for artist organisations — as this project is mostly for them — will go up.
“They can apply for funding and it will be dispersed for specific projects that they will be running,” Ngonyama said.
According to the Creative Mandela Bay Programme, there will be two mega-projects.
The first is the Mandela Heritage Expo which will run for a week with a budget of R2m for 2024 and 2025.
Second, the SA National Jazz Orchestra project will be held quarterly with a R1m budget for the same period as the Mandela Heritage Expo.
The programme also has a special projects category which will run for three months for veterans in arts, with a total budget of R1.3m, as well as a total budget of R1.05m for artists living with disabilities.
Arts education, female artists initiatives, writing projects, marketing and administration are some of the elements that form part of the plan.
Ngonyama said they were excited about the budget they had received as it would help the arts to grow even further in the metro.
“It is not like this all the time when it comes to the arts — we just came out of the Mandela Bay Festival and then [comes] the National Arts Festival.
“My wish is that monthly in Nelson Mandela Bay we have events.
“If you look at Cape Town, every month they have events, even a festival for drinking a variety of tea.
“They have festivals to the thousands; this says you are forcing people to leave their homes,” Ngonyama said.