Covid-19 affecting art in Malawi
Coronavirus (Covid-19), which has affected a lot of businesses has not spared the visualarts as artists are not doing their businesses as usual.
Lilongwe-based artist, Dewitt Mtegha, founder of Dew Arts said in an interview on Saturday that things are not the same as Covid-19 has affected so many things in the visual art industry.
He added that he conducts trainings to youth but with the situation now, they opted for online lessons which has negatively affected the turn up of students since most of them do not have smart phones.
This means some students are not able to access the lessons.
“The number of students has gone down because most of them cannot access the lessons through phones. I was conducting the lessons at a fee starting from K10 000 going up depending on the number of days but as of now, am conducting the lessons through WhatsApp for free because people are complaining that they do not have money,” Mtegha said.
He said this has not only affected the students but the turn up of customers saying he was keeping a lot of artwork which are already done, but customers have not yet collected them because it is hard to pay since they are not earning more as the pandemic has affected almost every sector.
“For an upcoming artist like me, the market is hard to penetrate so with this pandemic, the progress will not be as big as I expected but I will still forge ahead and work tirelessly because of the love and passion that I have for art,” he said.
Mtegha said he realized his talent in his secondary school days but he was not taking it seriously until 2015 when a friend asked him to draw a picture of him.
In 2019, he decided to take art as part of his journey in life and he started offering lessons in February 2020.
