The Grenada Arts Council (GAC) is excited and privileged to be partnering with the Ministry of Culture to facilitate a Visual Arts component in the newly reinstated Festival of the Arts.
Working in an advisory and support role, the GAC is looking forward to seeing the talent of our secondary school and TAMCC artists. This is the first time that visual arts will be one of the categories for competition and for its inaugural run, will only be amongst the secondary schools and TAMCC. Students are invited to compete in 3 classes: Drawing, painting, and 3-dimensional work. Drawings may be done in graphite, charcoal, ink, or any combination of these mediums. Paintings can be in acrylic, oil, watercolour, spray paint or any combination. 3-dimensional work can be standalone sculptures or work that protrudes from the wall if hung. Participants are encouraged to think creatively about what they can produce within these parameters.
- Judging of the artwork will occur in 4 categories of 25 points each.
- Technical proficiency will be judged on how well the students handled the material in the execution of the artwork.
- Format or presentation will include how well the work is mounted or presented.
- Context will consider the content of the work within a cultural and historical paradigm.
Intangibles as a scoring category leaves room for the judges to give points for aspects of the work that could not have been anticipated. The preliminaries will be judged at the participating schools and the top 5 pieces total will go straight to the finals for judging on 6 December. Teachers are encouraged to help facilitate a good showing of the students’ work during the preliminaries.
Registration for the Visual Arts component will continue until 12 October at the 3rd floor of the Botanical Gardens Ministerial Complex with the Ministry of Culture. Participants may submit one piece in one or up to all three of the classes. One participant will be awarded with an overall prize as an artist at the finals as well as first, second, and third in each class: drawing, painting, and 3-dimensional work.
The full syllabus for the Visual Arts can be found on the Grenada Arts Council’s website, www.grenadaartscouncil.com.
Many of the executive members of the Grenada Arts Council are products of the Festival of Arts themselves and this is an exciting and nostalgic time as the Ministry of Culture is bringing it back. There were few times as young person in school that we were required to think of a routine or work on our stage presence or think creatively and competitively outside of the Festival of the Arts. I believe many of us took the Festival of the Arts statement to heart, “The object is not to gain a prize or to defeat a rival but to pace one another on the road to Excellence.”
We look forward to seeing the artwork of Grenada’s secondary and TAMCC students!
Grenada Arts Council
