Drawing Caricatures Across Nambia
Article Transcript
Being a member of ISCA has turned me into a globetrotter of sorts. Last year, while planning for my trip to attend the first Korean mini-con in Seoul, I stumbled upon a web banner announcing an international convention of art educators organized by UNESCO held there just a few days before the ISCA mini-con. Being an art-educator, I applied to attend and was accepted. Besides drawing caricatures for a living, I also have used what I learned from the many members of ISCA I met at the U.S. conventions and from discussions on the ISCA forum to develop a successful art-enrichment program teaching caricature drawing in Singaporean schools.
At the UNESCO convention, I met many international delegates. One of them, a teacher from Namibia, invited me to share my teaching methods with teachers and students in their country. The process of raising funds was rather daunting, but I was fortunate to eventually receive generous funding from government agencies in both Singapore and Namibia. So on 14th of July, 2011, upon my return from the Japan mini-con in Osaka, I was on a plane bound for Namibia.
Namibia is located northwest of South Africa. This sparsely populated nation is slightly bigger in size than Alaska with only 2.1 million people. A young nation that gained independence recently in 1990, they are eager to develop their educational infrastructure and welcome expertise from developed countries. The mission for me was to travel across Namibia from Windhoek to Walvis Bay in 12 days with my assistant and two Namibian art-educators as our guides and aides. I would engage students and local artist communities in art workshops, mainly introducing the art of South East Asian batik painting techniques and conducting caricature drawing lessons on the side. We found ourselves in different townships every few days engaging the overly enthusiastic local population before hitting the road again. Some of the places we went to, like the gold mining towns of Karibib, were very remote. A visit by strange Asian artists drawing funny faces was rarer than a meteor landing in their backyard!
Caricature proved to be the ultimate communication tool across language and culture. On one occasion we made an unscheduled stop to a school for the hearing impaired. I saw that the kids there were rather restless, so I offered to draw them. Very soon we found ourselves swarmed by the entire school population. The laughter breaking out in a school for the hearing impaired is priceless. We were like celebrities whenever I started drawing. Well, they had not seen the likes of us retail caricature artists ever, so everywhere we went, we left a lasting impression.
Namibia is a beautiful country and the people we met along the way were warm and friendly. We had lots of fun too, like quad-biking in the dunes, feeding seals and pelicans in Walvis Bay and enjoying the many magnificent vistas of the vast landscape, which is simply breathtaking. I am thankful for having this exceptional skill of caricature drawing that has provided me with this expansive opportunity to travel and inspire others with art.
Kamal Dollah is a Singaporean member of ISCA. He is founder of Cartoon.SG, a caricature specialty art studio and operates the caricature concession at Universal Studios Singapore.
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