MEET ARTIST YANDE YOMBWE: she was among the first people to write Art examination at St Mary's Girls

DRIVING along Livingstone’s Airport Road, there is a clearly identifiable poster of Wayi Wayi Art Studio and Gallery.

It is owned by Lawrence and Agness Yombwe. The couple is acclaimed artists. In fact, a visit to their premises gives out an artistic ambience that tells, but many stories.

It is there that Yande Yombwe is found. Perhaps you might be wondering who this Yande is?

Yande Yombwe is the 24 year old female mixed media artist whose picture of her painting and decorating a ceiling board went viral on social media recently.

The Sunday Mail caught up with the budding female artist who shared her story.

She was born in November, 1994 in Livingstone, to the Yombwe’s as a first born.

She completed her school at Livingstone’s St Mary’s Secondary School in 2011.

Growing up and being a child of accomplished and well decorated artists, her fate was probably determined already.

“I have always wanted to become an artist just like my parents,” she says. “In fact, if I hadn’t been one, maybe I would have become a Journalist.”

Mr and Mrs Yombwe’s other child, Kondwani, 21 decided to take a slightly different form of art – automobile photography.

Sharing her childhood, Yande started her grade one at Phakalane Primary school in Botswana where her parents were working as teachers of art, before they relocated back to Zambia in 2007.

“I wrote my Grade Seven exams at Livingstone Basic School and was at St Mary’s Girls Secondary School from Grade Eight up to the time I completed in 2011,” she says.

Yande was among the first people to write Art as a subject exam at St Mary’s Girls Secondary School at a time when the school had not even introduced it as a subject.

“I passed and got a distinction at Grade 12,” she says.  “I used to practice it at home with the help of my parents.”

Because of her love for art, she later enrolled at Evelyn Hone College in 2013 where she pursued an Art Teachers Diploma course, and graduated in 2016.

“Growing up, everything around me was art,” she says. “I decided to do the course because I have always loved art.”

She adds: “If you asked me in grade one that what do you want to become, I would tell you that fashion designer. I even have my drawings from my young age.”

Before she graduated from Evelyn Hone College, Yande found a job as a teacher of Art at Tongabezi Trust School – something that her father didn’t really like.

“I knew she had so much potential and that she could have achieved much more as an independent artist. But I didn’t want to stand in her way, I just supported her,” says her father, asked why he didn’t fancy the idea of his daughter teaching.

But make no mistake; Mr Yombwe did not force any of his children into taking up art. In fact, the only thing he was sure of is that he wanted a wife that was into art too. “This wasn’t my wish. What I only wanted for myself was to find a woman who is also into art and I was lucky that I found Agness,” he says.

“As for my children, I cannot blame them because maybe they were influenced by the surroundings, which is basically a bonus to me. But I didn’t force anyone into it.”

Yande's father, Lawrence Yombwe working on a piece in the art studio

Coming back to Yande, she continued working at Tongabezi Trust School, teaching children even after she graduated.

She was there for two years, before quitting in April 2018, to pursue art as a career.

“My parents, dad in particular was happy when he heard that I was stopping. He has so much faith in me that I will become good at what I do,” she says.

She adds: “I stopped because all this time, it was trial and error and it was a bit difficult to juggle the two.But now, I spend more time in the studio and I make much more than I used to get there.”

So far, Yande who is currently living and working at Wayi Wayi Art Studio and Gallery with her parents helping run the family business has taken part in five exhibitions.

In 2017, she took part in a one week Financial Sector Deepening Zambia workshop on Creating Women’s Financial Inclusion which took place at Wayi Wayi Art Studio and Gallery in Livingstone.

In February last year, she took part in a one week creative entrepreneurship workshop which took place at Modzi Arts supported by the British Council in conjunction with Modzi Arts.

In May last year, she again took part in a capacity building workshop for artists, held by Ministry of Tourism and Arts in partnership with Zambia breweries at Livingstone Lodge.

She has to this date, participated in five exhibitions with the first one being a children’s art exhibition which was held in Livingstone in 2009.

She took part in a women’s exhibition in Choma, in 2014, and in 2017, she was among the exhibitors at another art exhibition organised by FSD themed ‘Know, Plan and Live’, which was held in Lusaka.

In the same year she participated in another women’s art exhibition called Kuboneshango which was also held in Lusaka.

In December 2017, she exhibited at the Deli in a Christmas small artworks exhibition in Lusaka. Yande was the youngest exhibiting female artist in all three women’s exhibitions that she has participated in.

“The highest I’ve sold a piece for is for K3, 500 and I feel I undervalued it,” she says, remembering her artwork made from a collage of chitenge pieces titled break the silence.

The piece depicted a woman who multi-tasks and bears children, and considers a mother of a home and a wife. It was collected by the National Arts Council (NAC) at a recent family exhibition that was held in the Lusaka showgrounds.

Yande says she loves being a mixed media artists because she gets bored doing the same things over and over.

“I like to change,” says the dreadlocked Yande.

Currently, she is working on a series of sculptures which she has termed Utwanakashi, made from re-usable things such as bottles.

She is also looking at how to collaborate other forms of art into her work.

“I would also love to work with scrap and exploring ways of involving music and video in my artworks.”

She adds: “It hasn’t been easy but it looks very promising and I know I can be a very successful artist if I work hard which my parents have proven. I have seen it with my parents who have been exemplary in the industry.”

Apart from her parents who have been consistent in the industry, she draws her inspiration from female artists, Mwamba Chikwemba, Mukwase Tembo, Eva Middleten, and males Doubt Makala and Owen Shikubeta.

Being a child of accomplished artists, Yande tries not to carry the burden of expectation with her even though it has not been an easy thing to do.

“The pressure is there, I cannot avoid it. But all I do is not let it get to my head as much,” she says.

Yande working on her Utwanakashi sculpture series at the workshop

ZAMBIA'S TOURISM: foreign travel journalists wowed after sampling the KAZA trans-frontier conservation area

Journalists gather for a morning briefing at Mutemwa Lodge

JACQUES Marais is a German travel journalist who writes features for a number of Southern African magazines such as Getaway and Sawubona. He, together with nine other countrymen, was recently in the country to sample some of the tourism potential that Zambia and indeed the Kavango – Zambezi (KAZA) Trans-frontier Conservation Area is endowed with.

The trip was made possible thanks to the Zambia Tourism Agency (ZTA), KAZA Secretariat, and Boundless Southern Africa which partnered with organisations such as German Development Cooperation (GIZ), Peace Parks Foundation (PPF), USAID, VukaNow and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

The whole idea, according to Boundless Southern Africa marketing manager was “to give an opportunity to the journalists to experience first-hand and buy into the KAZA philosophy and ideology so that they could tell the world through their write-ups’’.

And it seemed to have worked out, for Jacques at least. “I thought the Devil’s Pool was going to be at the top of the list. …Then went to Kafue and the tranquillity of that river is something else. Seeing elephants, right next to you in the water on an electric boat that’s not creating any pollution, that’s world-class,” he says.

He adds, “Coming to Ngonye, everything got kicked off the top of the list. Because that pool on top of the falls, that’s a beauty. Really, if this place is destroyed, Zambia loses one of its natural wonders and you will never forgive yourselves.”

Ngonye Falls is in the heart of the Sioma Ngwezi National Park in Western Province.

Recently, there have been plans to put up a hydro-electricity plant to cushion the power deficit in the country.

But Jacques and the other visiting journalists feel otherwise. “So, it’s time to take this place and make it what it’s supposed to be. There should be lodges all the way. There is so much here. It is ridiculous. Public-private partnerships is the key because that is how it’s going to get kick-started,” he said.

Baerbel Schwertfeger, also a newspaper features writer, felt the same. Before coming here, he knew so little about Zambia.

“I found Ngonye Falls much more fascinating and unique than the Victoria Falls because it’s such a unique place and you will never find anywhere in the world. I think it should be on the list for the top 10 destinations in the southern Africa area,” Schwertfeger said.

He says, “I was also blown away in Kafue. The tranquillity and the wildlife was awesome. Before this, I knew so little about Zambia.”

This groundbreaking media tour was part of an initiative to profile the KAZA Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) as a world-class tourism destination. KAZA is the world’s largest terrestrial transboundary conservation initiative, representing a bold commitment between the five partner countries; Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

The presidents of these countries signed a treaty in 2011 committing their countries to harness their shared natural resources and supporting nature-based tourism development as the engine for rural economic growth and development.

The 10 German and regional journalists embarked on two different routes across the five countries making up the KAZA landscape.

Julia Ruhnau, writing for the German Press Agency (DPA), said many years have passed since the KAZA TFCA Treaty was signed in 2011 and is looking forward to seeing it develop into something that will stand the test of time and be appreciated by the locals.

She said, “I am not sure whether it will stay like that, but I am hopeful that what you have started here will stay like that because of the different interests. There are some years that have passed since KAZA started and I hope that it will develop into something that can stay.

“But so far, I am not so sure if it’s in the minds of people that there is really enough substance in that, maybe it could really work. It would be interesting to see what happens in maybe five years from now then maybe you can see there’s a chance we could go somewhere or something has changed.”

In total, 17 tourism properties and three UNESCO World Heritage Sites – the Victoria Falls, the Okavango Delta and Tsodilo Hills – were visited.

At the welcome event in Livingstone, Zambia KAZA executive director Nyambe Nyambe emphasised that with its many stakeholders and 36 different formally proclaimed national parks, forest reserves, communal areas and private concessions, ‘KAZA is not complicated, it is complex’.

To better understand the complex nature of the KAZA TFCA, the scribes were given the opportunity to engage with stakeholders on a broad range of topics such as the importance of landscape connectivity, wildlife corridors, community beneficiation and sustainable tourism within the KAZA landscape.

One of the groups had the privilege of meeting Chief Mayuni of the Mayuni Conservancy, bordering Bwabwata National Park in Namibia, who spoke with passion about the importance of KAZA for transboundary collaboration and management of shared resources.

“KAZA is in our blood,” he reiterated while providing a background to the important role that traditional leaders played in starting the “Four Corners” Transboundary Natural Resource Management initiative which preceded the establishment of the KAZA TFCA.

At the farewell function that was held in Victoria Falls town in Zimbabwe, Dr Nyambe concluded by underlining the important role that the media have to play in conveying information about the KAZA TFCA to the communities, tourists, other stakeholders, and the world at large.

ZTA senior marketing manager Doris Kofi, accompanied by regional tourism promotions manager Jocelyn Mutinta, said the agency aims to sell the KAZA concept and idea to the world so that it can have a positive impact on tourism.

“Using journalists to tell the stories is the best way to go about it and we are hopeful that going forward, this can bear fruits soon. The KAZA concept is a very good one if you buy into it. It’s not just about wildlife but also natural resources,” said Ms Kofi.

Carrie Hampton, travel writer for Travel Africa magazine and other local and international travel publications, shared her experience of the trip. “I feel like I probably have a year’s worth of travel articles to write. We were exposed to such amazing topics. I now have a much deeper understanding of the diverse aspects of the KAZA TFCA – it feels like I am only scratching the surface,” she said.

The media tour was hosted by the KAZA Secretariat in partnership with the five KAZA partner states and their national tourism boards with additional support from key development and funding partners to KAZA.

Anabel Tennassie-Goossens is communications officer at VukaNow. She says, “As southern Africans, we need to tell more of our stories so that people can begin to understand what we are doing here and what we have to offer.”

This article was also published in the Zambia Daily Mail newspaper.