A group of enthusiastic, high spirited Malawian artist, came together to share their passion of computer graphics, & computer art with a goal to reveal a form of unexposed culture. This is in respect to the notion that every form of art is an expression of a particular culture, one can easily tell the difference between Chinese art, from British art. Malawians let alone Africans have left this form of art aside as we mostly now of western animation’s and Japanese animation called “Anime”. This group is the birth of African art expressed in combined terms of technology, driven by skill, talent & the high processing power of the modern computer. This is further explained by one on the members comment within this document.
The group is working on a traditional animation which is going to be Malawi’s first animation made in our countries history. Keep your fingers crossed and you will see it for yourself on Television Malawi.
The group started as completely Independent people started working on their own on computer art, they started meeting each other one member of the group at a time. Each time one member of the group met the other for the first time they were filled with amazement that someone else also shared the same interest’s & Passion. As they number of people increased with the same vision and goal collaboration was perceptibly inevitable, thus leading to the birth of animation club, now called Aclub in short.
Did I mention that all this happened at the polytechnic of Malawi, The founders met in the library of the polytechnic , as each one was looking for material on computer modeling and computer art. Each of them filled with happiness that they had met someone else doing the same thing they thought of starting a club with the hope of being the first animators in the country. The group grew fast but declined after the computer work came demanding however the group is stabilized as of now.
In one of the group member s comment he said We believe animation is a very strong part of every people’s culture just like one can tell were a building’s Origins are from, in the same way one can tell if an animation is Japanese or English. The world has no idea of African animation and it will be good just to wait for what Africa has been waiting to unleash if the project is successful of course. We have so many untold stories and unseen humor, that we are sure the world will enjoy or at least us. Mostly we are doing this because we love doing what we do. It really doesn’t matter what other people may think, in terms of them not appreciating.
Animation is now part of who we are and will not depart from our hearts the only thing we see is progress and improvement of our modeling and animating skills. However we face challenges of time, since most members are doing school or working, which makes progress somewhat restricted but despite this development still continues & we won’t stop until some worth viewing is takes birth.
Maybe in future we may see characters like Joza, Fingo , Pewani or Amchona on TV. If the respective owners were interested, enough resources were available. Malawi is a beautiful country of peace and kindness, intensifying our culture in all forms will only make it a better place.
