Digital art festival closes with appeals for gov't support

Digital arts entail a range of works including building animations, designing video games, and writing comic books among others.

This year’s festival, the seventh of its kind brought together scores of artists and also attracted members of the public and students from different parts of the country.

Laurean Ntaate, the creative director at Tribe Uganda which organizes the annual event, told the press that the government has continued to ignore this industry, despite its prospects in fighting unemployment and building the national economy.

“We are doing this on our own, the government hasn't done much for us,” Ntaate said.

“On activities like this one we endeavour to invite people from the government to tell them about what we are doing because this work adds a lot to the GDP and gives people jobs, but we get no response.”

Ntaate started Tribe Uganda about 11 years ago and is currently employing 15 people in his creative studio alone.

The DigiArt Fest, he said, has provided a platform for artists and people who want to join the industry to come together and share ideas.

This year‘s festival also attracted students from 13 schools who took part in different activities including story-writing competitions, and learning about digital arts, and games among others.

“We are teaching them how to tell stories which helps them in their class work and their creativity,” Ntaate said.

Shaka Farid Lwanyaga, one of the festival organizers said that they decided to include the learners this year to expose them to the industry.

“When growing up, the jobs we knew about were doctor, lawyer accountant, teacher and the like; but there are industries like digital art which is very big but the exposure here is not there."

“The kids now get to know about these opportunities and they start dreaming about them,” he said.

The festival also involved panel discussions where players shared ideas on how to grow the digital arts industry.