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Arts Reporter

A documentary based on the impact of Covid-19 on lives of artists has been launched and will be screened on social media.

The documentary series entitled “Still Stand-17 Lockdown Stories” is a brainchild of Kuenda Productions and the project will feature 23 artists from different countries.

In an interview with The Herald Arts, Kuenda Productions co-founder and director Plot Mhako said the series would run for the next six weeks with each artist sharing his or her experiences during this pandemic.

‘“Still Stand-17 Lockdown Stories’ is snapshot project featuring local and international artists centring 17 interviews with 23 people adapted, depicted and performed by local and international artists.

“The project tells the stories of different artists whose ages range from five to 80 years in a state of emergency. We discussed who they are, what they normally do and how life with coronavirus has changed, what consequences they see for themselves and how they imagine life after the pandemic. So the project will be the mere documentation of a state, creating a network with artists who make artistic portraits from the interview material,” he said.

Mhako said that they wanted to activate artistic activity during the lockdown, when most artists were at home.

“With little financial support from the city of Flensburg in Germany, Kuenda Productions was able to invite 32 artists from countries such as Germany, Zimbabwe, Mexico, Serbia, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Turkey and Croatia among others.

“These artists range from visual, dancers, choreographers, street artists, musicians, actors, writers, poets, graphic design to video artists. Zimbabwe will be represented by beat-boxer and rapper Probeatz, Tinashe Masangudza of Gwevedzi Band and writer-poet Tamika Manyoni,” he said.

He said that they chose to do a virtual documentation because they could not invite people into the theatre room to host such.

“These artists are currently working on the artistic implementation of the interviews with at least half having completed and submitted their videos. We have already published two of the videos and every week we will feature two until the series is over. They are done in the comfort of their homes. However the productions are featuring diverse results with stop motion visuals, a dance piece, an illustrated or recorded song, a monologue, a time lap of the creation of a painting, a sound collage from the interview and comedy,” explained Mhako.

Mhako added that they were trying to contribute a small part to the solidarity with artists from other countries and not lose the connection in times of closed borders.

“We have teams of two artists who each work on an interview and use their combined artistic forms of expression. They work digitally, analogously and partly across continents. It is one of our most personal projects that combines the desire to be close to people and to develop new artistic networks in artistic creation,” he said.

However, Mhako said they were going to see how the documentary progressed and were planning to take care of further funding to expand it.