National Museum, Total hold art competition for Lagos students

The National Museum, Lagos and Total E&P have collaborated again to spur creativity in students within Lagos State through an art painting competition.

The competition known as Palettes and Strokes art painting competition has its 2021 theme as:“COVID-19:The World Reset”.

The two-day competition taking place at the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos State, commenced on March 10 and will end on March 11.

Mrs Omotayo Adeboye, Curator, National Museum, Lagos, who spoke to newsmen before the commencement of the competition, said that the competition was to examine the ingenuity and creative prowess  of students in exploring the chosen theme.

Adeboye said that 20 schools were participating in the competition with two representatives from each school.

According to her, the students are to replicate their knowledge of COVID-19 pandemic in their painting while professional artists have been earmarked to access the students at the final stage of the competition.

She commended the efforts of Total E&P in hosting the annual painting competition.

“ We have carefully chosen the theme for the painting competition because we want something relevant to our society.

“We want to examine what the students have learnt during the pandemic which will be indicated in their paintings.

“ They are to use their creative prowess and imagination to come up with beautiful and intelligent painting;  with this, we are very confident that the students will create the urge to improve in their arts.

“The programme will be of great value for the students because there will be an interactive session with the children tomorrow when a professional artist will be educating them on basic techniques in painting.

“At the end of the competition, the overall winner will be going away with a new laptop; the first runner up and the second runner up will have their prizes too with lots of consolation prizes.

“ We recorded great success in the first edition of the competition in 2019 but due to COVID-19 pandemic, the second edition of the painting was not held in 2020 until now,” she said.

Mr Abiodun Afolabi, Executive Director, Corporate Affairs Services, Total E&P, represented by Mr Ajukwura Wokomah, General Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), said that the company was still committed to promoting arts and culture.

Afolabi said this was a way of encouraging creativity among the Nigerian youths.

He noted that Total foundation had defined four key areas for their corporate social responsibility which covered: road safety, climate management, youths and inclusion, likewise culture and heritage promotion.

“This competition is touching two areas of our CSR offerings and Total is happy to support the art initiative.

“ This is an annual event to help the young minds remain positively focused and creative; we are focused on younger ones not losing their culture.

“The theme of this competition is to see how these young minds see this pandemic era and prepare them to handle it better.

“ Total has rendered lots of support to the Nigerian art industry.

“Like being major partner of annual Nollywood Film Festival in Paris and France, supporting Osogbo art school, MUSON Festival Total Gala Concert and lots more,” he said.

Also, Mr Emmanuel Ikomi, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager, Total E&P said the current edition of the painting competition was for the 2020 edition while the 2021 edition will still hold before the end of the year.

Ikomi noted that the competition would  be rotated among schools in Lagos as plans were ongoing for different schools in the state to participate.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that some of the schools that participated included the Holy Child College, Ikoyi; Elimshire College, Ojuelegba; Kings College, Lagos Island; Phidel Academy, Isheri; Iponri Grammar School, Surulere and Baptist Academy, Obanikoro.

The winners will be announced at the grand finale on March 11, 2021.