Institutional Governance 

The Seychelles Institute of Art and Design is an increasingly vital component of the post-statutory training options offered by professional centres in Seychelles.

Any effective vocational centre has a responsibility to its students to provide the best possible facilities and teaching. It also has a mandate to remain at all times aware of key developments and changes within the sectors which it is preparing its students to join post-graduation.

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In this respect SIAD’s strategy is to respond to the impact technological development and innovation have upon the global creative industries. This is a huge challenge, for in both fine art and graphics, as well as fashion and textiles, new technologies have brought about huge recalibrations in the manner in which creative products are conceptualised and realised. Such developments – for example the increasing importance of video art works - invariably come with a price – a price which SIAD can not always afford. Regardless, the SIAD community constantly addresses such challenges, and the priority given to facilitating creative thinking, problem solving, analysis and effective communication skills mitigates the problems associated with the unaffordability of high-end hardware and software resources.

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SIAD, in common with many other similar institutions globally, fights an ongoing battle to modify public perceptions of the arts. In Seychelles society struggles to understand and recognise the creative sector as an important – indeed vitally important – socio-economic entity. Too often the arts are seen as insufficiently serious dilettante activities, which smack of self-indulgence and produce little of importance.

SIAD’s existence challenges this, and promotes a sea change in the perceptions held by citizens. For how can our students take their vocation and work seriously when so many – including, very possibly, members of their own extended family and community – consider what they are doing to be without real value?

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The reality is of course radically different. We only have to look around us in our home and work environments, or look in the mirror at what we are wearing (clothing, jewellery, eyewear and so on) to realise that aesthetic considerations shape so many aspects of our daily lives. Globally the creative industries generate trillions of dollars annually and employ countless millions of people, and in Seychelles such activities will play an increasingly important role as we seek to diversify our tourism sector and promote the creative work of our artists.

 

In order to maximise our understanding of this reality, and thereby make the greatest sense of our lives in an increasingly alienating and complex world, we have to advocate the importance of visual literacy for our citizens alongside conventional formal/language literacy.

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SIAD continues – and will continue - to place this objective at the forefront of all that it does.

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