Kenya's Homeboyz studios' 'Tinga Tinga tales', a children animation TV series aired on BBC

A twist to the unpretentious Tinga Tinga tale

A Tinga Tinga exhibition in Copenhagen. Photo | BERTHA KANG'ONG'OI | AFRICA REVIEW |

By BERTHA KANG'ONG'OI  (email the author)

Posted Thursday, January 13 2011 at 08:54

Last year was a great one for Tinga Tinga art - some original, unpretentious art from Tanzania that is currently attracting considerable global attention. There was an exclusive Tinga Tinga exhibition in Copenhagen last August; a piece of Tinga Tinga art returned an impressive $ 51,000 at an auction in Paris last October; then came 'Tinga Tinga tales', a children animation TV series aired on BBC, as created in Kenya's Homeboyz studios.

But these opportunities have not come without challenges: the television production, which is said to be one of the most ambitious animation production in East Africa, has left Tanzanian artists unhappy. Tanzania’s Tinga Tinga Artists Cooperative Society (TACS) and UK-based Tiger Aspects, the production company that produced the series, are warring. And up until a few days before last Christmas, it seemed inevitable that the tussle would end in up court.

So how did this dream project end up here?

Claudia Lloyd, head of animation at Tiger Aspects, was travelling in East Africa in 2005. It was in Tanzania that she came across the Tinga Tinga genre of art. She was quite impressed.

“Finally I met the cooperative’s representatives and we started talking.” Over the years, the production and marketing of the art has been under Tinga Artists Cooperative Society.

Animated dreams
At this stage, it was just a dream project. But Claudia believed so much in the potential of an animated film project of African tales that she went ahead with a pilot project in 2006.

“The initial plan was to do the entire production in Tanzania but it soon became clear to me that that would not be possible,” says Claudia. “The internet connection in Tanzania was not reliable and there were more trained animators and editors in Nairobi than in Tanzania. So Nairobi it was.”

After the pilot project, Claudia returned to Europe to look for funds for a complete series.

By the end of 2007, Claudia had successfully convinced BBC in London and Disney World in the US to buy rights to the concept.