Art Education: Harnessing the Potentials of Painting, Theatre and Media Arts as Means of Economic Development

The focus of this paper is to discuss, argue and to re-position the mind set of Nigerian youths/women and the government to harness visual arts products and theatre arts in the economic planning and development at large. Similarly, graduates/students can as well tailor their vision in entrepreneurial skills, innovation thereby flourishing micro small, medium enterprises that could at least helps generate gainful employment, creates wealth’s and consequently grows the economy and reduce the stress of joblessness in one sense. Exploring creativity towards jobs creation and economic growth cannot be over emphasised. However, the evolvement of creativity on the one hand involves newness, actions in science and technology with responsiveness to situation that can enhance qualitative life-style and in the long run assist human survival and standardisation. However, creativity can be explicitly based on three factors, which is wider-ranging including (Visual arts, Performance and Theatre Arts) Music (instrumental and vocal), Architecture and Allied fields, Painting, Sculpture, Photograph, Graphic Design, Crafts Arts, Industrial Design, Costume and Fashion Design, Motion Pictures, Television, Radio and Sound productions among others. Therefore this paper will look deeply into the areas of arts, the creative forms of Yoruba traditions with deep understanding of how the art forms are configured as profession for Job creations. It will conclude that the forms seen be looked as a case study to reposition the mind set of Nigeria youths and adults at large and as a means of survival within the realm of contemporary technology.

Keywords: Painting, Crafts Art, Sculpture, Performance Art, Industrial Design.