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Archival Platform September 2009 Newsletter
Dear Colleagues
Last month, we had a very successful launch of the new-look newsletter and considerable traffic on the Archival Platform website – especially the blogs – and our Facebook fan page. We are buzzing at the start of Heritage Month! Thanks for all your enthusiastic comments on this initiative and the valuable role it can play in the sector.
This month we launch our first campaign…
Letters for Lulu
Heritage Month is a time of reflection on the past and planning for the future.
It’s clear that the archive and heritage sector is in crisis. In 2007, for example, an open report on the crisis in archives was submitted to the previous arts and culture minister, but no response has been forthcoming. It has been reported this year that archives in Pietermaritzburg are in a parlous state and many important collections and heritage sites are teetering on the brink of collapse.
Good records management is critical to the maintenance of state accountability, as the standing committee on public accounts recently noted. Therefore, many departments have prioritised better records management and heritage tourism is promised as a focus for 2010 – but we need the capacity to deliver on these promises.
To address problems and grasping new opportunities, what needs to be done – and by whom?
We believe in the desire of the newly elected government to listen to the people and improve service delivery. Write your “Letter for Lulu” to the Honourable Minister of Arts and Culture, Lulu Xingwana, and tell her what you think.
Email all scanned letters to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and contact us to post us the originals. At the end of Heritage Month, we will deliver them all to the minister.
Arm’s length, hands on, blinkers off
Launching our “Letters for Lulu” campaign this week prompts us to reflect on the role and mandate of the state in the management of the South African archive, our heritage.
From the early 1990s, South African arts and culture policy existed in tension between two main approaches. First, we borrowed from the Dutch idea of an “arm’s length” approach to government engagement with arts and culture, hoping to foster creativity and independence after the heavy-handed interventionism of the apartheid state. Devolution of authority meant that provincial government shared a concurrent mandate for arts and culture, taking more institutions out of the direct control of the national department.
At the same time, national government wanted to use a transformed museum and heritage landscape much more instrumentally, from the national perspective, as an engine for social development (social cohesion and ubuntu), developing the idea of a common past in struggle as the basis for a common citizenship. Cultural industries, such as crafts, music and publishing, would be an engine for economic development; archives would be open and accessible, promoting freedom of information and state accountability.
Thus, since 1994, the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) has been mired in a managerial bind – teetering between its role in providing “arm’s length” support and its role in leading certain kinds of transformation and development. For this and other more mundane reasons, across the sector many arts and culture institutions, old and new, are in crisis today. DAC needs to focus urgently on resolving these problems.
Government also needs to move beyond the managerial bind, developing a stronger vision for the future without falling back on prescriptive nationalisms. Arts and culture has to grasp the thorniest questions around our present and the future, such as the imagining of citizenship, creating the conditions conducive to the emergence of new cultural forms and new histories that will service our future. All of us need to focus our attention on these problems, and how we can contribute to resolving them.
In developing this vision, addressing problems and grasping new opportunities, what do you think needs to be done – and by whom?
Write your “Letter for Lulu” to the Honourable Minister, Lulu Xingwana, and tell her what you think.
Dr Harriet Deacon
Director, Archival Platform
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
About the Archival Platform
The Archival Platform is a strategic research, networking and advocacy initiative in South Africa. We aim to promote collaboration and information sharing within the broad archive sector – including archives, museums and heritage, tangible and intangible – enabling effective dialogue between government, academics, practitioners and the public. Key areas of focus for the Platform in the medium term will include the economics of heritage, digitisation and use of digital tools in archives and heritage management, and heritage education.
Our networking efforts will reach out beyond South Africa, to elsewhere in Africa and other continents to expand this debate.
Entries for this newsletter come from lists such as South African History Online, the Southern African NGO Network, International Council on Museums and Sites (Icomos), Australia Icomos, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), the International Council of Museums (Icom), Icom-SA, the International Council of African Museums (Africom), H-Net, International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, Observatory of Cultural Policies in Africa (OCPA), Unesco Forum, the Getty Conservation Bulletin and your contributions.
Feel free to pass the newsletter on, and let me know if you don’t want to be on the list.
The Archival Platform is funded by Atlantic Philanthropies, supported by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the University of Cape Town.
NEWS and EVENTS
Heritage Month events
On September 24, official Heritage Day celebrations will be held in the Greater Sekhukhune District Municipality in Limpopo under the theme “Celebrating South African craft, our heritage”.
A joint Department of Arts and Culture and Unesco event celebrating African craft, cuisine and music will be held at the Lowveld National Botanical Garden in Nelspruit on September 5-6, from 10h00-22h00.
International Literacy Day
On September 8 – International Literacy Day – the international community focuses on the status of literacy and adult learning globally. This year, the spotlight will be on the empowering role of literacy and its importance for participation, citizenship and social development. The theme for the 2009-2010 biennium of the United Nations Literacy Decade is “Literacy and Empowerment”.
www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?m=dac8d3033d3f3b26d552b0976bd34078
For more resources on literacy issues in Africa, see Soul Beat Issue 136 online: www.comminit.com/en/africa/soul-beat-136.html
Public lecture: “Yusuf Dadoo and non-racialism: 1940s to now”
The public lecture on Yusuf Dadoo and non-racialism, hosted by the University of Johannesburg and South African History Online, will feature Rivonia trialist Ahmed Kathrada, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and sociologist and writer Ari Sitas as speakers.
The lecture will be held at the Faculty of Art Design and Architecture Auditorium, University of Johannesburg Bunting Road Campus, Auckland Park, September 2, 2009 at 18h00.
Contact: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or visit www.uj.ac.za or www.sahistory.org.za.
Inaugural lecture: Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie
This lecture, entitled “Producing biographical knowledge about Indians in the Cape: the state, the archives and the historian”, will take place in the Library Auditorium at the University of the Western Cape on September 10, 2009 at 18h30.
RSVP: Mallissa Maans at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Creative Cape Town study
The Cape Town Partnership has embarked on a process to develop a cultural renewal strategy for the metropolitan area with a primary focus on the inner city, which includes the symbolically important area of District 6. The basic premise of the policy is that culture can be a powerful economic asset and driver of growth, while also creating new opportunities for local communities to address conflictual issues, such as institutionalised racism, social and economic exclusion and marginalisation of particular group cultures and identities in the city.
The University of Cape Town’s African Centre for Cities will undertake a major research initiative on the role and function of culture renewal discourses in reimagining the city and generating new public policy interventions.
http://www.acc.uct.ac.za/capetown.htm
The Maasai: protecting intellectual property and cultural practice
This fascinating article by Philip Ngunjiri, which we picked up on the Africom and OCPA lists, reports that two Maasai community-based organisations recently received digital recording equipment as part of a World Intellectual Property Organisation-backed pilot project. The project aims to help indigenous communities document and preserve their cultural heritage, and protect their intellectual property from unwanted exploitation.
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/magazine/-/434746/643526/-/15l8xtmz/-/index.html
GUEST BLOGS
Treatment literacy: the Siyayinqoba Beat It! HIV/AIDS archive
By Jack Lewis, Community Health Media Trust
The idea of an HIV/AIDS archive has been around for some time but, thus far, nothing has materialised. Hopefully this is about to change.
The University of Cape Town has signed a memorandum of understanding with Community Media Trust to archive a collection of more than 3 000 hours of video footage generated between 1998 and the present. The footage, a vast anthropological trawl through the vectors of transmission, prevention, treatment, care and support of HIV/AIDS was produced for the Siyayinqoba Beat It! television programme. You can watch all the inserts produced for the show online. We hope to use this holding to develop an online database that provides the foundation of a larger HIV/AIDS archive.
Siyayinqoba Beat It! has been on air since 1999. The first three series appeared on e.TV. After a hiatus in 2003, the series reappeared on SABC1 in 2004 and this year, the eighth series launches on Thursday, September 3 at 13h30 on SABC1. The series will run for 26 episodes.
Post-colonial revival: Bow, Women and Song
By Thokozani Mhlambi
On August 9, 2009 South Africa celebrated Women’s Day, a day commemorating women’s struggle for liberation in the country. We, the Bow Heritage Agents (a collective of young minds) decided to host an event called “Bow, Women and Song” at House of Nsako in Johannesburg.
The event emerged out of a genuine desire to showcase the music of the bow, which is seldom performed or given any meaningful performance platform. We wanted to create a space in which we could perform this music freely and to highlight its significance in the shaping of our past.
In recent years, South Africa has seen an explosion of African music as commodity for tourist consumption. As such, part of our attempt is to shift this music away from its tourist-centred setting and return it to the people to whom it belongs.
CONFERENCES and MEETINGS
Oral History Association of South Africa conference
Cape Town, October 13-16, 2009
There are various aspects of “collecting voice/s” – visual, aural and textual – each with attendant dilemmas and difficulties. It is hoped that this conference, hosted by the Oral History Association of South Africa in collaboration with the Department of Arts and Culture, will offer an opportunity to tease out these complexities through constructive discussions and debates.
Contact: Natalie Jaynes (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
OHASA website: www.ohasa.org.za
Third International Conference on the Inclusive Museum
Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey
June 29-July 2, 2010
The International Conference on the Inclusive Museum is a place where museum practitioners, researchers, thinkers and teachers can engage in discussion on the historic character and future shape of the museum.
The deadline for the next round in the call for papers (a title and short abstract) is September 10, 2009.
Conference website: www.Museum-Conference.com/.
Call for papers
Art and Social Justice Conference
Durban, March 21-24, 2010
The conference aims to explore the role and relevance of the arts in addressing issues of social justice. In line with the objectives and principles of the conference organiser, Art for Humanity, the concerns of this conference are primarily directed towards advocacy. The conference serves as a platform for art practitioners and organisations to share experiences drawn from a variety of international contexts, to discuss mutual concerns and find solutions to commonly experienced challenges.
E-mail abstracts of no more than 300-400 words to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) by October 31, 2009.
Website: http://asjconference.dut.ac.za/default.aspx
OPPORTUNITIES, JOBS and TRAINING
Researcher post at Msunduzi/Voortrekker and Ncome museums
Researcher with a bachelor’s degree in history, anthropology, heritage studies or equivalent is required.
Closing date: September 11, 2009.
Contact: Mxolisi Mchunu on 033 394 6834/5
Reminder: digital workshop
The Visual History Archive and Creative Commons South Africa will be hosting a workshop tackling the legal issues associated with the digitising of, and public access to, archival material.
The workshop will take place on the fifth floor of the Kramer Law School, University of Cape Town Middle Campus, on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 from 13h30 to about 17h00.
Contact: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Cape Town curatorship training opportunity
The Rhodes Cottage Museum will be running special training for curators next month and would like to hear from volunteer curators who wish to attend the course. Deadline for applications is September 10, 2009.
Application forms are available from Joye Gibbs on 082 425 3092 or Liz Linsell on 072 482 6131.
Funding: Mama Cash
Mama Cash is an international women’s fund with a strategic grant-making programme that invests in projects that change the world through art, culture and media run by women. The organisation is based in the Netherlands and supports initiatives by women’s groups that strengthen women’s position and improve their rights worldwide. In the belief that art, culture and media can make important contributions to the advancement of women’s rights, the foundation has supported projects such as a street theatre piece in Morocco about sexual violence and a video clip in India that has provoked much local discussion and awareness of women’s rights.
To apply, submit a letter of interest (LOI) and budget. Mama Cash does not accept unsolicited full proposals. LOIs and budgets are accepted and reviewed all year round.
RESOURCES
National Heritage Council survey report on funding
A preliminary report on the National Heritage Council impact study on funds committed by the public and private sectors for the development and preservation of South Africa’s heritage has been released and is available on the Council’s website.
Book chapter: traditional leadership in South African Governance in Review
Pearl Sithole has contributed a chapter to the Human Sciences Research Council book, South African Governance in Review: Anti-corruption, Local Government, Traditional Leadership. Sithole’s chapter focuses on the relationship between traditional leaders and government.
www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2261
New book: Mounting Queen Victoria
Mounting Queen Victoria in a Democratic South Africa by Steven C Dubin (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) provides a detailed look at how South Africa’s museums present the nation’s past and how they can serve as a lens for examining changes in broader South African society.
http://us.macmillan.com/transformingmuseums
New book: Place, Race and Story
Place, Race and Story, by Ned Kaufman, contains essays dedicated to the proposition of giving the next generation of preservationists not only a foundational knowledge of the field of study, but also more ideas on where they can take it. Through big-picture essays considering preservation across time, as well as descriptions of work on specific sites, the essays in this collection trace the themes of place, race and story, raising questions, stimulating discussion and offering a different perspective on these common ideas. The book includes unpublished essays and established works by the author, as well as some case studies from Africa.
www.routledge.com/books/Place-Race-and-Story-isbn9780415965408
Euro-African Campus for Cultural Cooperation reports available
The Observatory of Cultural Policies in Africa (OCPA) reports that the four background papers, several presentations and workshop summaries from the Euro-African Campus for Cultural Cooperation have now been published on the Interarts website. The Euro-African Campus for Cultural Cooperation, an initiative of Interarts and OCPA, was held in Maputo, Mozambique, on June 22-26, 2009.
www.interarts.net/en/articles.php?p=424
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Films
This site forms part of the Internet Archive, providing free access to a growing collection of online films from the holdings of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Film collections. The collection is a rich source of information on archaeology of Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Bible Lands, Mesoamerica, Asia and the Ancient Mediterranean World, as well as ethnographies and artefacts of native people from the Americas, Africa and Polynesia.
www.archive.org/details/UPMAA_films
Research report: “Beyond guarding ground: a vision for a National Indigenous Cultural Authority”
In this report, Terri Janke makes the case for creating a National Indigenous Cultural Authority in Australia to facilitate consent and payment of royalties to indigenous artists and communities, develop standards for appropriation of cultural materials and protect the rights of indigenous communities.
Source: Australia Council for the Arts, June 2009
www.australiacouncil.gov.au/research/aboriginal_and_torres_strait_islander_arts/reports_and_publications/beyondguardingground
