September marks the country’s annual Heritage Month, a month where South Africa recognises aspects of South African culture which are both tangible and intangible. Creative expression such as art, music and performances, our historical inheritance and language, are just a few aspects being recognised and celebrated in order to shape an inclusive society.
September is also the month, the University of Johannesburg (UJ) celebrates Diversity Week, a week of events showcasing and celebrating the diverse interests and talents of our students and staff. As part of Diversity Week, the University’s Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture (FADA) will exhibit the artworks produced during the Emerging Arts Activist programme. The exhibition titled Chewing the cud: Visualising a shared future rooted in a divided past will run that the FADA Gallery, Bunting Road Campus, from 18 to 20 September 2013, 8h00 to 17h00.
The Emerging Arts Activist programme, in partnership with the Apartheid Museum and the University’s Transformation Unit, is an initiative of Farieda Nazier, an academic at UJ and a Johannesburg based artist-curator.
The Emerging Arts Activist programme’s aim was to expose, explore and instil a basic socio-political grounding in young arts activist, towards a broader reconciliation and transformational end, during a three day workshop. This long term intervention was launched during the National Youth month, June, which commemorates the June 16, 1976 Soweto Uprising that was against the Bantu Legislation laws. The programme was designed to promote arts practice as a transformative tool by focussing on critical contemporary histories.
Nazier, an artist and academic for over ten years, delivered topical presentations related to the theme of the exhibition and situated in a post-colonial theory framework.. The programme also featured talks by Mocke Janse van Veuren (film and performance) and Prince Massingham (author and performer).
The exhibition was on display for two months at the Apartheid Museum and is now at UJ, brought to the FADA Gallery by the UJ Transformation Unit.
