News Listing

HUMAN rights activist Justice Albie Sachs, the Swiss cultural centre Pro Helvetia, and law firm Webber Wentzel have been honoured with BASA Special Awards.

The South African Cultural Observatory is excited to announce the release of a training video on the use of the SAFEIC Calculator. The South African Festivals Economic Impact Calculator (SAFEIC) is a free online tool developed by the South African Cultural Observatory specifically for cultural festival and event organisers so they can track the economic impact of their events. The SAFEIC is designed to be used to estimate the economic impact of a festival on a host economy. It has been carefully, and conservatively, designed so as to produce results that are as reliable and valid as possible for a wide range of events – provided the data that is inputted is as accurate as possible.

RELOCATED to larger premises in Woodstock, Blank Projects is a wonderful space for art. In this premier show, three artists present distinct methods and processes that may be understood in various ways. Magadlela’s “Wabana lapho isifebe, wangena kuso” employs pantyhose on canvas to great effect; Katz uses bed wiring and Mbamba uses acrylics within the context of torn pages from Norwegian fashion magazines.

AN exhibition marking the 40th anniversary of the death and immediate aftermath of the murder of Steve Biko by security police in South Africa in September 1977, opened in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, on Tuesday 12 September at noon.

THE South African State Theatre’s Education, Youth and Children Theatre (EYCT) Department will be celebrating the 10th Youth Expressions Festival in 2018. In celebrating a decade of staging young people’s professional work, and commemorating the struggles fought by the youth of 1976, professional young art practitioners are invited to propose their work of art to be part of the festival, which will be divided into the Main and Fringe programs.

THE world as we know it is changing. We are already living in the technological future. The fourth industrial revolution is fundamentally disrupting the way we think, work and interact with each other and, in it, culture and creativity can be one of the major currencies, argue Prof Richard Haines (SA Cultural Observatory CEO) and Rosemary Mangope (National Arts Council CEO).

THE history of where we come from and what makes us human will come alive like never before when the Origins Centre, located at Wits University, launches its new Virtual Reality production at the Tshimologong Precinct on 14 September, and at the Origins Centre on 25th September, (a public holiday).

PERCEPTION is often no more than a construction, be it natural/genetic or social/environmental. The value of art lies in its reminding us that perception can be reconstructed, revised and perhaps understood or simply appreciated as esoteric. One way in which such an evaluation can take place is by highlighting the permeable boundary between dreams and what is referred to as reality. Could it be that reality is a mass delusion? Such speculations arrive at satisfactory visual analogues in the form of the artworks on show, each artist developing his/her own language in what can be conceived as an interrogation of the liminal space between the real and the imagined and ultimately between life and death.

WOMEN are, in many ways, shaping the future of the creative industries. Last year Prof Jen Snowball, SACO Chief Research Strategist, compressed data from National Mapping Study of the creative and cultural industries released in 2014, and published this article in The Conversation – From the stage to the boardroom: South African women make slow transition.

NIGERIA: THE Nigerian federal government has granted 'Pioneer Status' to the creative industry, in a landmark move aimed at transforming the industry to a creative economy and creating jobs. In a statement at the end of August 2017, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the decision to grant the industry 'Pioneer Status' is in fulfilment of the promise made by the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, at the opening of the Creative Industry Financing Conference in Lagos 17-18 July 2017.

PAARL is the Western Cape stopover in a nationwide roadshow by the South African Cultural Observatory (SACO), and the fourth in a series of eight. The SACO brings its domain workshop series to Paarl on September 7.

THE South African Cultural Observatory (SACO) – a national public research entity of the Department of Arts & Culture (DAC), hosted by Nelson Mandela University – is training South African event and festival organisers on how to use its new free, online tool for measuring the economic impact of events.