Life and times of cultural legend and activist Benjy Francis to be remembered through film screening and discussion at Johannesburg Art Gallery on Friday
By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor
One of the country’s leading figures on the country’s arts and cultural spheres, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, Benjy Francis, who passed on last year will be commemorated by colleagues and cultural figures on Friday, March 21, 2025 at the Johannesburg Art Gallery.
Big cultural figures and artists, some of whom have worked with him, others admired his work and yet others inspired by him will reflect on the times and life of Francis through a panel discussion. Full of generosity of spirit and his determined focus on the intrinsic cultural value of the arts instead of its material value, Francis championed the sort of art aimed at transforming society. For this kind of work, he was highly respected, one of the few practitioners in contemporary art who believe in the transformative potential of the arts.
Francis was also commended for his mentoring ability, with many an art activist in post-apartheid South Africa having been mentored by him. One such mentee who benefited from Francis’ generosity of spirit and his foresight to share what he knew, especially when it comes to creating cultural products that changed society is France Moleme. He is one of the organisers of this get together on Friday, together with like-minded people.
When I met Moleme a few weeks ago to speak about this reflective dialogue on the times and work of Francis one could tell that he is one of the mentees of Francis’ whose life has been touched by the cultural figure in a significant and transformative way.
“I am working with like-minded people to put this together. There will be also a film screening about the work of Francis. This way we thought it is a befitting way to honour a cultural figure who has done a lot in this country with regards to art activism. For him, he used to tell us mentees that he was not training us to become just actors, but cultural activists,” Moleme told CITYLIFE/ARTS in an interview.
Although Francis will be remembered for several projects that he designed and implemented successfully, the one thing that many will remember him for is the Afrika Cultural Centre that he founded and shepherded to great heights in Newtown, Johannesburg, making it an institution of importance, especially for producing young artists who later on played important roles on the country’s artistic and cultural scene.
Africa Cultural Centre was launched in 1980 and registered in May 1984
The concept grew as a direct response to the 1976 Soweto Uprising in which high school students demonstrated and claimed their right to determine and direct the nature and circumstance of the education programme they desired.
The State responded with brutal force causing a mass exodus of youth into exile; and an extended era of repression and a daily enforcement of a rigid. inferior and domesticating education. In the period 1976-1979 ACC director, Benjy
Francis joined several initiatives to address the continuing crisis in education
working through the dynamics of the arts and humanities, firstly through aprogramme of regular workshops in Soweto, Kliptown/Eldorado Park and Lenasia on history, forced removals, social fragmentation, personal and collectivedevelopment; secondly through programmes on identity, black consciousnessand Africanism (working through a new arts structure at that time, calledSOARTA -Soweto Arts Association); and thirdly through a new movement calledFederated Union of Black Arts of which he was one of the Founders. All these
initiatives were direct responses to the educational and social upheaval in thecountry as a result of Soweto ’76. In this period, coupled with professionalwork at Dorkay House 1975, the Market Theatre 1976/77, SOARTA 1976/78and FUBA I began planning and implementing a new initiative Afrika CulturalCentre that would to go directly to the heart of addressing one of the chief outcomes of the Uprising by defining a new critical consciousness in education andresistance, the exploration of socio-cultural intervention strategies in restorativeand reconstructive processes within communities, self and group(psychosocialand cultural analysis around history, race, class, gender and economics.
Thelanguage debate challenged the essence of apartheid oppression and enabled us to place creativity, arts, culture and history at the centre of our thinking. This was a radical approach that began redefining the paradigm of oppressor/oppressed by placing a new dynamic collective understanding of the op-pressed at the centre of change. Inspired by the actions of the youth, the organisation placed children and young people as its target group and defined its purpose as the promotion, production, research and development of cultural,artistic, educational and vocational programmes for the encouragement andadvancement of community development, simply meaning resistance and freedom.
The Centre’s educational praxis, EDUCATION THROUGH CULTURE, defined instruggle, was based upon empirical, experimental and scientific analysis of the psychosocial and cultural process in South Africa as it affected human development during the apartheid years and its impact on democratic transformation i.e. the reconstruction and development process, as a continuum of struggle currently underway in SA.
Afrika Cultural Centre was an independent, non-governmental organisation thatapplied for project funding from independent funding sources e.g. developmentagencies like UNICEF, some Government departments, Foundations and Donoragencies for specific projects. ACC has done several projects for NelsonMandela and the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, including an HIV and Aidsparliament that was situated in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve (2001 attended by QuincyJones and Qibulah Shabazz, a daughter of Malcolm X; and a Southern African
Youth Parliament programme on leadership, on the occasion of Mandela’s90th birthday celebration in 2008. This involved running 28 workshops (2 ineach centre) and 15 Parliaments on leadership in all 9 provinces of South Africaand several countries in the region, culminating in a Southern African Regional
Parliament with all the countries, in Sandton. They conducted a week-long seriesof workshops for Women-in-Dialogue for Zanele Mbeki in 2008, Workshopson History, Arts and Culture for the Thabo Mbeki Foundation in 2013 and 2014and a three-day conference on Albinism with 100 children with albinism for theDepartment of Women, Children and Disabled persons in 2013. The Film Clubs
Project was in gestation since 2005 and we initiated it in 2010 in partnershipwith the Danish Association of Film Clubs and ran our first international pilot ofthe project in 2011-2013 in Gauteng Province. In addition to conducting filmclubs in Gauteng, the centre ran workshops in performance, film, arts and media invarious settings in community in Gauteng.
ACC was not a membership organisation. It was registered as a Section 21 company- an association NOT FOR GAIN during the 80’s. In 2012 Francis and others registered Afrika Cultural Centre as a Public Benefit Organisation (PBO 930014224) withAfrika Culture and Development Clubs (ACDC/ Film Clubs Project/FCP) as aproject of Afrika Cultural Centre.
The organisation’s strengths lied in its then, 40 plus years of service in development through arts, culture and education working in the sector of children and youth.
It has developed strong skills, creative and functional techniques, knowledge and expertise in this sector.
About Benjy Francis
Benjy Francis was born in Cato Manor, Durban andhe started his work in the arts as a high school student in 1964 in the old Nataland in the formative period of Black Theatre from 1967-1975. In 1964 he wasa member of the Shah Theatre Academy together with Welcome Msomi beforehis production of uMabatha. Benjy left Durban in 1975 after studying theatreand directing in London, he joined Phoenix Players at Dorkay House and in1975 became the first Black Resident Director of the Market Theatre till 1977,when as a result of the Soweto Uprisinghe left the Market Theatre to work asan arts educator and artistic director in Black communities. He started a schoolof the arts and Afrika Cultural Centre in 1980 and the Herbert Dhlomo Theatrein 1983. The theatre was closed by the apartheid state in 1984. The ACC continued to function throughout the struggle and began building the First Children’s Museum and the Dhlomo Theatre in the Potato Sheds Newtown (Johannesburg’s first open Market) in 1992 till 2010 when the ACC was forced out tomake place for the commercial shopping mall development now known as New-town Junction. Homeless, since then the Afrika Cultural Centre continues towork from a modest office at Constitution Hill, Braamfontein, Johannesburg.
ACC’s potential for growth is tremendous from the perspective of the quality of work, consistency, passion and understanding of development needs in the country. ACC occupied prime property in the Newtown Cultural Precinct for the development of a unique cultural/educational centre. The potential for this physical development together with ACC’s vision, expertise and range of arts and development projects, although unrivalled by any other organisation with a similar history of struggle, was never realised as the property was earmarked for commercial development by the private sector.
The panel discussion.
To kick start the event, there will be the screening of the film The Bicycle Man a film by Ntobozuko Twiggy Matiwana, which will be followed by a panel discussion reflecting on Benjy Francis’ enduring legacy and impact and the ways in which his works continue to inspire future generations, shape and resonate with the creative communities in southern Africa.
Program Directors: Tumi Sedumedi and Jabuani Tshabalala
Panelists: Ntobozuko Twiggy Matiwana (Male breast cancer activist)
Solly Magkata (Mental health), Seipati Bulane Hopa (Grug abuse), Boitumelo Kgasi Parental rejection) and Ramadan Suleman (Cinema for social awareness)
Date: 21 march 2025
Venue: Johannesburg Art gallery
Time: 10h00-14h00