Scholars Spotlight Arts Education with exhibition

By CityLife Arts Writer

For those who are intellectually inclined and probably looking for intellectual stimulation through an Afrocentric  cultural perspective, you need not look beyond the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria. There is currently an exciting group exhibition, a collaborative effort by scholars and art practitioners whoseresearch is critically informed and grounded in historical analysis, particularly with respect to Africa’s colonial heritage.

The exhibition has been on from 12 August 2023, at the  Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (UP). This exhibition is part of  Another Roadmap Africa Cluster (ARAC), an exhibition by a group of African scholars and practitioners of artistic and cultural education who have been collaborating, since 2015, to pursue a joint programme of research into arts educational practices in their respective localities. Operating in both formal and informal contexts across the African continent, their research is critically informed and grounded in historical analysis, particularly with respect to Africa’s colonial heritage.

ARAC is a cluster of Another Roadmap School, which is a self-organised network of practitioners and researchers of artistic and cultural education based in over twenty-four cities on four continents worldwide. ARAC’s working groups are based in African cities and are currently active in Kampala, Nyanza, Lubumbashi, Kinshasa, Maseru, Johannesburg, Lagos, and Cairo. The cluster’s aim is to build a shared knowledge base and a structure of mutual learning that will benefit African practitioners and contribute to advances in thinking and practice worldwide.

ARAC’s presentation forms part of Javett-UP’s 2023 program which invests emphasis on Pan-African artistic education in partnership with both local and continental platforms and forums, bridging the knowledge divide through hybrid channels. The Javett-UP is an exceptional art centre that enhances learning through transdisciplinary journeys in the arts. It engages diverse publics through creativity, in exploring the human condition, and re-imagining futures.

For the Javett-UP’s iteration, ARAC primarily focuses on the Schoolbook Project, which aims enhance access to the work that the group has done, and the knowledge it has produced since 2015. These include PROVOCATIONS, a collection of the questions and provocations in arts education; EXERCISES which systematise the methodologies those involved have developed; and GLOSSARY a compilation of glossaries of indigenous African words that are used to describe concepts unlike but akin to European concepts of art, artist, aesthetics, design and education. Visitors can also engage the following creative works:

The ARAC Zines are a repository collection of zines made by the different working groups that compose the Another Roadmap Africa Cluster. The Zines speak to the research interests and working practices of the working groups. They are a way of sharing what ARAC members are working on in an uncomplicated and economical way.

The Traveling Silkscreen Workshop in a Suitcase (Traveling Suitcase)is a concept that derives from the Medu Art Ensemble collective, which was composed of a group of cultural workers who created posters as part of the protest art movement during the apartheid era. ARAC re-imagines this suitcase.

On 27 January the Javvet Art Centre  will be hosting a Reading and Writing Session on the Histories of Arts Education Archive, which forms part of the ARAC exhibition. The series of sessions, including this one are  facilitated by Prof Andrew, and are organised to encourage visitors or participants to read books being presented in the archive installation, which is made up of his arts   education archive and publications from Wits University Libraries.

in the present through the various workshop activations. It consists of print materials which can be used and adapted in any context.

The Un/chrono/logical Timelineis an exercise of “inhabiting” histories and considering history as a “resource.” Since its inception in 2017, the Johannesburg Working Group has facilitated 12 iterations, allowing participants to engage with the text through sonic interventions, poetry, imagery, and personal narratives. For Javett-UP, visitors will be allowed to read through the rich archival and historical influences of art education and artistic practice.

Histories of Arts Education Archive Installationis a selection of material from Professor David Andrew’s arts education archive, supplemented by publications from the Wits University libraries. Visitors are encouraged to spend time with the archive and to read the material in conjunction with the Un/chrono/logical Timeline of Histories of Arts Education and the space as a whole.

So far there is an ongoing programme that includes members of the public. For example on 12 August, 2023, members of the public were invited to join a Collective Dialogue on ARAC exhibition. The dialogue was facilitated by Prof. Andrew and Javett-UP Curator for Education and Mediation Puleng Plessie and who unpacked the Un/chrono/ logical Timeline and Histories. Entrance was free.