PUBLIC FORUM and arts program: Re-Thinking Heritage, the Arts and the Museum in South Africa

PUBLIC FORUM and arts program: Re-Thinking Heritage, the Arts and the Museum in South Africa

Thursday 26 September 2019

Location: The South African Sendigsgestig Museum, 40 Long Street Cape Town

Time: 18:00 – 20:00

In celebration of Heritage Month, Heritage day on 24th September and the South African tradition of critical public engagement, the South African Cultural Policy Network (SACPN) in collaboration with the South African Slave Church Museum and a selection of local artists invites you to an evening event and panel discussion on Re-Thinking Heritage, the Arts and the Museum in South Africa.

Our venue on the evening, a critically important one in both South African and global history, is a place deserving of respect and serious reflection. In honour of the painful stories and memories preserved there, it being national Heritage month and this year marking the 400th anniversary of the Atlantic Slave Trade, we have curated a short programme of select performances for before and after the evening’s discussion:

18:00 Greeting & Intro Performance

18:30 Public Forum

19:55 Closing Performance

PUBLIC FORUM

We frame this mediated public forum first in a national context: how do we think, practice, perform and live out our understanding of art, culture and heritage in South Africa? In the words of one of our panelists ‘what is the sociological role of the museum in building a socially cohesive society? How does it unshackle itself from its founding ethos as a colonial instrument?’ (Kasibe, 2017). How might the arts play a role in rethinking the museum and questions around heritage?

We also look at the global context, in which the longstanding debate around whether museums can be ideologically neutral, around the recognition of the museums’ violent and imperial origins and around the 21st Century museums’ social, political and cultural value is gaining increased momentum on various platforms. Should the museums’ core mission be the preservation of tangible and intangible heritage, or should it be the use of cultural heritage to promote human dignity, social justice, global equality, and planetary well-being? What does this mean in practice?

We have invited four panelists who are invested practically and intellectually in the field of museums, heritage, art and public culture to share their views with us, after which we invite debate and contribution from you. Please join our discussion with:

• Wandile Kasibe is a PhD candidate in Sociology, UCT, a Chevening scholar and museologist with international training. His research focuses on ‘The Intersection between Museums and the Construction of Race Ideologies in South Africa’.
• Siona O’Connell is an African Studies scholar, curator and film maker at the University of Pretoria.
• Steven Sack works as an independent consultant in the area of arts, museums and cultural policy. He was most recently the CEO of the Origins Centre, University of the Witwatersrand.
• Masa Soko is the museum manager of the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum, qualified in museum and heritage studies and Heritage Ambassador for the District Six and Lwandle Museums.

Entrance is free but seating is limited. Please RSVP to sophiaroso to confirm attendance no later than Wednesday 25 September.