What We Do
Projects
The National/Gauteng office key projects 2010-2011:
Two Thousand and Ten Reasons to Live in a Small Town
Two Thousand and Ten Reasons to Live in a Small Town is a public art project conceptualised and facilitated by VANSA and funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF). The project aims to create opportunities for the insertion of contemporary art practice and thinking into new contexts and environments, reaching new audiences in new ways. The project enables artists to develop their own practice and the impact of this practice outside of major urban centres and outside of the traditional context of the gallery space. A team of ‘critical friends’ has been assembled around the project (Joseph Gaylard, Dorothee Kreutzfeldt, Nontobeko Ntombela, Rike Sitas and Rat Western), providing support and feedback to the participating artists.
Taken together, the selected projects involves 17 contemporary artists developing experimental public artworks in small towns and rural environments across South Africa, selected through a call for proposals process. The projects are based on the experience of living and working in these contexts, with the possibility that these interventions might then have a permanent residue in the given context. Projects will be realised between October 2010 and March 2011, and will be documented in a publication and an exhibition, to be staged at the Goethe on Main space in May 2011.
Projects are being documented as they unfold through a dedicated blog at http://vansa2010reasons.blogspot.com/
Radio Interview: BASA Newsflash - Friday 13 May 2011 | Guest : Joseph Gaylard (Director of VANSA Gauteng) radiotoday.podomatic.com/entry/2011-05-14T06_38_06-07_00
ArtMap
VANSA Gauteng was commissioned by the Mondriaan Foundation to develop a map for the contemporary arts in South Africa as a basis for facilitating collaboration and exchange between South African and Dutch artists, galleries and organisations. A new on-line portal is anticipated, and a beta version of this can be viewed on our ArtMap page.
ArtRight
VANSA Gauteng has partnered with the WITS School of Arts and Brendan Copestake in the development of an on-line platform focusing on legal, financial and general business knowledge for people working in the visual arts industry. Go to our ArtRight page to find out more. A series of briefing sessions are being convened around the country to secure the participation of industry professionals in the development of the project, with the support of the Dramatic, Artistic and Literary Rights Organisation (DALRO).
In the pipeline: ArtRight workshops, helpdesk and publications
ArtKnowledge
VANSA Gauteng is undertaking scoping studies in four areas that we think are important for the development of our industry. These include research into the feasibility of introducing artist resale rights legislation in South Africa and a more effective copyright collection for South African artists, as well as potential incentives and schemes for the provision of low cost studio space and the promotion of South African art internationally. See our Research page for more information.
The National/Gauteng office is planning a series of industry networking events and discussion forums during the course of 2011 together with our Western Cape and KZN offices, provisionally titled “A New Agenda for the Visual Arts” – aimed at getting industry people in the same room as government, and facilitating constructive conversation about burning issues, industry needs and opportunities for better communication and greater collaboration between government and the sector. Follow our News updates for more information.
We are in now in the final year of a three-year internship programme which involves placing young and upcoming arts administrators in eleven arts organisations and projects across the country for a six month internship each year. We look forward to welcoming a new group of interns into the network during the course of the coming year. Look out for calls for applications in the Employment section of our Opportunities page.
ARTCONNECT
time based media / audience / people as infrastructure / research / site-specific / interventions / performance / body politics / staging / collaboration / play / chance / randomness / collaboration / networks / collective actionboration / play / chance / randomness / collaboration / networks / collective action
The URBAN/Flux film festival is an experiment in imagining urban space as the locus of all things possible. It seeks to elaborate alternative, ethically driven ways of living and thinking, doing and perceiving (in) the city, to unexpected creative ends. Through a focus on radically innovative experimental film and art video, it aims to create a bridge between cities worldwide, linking places real and imagined, physical and virtual. The goal is to deploy citiness in and from Africa to dream urban futures planet-wide. 40 filmmakers from across the world come together in this richly speculative endeavour.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE GOETHE-INSTITUT. Johannesburg is about to be taken over by the most unique art festival in history.
VANSA (Visual Arts Network of SA), the Cape Craft and Design Institute and Business and Arts SA (BASA) have worked with the national Department of Arts and Culture around the development and realisation of a creative programme for COP17, complementing and synergising with existing initiatives, and in close cooperation with the Department of Environmental Affairs. VANSA worked on the visual and public art aspects of the programme, and together with a diversity of partners and its network, have managed to pull together a range of compelling projects.
Yeoville Studio, a community-oriented research initiative, is opening a public and interactive exhibition of its most recent work that will be an overview on its involvement in the neighborhood over a period of two years.
Launched by VANSA in September 2011, ARTCONNECT aims to explore the imaginative reuse and animation of non-arts spaces outside of the established contemporary art circuits in Gauteng, representing a unique opportunity for young artists to develop their practice with curatorial and technical support from the VANSA network.
VANSA Gauteng is working with the WITS School of Arts and the University of Strasbourg (France) on a project to be realised during the latter part of 2012 - URBAN GAMES.
Please join us for an evening of stimulating discussion and debate about the present and future of public arts practice in South Africa.
The exhibition Two Thousand and Ten Reasons to Live in a Small Town scheduled from 12th of May to 12th of June 2011 at the project space GoetheOnMain. Co-curated by the Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA) and Doung Anwar Jahangeer
In May 2010, VANSA put out a call for proposals for the project Two Thousand and Ten Reasons to Live in a Small Town, with a deadline for submissions in August. A series of project briefing and proposal writing workshops were held across the during the course of June and July.
In May 2010, VANSA put out a call for proposals for the project Two Thousand and Ten Reasons to Live in a Small Town, with a deadline for submissions in August. A series of project briefing and proposal writing workshops were held across the during the course of June and July.
Briefing workshops were convened across the country to provide interested artists with an opportunity to find out more about the project and develop their proposal writing skills. The workshops were held in Grahamstown, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban.
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