After 4-years of not staging one, the South African Cultural Observatory (SACO) hosted its 4th International Conference in the City of Tshwane at beginning of November attended by over 450 participants who attended the event in person and virtually.
Organised in partnership with the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, the conference’s primary objective was to discuss the difficulties and issues affecting the cultural and creative sector in the face of the huge negative impact of the Covid-19 and the current world economic and social crisis, while encouraging participants to share lessons and their experiences. Thus the theme of the conference was Creative economy reset: Structuring the creative and cultural industries for a sustainable and inclusive future”,
As one of the key industry events in the Cultural and Creative Industries the conference attracted leading minds and experts working in and across the cultural and creative economy on the African continent, in Europe, Australia and the Americas, and boasted participation from 18 countries.
The speaker line-up was headlined by the world-renowned critical theorist and social scientist, the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, Professor Homi K. Bhabha who delivered the key-note speech on the first day of the conference.
Author of numerous works exploring colonial and postcolonial theory, cultural change and power, and cosmopolitanism, among other themes, Prof. Bhabha is one of the most important figures in contemporary postcolonial studies. He developed a number of the field's neologisms and key concepts, such as hybridity, mimicry, difference, and ambivalence. He engaged the conference on the topic of ‘Culture wars: Trends driving the state of global culture and the need to rethink citizenship and affiliation’.
In addition to Bhabha, the high-level line up of speakers included Ms. Laura Callanan Founding Partner of the Upstart Co-Lab, based in New York who spoke on the topic of new models of investment in the creative economy and specifically on “how investment in the creative economy can achieve deep people-focused impact”; top industry author and the University of South Australia’s Professor of Creative Economy, Justin O’Connor (a leading thinker and international expert of cultural economy theory with interests in such areas as contemporary urban cultures; cultural and creative industries; cultural policy; arts and culture reset); and Prof. Andy Pratt, UNESCO Chair of Global Creative Economy, Professor of Cultural Economy, Department of Media, Culture and the Creative Industries City, University of London who will speak on "Transformations of the Creative Economy”.
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