Full-time artist Mondli Mbhele from Durban was announced as the winner of the 2022 Sasol New Signatures Art Competition. With the win he walks away with a cash prize of R100 000 and an opportunity to have a solo exhibition at the Pretoria Art Museum in 2023.
The deadline for the call for abstracts, papers and presentations has been extended to 9 September 2022.
The creative industries carried us through the darkest days of the COVID-19 crisis through music, film, literature, craft and more. But the long-term impact of the pandemic – prolonged closures and lack of social security – has hit the world’s creatives hardest, as the most precarious and vulnerable of workers.
I am hopeful that as you read this edition of The Cultural Observer you are warm as this winter has been very chilly, with temperatures plummeting to close to zero degrees in some parts of the country.
In this edition we highlight key findings from our recent reports. The reports are: a chapter from the Mapping Study that gives the provincial profile of the cultural and creative industry and the South African’s Animation Industry: Ecosystem Analysis.
The award-winning actor and director James Ngcobo has joined Joburg City Theatres (JCT) as an artistic director. Ngcobo who was with the Market Theatre Foundation for nine years joins the JCT as of July 1 and will be responsible for developing and implementing an artistic vision for organisation’s 10 spaces.
Absa has opened a new art gallery in the piazza of Towers Main in Johannesburg central business district as of May 2022. The Absa Art Gallery officially opened its doors with the first exhibition titled Voices: Past and Present.
As you read this the final cultural shows of National Arts Festival are possibly on stage in Makhanda. The National Arts Festival came back in a face-to-face format for the first time in two years.
This edition of The Cultural Observer is published during an interesting but complex international environment. While on the positive side the world has seen Covid-19 infections numbers subside, we are witnessing a war that has a devasting impact to the world economy.
The South African Cultural Observatory was established to undertake economic research for the cultural and creative industries in South Africa. The kind research we conduct provides such information as to the economic size of the sector, number of jobs in the sector or transformation. We publish the reports on our website and in various media platforms, including this newsletter, with a view to empower industry stakeholders with information that we hope they will find useful, informative and can be relied upon when making decisions that affect the sector.
Nkosinathi Innocent Maphumulo, popularly known as Black Coffee made South Africa proud once more with winning a Grammy Award at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards Ceremony organised by the United States National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.
The Apartheid Museum has reopened its doors to the public and is encouraging as many people to visit and tour the facility. The museum closed its doors in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
