Visual and Performing Arts of Africa is a Mellon funded research team based in the Fine Art Department at Rhodes University, South Africa, and is one of four Humanities Focus Areas.

Project Leader, Prof Ruth Simbao, launched the research unit in January 2011.

For three years (2011 to 2013) the team will focus on the research theme "The Audacity of Place", which opens up discussions about 'place' and 'space' in the discourse of contemporary art.

2012 Team Members are Ruth Simbao, Nomusa Makhubu, Portia Malatjie, Zama Nsele, Eben Lochner, Paul Cooper, Annemi Conradie, Rachel Baasch, Lerato Bereng, Gerald Machona, Simone Heymans and Samantha Munro. Dotun Makun was a member in 2011.

The key aims of the team are to produce high quality research outputs (in the form of publications, exhibitions and performances), to foster academic cooperation and collaboration by working on related topics, and to engage with society by addressing pertinent social, political and economic concerns in Africa today. While our research is based in a local context, it generates dialogue with the international art world and explores new ways of conceptualizing the 'local' and the 'global'.

News

DOUNG ANWAR JAHANGEER VISITS RHODES

Doung Anwar Jahangeer presented a talk at the Fine Art Department, Rhodes University, in April 2012.

Doung Anwar Jahangeer is a Mauritian-born architect/artist/performer living in Durban, South Africa. Extending beyond his profession he broadens his definition of architecture, developing the notion of "anarchitecturewithoutwalls".

In 2008 he co-founded the NPO dala, an organization that focuses on devising initiatives that engage art/architecture for social justice. His work is multi-media and includes live performance, film/video, sculpture, painting, installation and architecture. He engages with the urban fabric often in an openly critical and sometimes provocative manner.

In 2000 Jahangeer conceptualised and implemented "The CityWalk" initiative as a way of directly engaging with and observing the flux and mutability of his adopted city.  The project now includes walks in Johannesburg, London, Belo Horizonte, Addis Ababa, Malmo, Marseilles, Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

During the 2012 National Arts Festival Jahangeer will lead his audience/participants on a CityWalk that grapples with the site of Grahamstown, a city with a complex history of colonialism and violence, that is being recognised for its 200th anniversary this year. These performances are part of the MAKING WAY exhibition during festival that will be in the Alumni Gallery (Albany History Museum), the Provost Jail and Fort Selwyn. See pages 96, 107, 108 and 109 in the National Arts Festival programme, which is available online: http://www.nafest.co.za.