AGENCY, IMAGINATION AND RESILIENCE: FACILITATING
SOCIAL CHANGE THROUGH THE VISUAL ARTS IN SOUTH
AFRICA

Kim Shelley Berman

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Johannesburg 2009.

i
ABSTRACT

This thesis presents case studies of five projects that use the visual arts to effect social change in
post-apartheid South Africa. Artist Proof Studio, Paper Prayers, Phumani Paper, Community
Engagement at the University of Johannesburg and the AIDS Action Intervention exemplify a range of
approaches to social activism through the arts that parallels the political transformation to democracy.

The first case study traces the history of the community printmaking studio, Artist Proof Studio, from
1991 to 2008 in three phases: redress, reconciliation and rebuilding. Artist Proof Studio was founded
in 1992 to provide visual arts training to highly creative, but previously disadvantaged individuals. The
Paper Prayers for AIDS Awareness initiative was implemented as a program of the studio in 1998.
Originally funded by government, the campaign reached thousands of people nationwide. Phumani
Paper, a national hand papermaking programme for job creation, was founded in response to a state
directive to higher education institutions to implement technology transfer and poverty alleviation
initiatives. The Papermaking Research and Development Unit was established at the University of
Johannesburg in 1996. The principles and approaches established through these programs are
analysed in the fifth case study, the AIDS Action Intervention. This three-year intervention brings all
the initiatives together in a multi-disciplinary program that applies participatory action research as well
as visual arts methodologies that help catalyse meaningful social action.

The central argument of these case studies is that the projects continue to survive, against significant
odds, because of the power of imagination, aspiration and dreaming. I interrogate the projects?
foundational premise that participants are empowered by the creative process, which promotes a
sense of pride, and generates leadership as well as income. In addition, I argue that grass-roots visual
arts projects, which ordinarily go un-analysed in any systematic way, can offer a model for
transforming knowledge-creation through their non-hierarchical and participatory methodologies. In
sum, this thesis documents and analyses eighteen years of arts activism; it assesses the actual
outcomes of the interventions against the idealistic aims on which the projects were founded, and
provides a resource guide for cultural activism in South Africa. It demonstrates the dynamic
possibilities that exist in the domain of development and arts education.

Key Words:
Agency, resilience, community-engagement, social change, community-arts, participatory
methodologies, Photovoice, AIDS Action, sustainable development.

DECLARATION:

I declare that this thesis is, unless otherwise indicated, my own unaided work. It is
submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg. It is has not been submitted before for any other degree or examination
in any other university.

________________________
Kim Shelley Berman

---------------day of ----------------, 2009

iii

For Robyn van der Riet, my life partner
who has blessed me with love, support and richness in my life.

iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to acknowledge and express my appreciation to all those who made it possible for me to
create this thesis and who enabled me to engage with my work, life and community.

I was fortunate to have had extraordinary mentors and teachers throughout my life. I
particularly want to acknowledge my thesis supervisors for providing such solid guidance,
wisdom and belief that chaos and complexity can be presented as a coherent system, and for
believing and guiding me to do this, even during those times when I did not believe I could.
The support I received is a reaffirmation of other people?s faith in me and the gratitude I feel in
being given opportunities that can transform the way we perceive ourselves.

I am grateful for the many hours of discussion and reflection and time that helped me make the
links between practice and theory, and express my appreciation to:
? Pam Allara whose faith in me, her appreciation of my work, her ability to recognize my
own purpose and potential helped me believe in myself and provided the final impetus
to embark on the arduous journey of writing this thesis. It required an unwavering work
ethic, determination and resilience she gradually helped me develop which renewed
my confidence that I would finish the task in hand and experience the possibilities of
my own role to make a difference to other peoples? lives.
? Lara Allen, whose wisdom, insight and ability to extract the essence of meaning has
been inspiring. She has also ensured that the presentation of this document is
thorough, its language elegant and proper and that it has enough evidence to support
every assertion and project mentioned. This has led to the creation of an archive in my
office which contains hundreds of files with careful links to each footnote.

I am indebted to the various mentors in my life who inspired me to cherish my role as an
educator and printmaker:
? My lecturers at Wits University, in particular Giuseppe Cattaneo who ignited my
ongoing passion for printmaking. My mentors at Tufts University were Pamela Allara
who introduced me to the concept of a radical feminist perspectives of art history and
Sherman Teichman at the International Centre for Education and Public Inquiry
(EPIIC), who trusted his students to make things happen on a global scale. The
faculty at Museum School of Fine Arts, especially Peter Scott, who opened the world
of teaching to me. I am grateful to my more recent mentors Cynthia Cohen and her
inspiring team for the Recasting Reconciliation through Culture and the Arts Institute,
v
Brandeis University during my fellowship with Stompie Selibe in November 2003 and
in 2004.
? The founders of the original Artist Proof Studio in Boston; Cathy Kernan, Jane
Goldman, Mary Sherwood, and Ilana Manolson who trained me as their apprentice
and encouraged me to start Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg.

In many ways this journey was inspired by loss, and a response to loss:
? the new Artist Proof Studio was rebuilt in memory of Nhlanhla Xaba, my founding
partner and friend
? the Ford Foundation AIDS Action program was designed to honour the life and
leadership of Nozipho Buthelezi (and the eight additional KwaZulu-Natal Paper group
members who have passed away as a result of silence and fear of the AIDS epidemic)
? the quiet passing of Jones Mathabule, a bright light who brought art into the lives of a
thousand children, inspired the Reclaiming Lives project
? Reclaiming Lives II is inspired by the loss of Osiah Masekwameng whose senseless
death continues to make me angry enough to keep fighting.

In other ways this journey is inspired by a determination to survive and transform life:
? Roselina Molefe, whose life felt like rubbish and who used the recycling of waste to
transform dying into living through her creativity and determination, inspired the
beginnings of Phumani Paper
? Fundi Biyela, Jacobeth Lepedi, Caroline Mashiane, Masechaba Molelekoa, Nthabiseng
Phiri, Tlaki Radebe, Hermina Sephati, Grace Tshikuve, Felicia Vukeya and the 22
founding women of Phumani Paper for their resilience, determination and dreams who
are Women on Purpose and teach us all how to make things happen
? all the members of the sixteen surviving Phumani Projects and the Paper Prayers
embroidery collectives whose skill, resilience and dedication is inspirational
? all those who agreed to be interviewed and generously shared their stories that I used
in the conclusion to the thesis: Thabang Lehoybe, Felicia Vukeya, Nelson Makamo,
Roselina Molefe, Aletta Legae, John Taoss, Gadi Selemani, Lilo du Toit, Jacobeth
Lepedi and David Tshabalala, and to those whose stories are recorded and archived in
the hope of making them visible one day.

My journey is a team process undertaken in partnership with my collaborators. My appreciation
is to:
vi
? my former University of Johannesburg students, whose energy and inspiration made
things happen and who have stuck with me until their own dreams took them to fly to
greater heights; Mandy Coppes, Terence Fenn, Sheila Flynn, Cloudia Hartwig,
Mphapho Ra Hlasane, Carol Hofmeyr, Jeannot Ladeira, Thabang Lehoybe, Shonisani
Maphangwa, Bronwyn Marshall, Same Mduli, Trevor Thebe, David Tshabalala, Taryn
Cohn, Zhan? Warren and many others
? my team at APS whose passion, energy, dedication and shared vision of creating an
ubuntu space inspires the lives of so many artists to believe they can make a difference
in the world; Suzanne du Preez, Cloudia Hartwig, Philemon Hlungwane, Nelson
Makamo, Marjorie Maleka, Hloni Mashaba, Chris Molefe, Paul Molete, Lucas Ngweng,
Ilse Pahl, Stompie Selibe, Pontsho Sikhosana, Motsamai Thabane, Trevor Thebe,
Molefe Thwala, and all the many other APS support staff and interns, artists and
teachers who have used the space to grow wings
? past and present Artist Proof students who arrive at APS with such talent and potential
and dedicate their energy to transforming possibilities into realities
? Cara Walters, who was Artist Proof Studio Manager for ten years and has faced
tremendous personal loss with such bravery and resilience and remains a constant
source of strength and support to APS
? the Paper Prayers team: Shannin Antonopolou, Frieda Le Grange, Aletta Legae,
Shonisani Ndhlovu, Lydia Zungu and the multi-skilled Cultural Action for Change
trainers: Bart Cox, Gugu Dubazana, Mphapho Ra Hlasane, Sue Sellschop, Lesego
Khunou, Nhlanhla Mabizela, Given Nkuna, Shonisani Maphangwa, Elton Mpongoshe
and Sipho Zeko for their unwavering commitment as change agents
? the administration team at APS: Frans Dlamini, Patience Dlodlo, Anne Gordon, Maggie
Lekubu and Lerato Moroeng, who pick up all the pieces and keep APS chugging like a
train that continually collects more passengers
? the founding Directors on the Board of APS: Dr Gillian Crawford and Sokhaya Charles
Nkosi for their consistency and ongoing support
? David Paton and Vedant Nanackchand and my colleagues in the Department of Visual
Art at University of Johannesburg who supported me, covered for me and gave me the
space to embark on this study
? my colleagues at Phumani who supported the organization and kept it alive, and
resuscitated it from almost dying many deaths: to Liz Linsell, my deputy Director for six
years and Thomas Auf der Heyde, who championed Phumani?s profile at the former
TWR and helped us through the transition into University of Johannesburg, the
remarkable Phumani Paper regional coordinators and trainers, the dedicated Phumani
vii
Paper staff (past and present) including Joslyn Walker, Mandy Coppes, Bronwyn
Marshall, Frikkie Meintjes, Nthabiseng Phiri, Grace Sicwebo, Lilo du Toit, Grace
Tshikuvhe, and David Tshabalala
? the Archival Mill team; Sibusiso Mbatha, Nathi Ndlandla, Thami Tshabalala, Khaya
Qotyana, Bongani Khambule, Dumisane Dlamini, Londi Mngadi and Simon Sekuba
who have hung in there during the ups and downs and times of extreme scarcity,
holding onto passion and vision of what can be in the future
? my student assistants Nicole Warman, Shonisani Maphangwa and Keboni
Ramasimong who catalogued and filed, interviewed and transcribed and assisted me
with tracking down loose ends and for always being available to help, and making the
data capturing manageable
? my copy editor, Brenda Keen, who has been so thorough in her editing of my document
? the talented graphic design student graduate, Yashad Singh for the layout of my figures
and plates.

I would also like to extend my grateful acknowledgements to the institutions and funding
organizations who have supported this research, my students and community engagement
over the past fifteen years. These partnerships have facilitated extraordinary opportunities for
each participant referred to in this study. They include:
? the University of Johannesburg Research Committee, the National Research
Foundation, the Faculty of Art Design and Architecture, the Department of Science and
Technology, the Department of Arts, Culture and Heritage, the South African
Development Fund, Johnson and Johnson International, UNESCO, the Ford
Foundation, the MAPPP SETA, and the many other donors and partners that have
supported APS, Paper Prayers and Phumani Paper.

My other acknowledgements extend to an extraordinary support system around me. I do not
do much alone (apart from making my own artwork) and this research project is a result of
many collaborations. I am the connector of a rich tapestry of threads that represent so many
inspirational people, experiences and opportunities. My friends, colleagues, students, and
collaborators are participants and have contributed to my ability to tell in my own way the story
of these projects. They colour and add texture to the diversity of expression and influences in
each chapter. Recognition goes:
? to my international friends and collaborators who I turn to for all kinds of personal,
project and teaching support, and who create the far-reaching ?ripple? that keeps me
afloat; to Pam Allara, Judie Blair, Eileen Foti, Birgit Blyth, Debbie Rasiel, Jinx Nolan,
viii
Judy Quinn, Rhoda Rosenberg, Paul Stopforth, and Christine Temin in Boston. My
appreciation for support extends to the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston and my
University of Michigan partners: Julie Ellison, Mark Creekmore, Jane Hassinger and
Marvin Parnes and their students, and Harry Boyte in Minnesota for his insight and
pioneering publications
? to other international print and paper collaborators; to Veerle Rooms for her network in
Belgium for facilitating such special international exchange opportunities. To
papermakers who have introduced papermaking to me and my students; Gail Deehry,
Sue Gosin, Lee Scott MacDonald, Anne McKowen, Walter Ruprecht, Robbin Silverberg
and Asao Shimura
? to the Ripple in the Water team Eileen Foti, Patti Piroh, Larry Londino, Mirjam Lablans
and Janet Pirchio, who came to South Africa on a huge leap of faith and dedicated so
many of hours to making a documentary that would honour the remarkable stories of
South Africans healing themselves through art
? to our special friends who provide Robyn and I with much love and support; Marie
Str?m, Leah Berkowitz-Nchabaleng, Armin Sethna, Kurt Schillinger, Mark Attwood,
Tamar Mason and Jack Ginsberg
? to Molly van der Riet for her unconditional acceptance and love

I have a remarkable family, I am one of five strong women, including my mom and three
sisters who, without naming or understanding the concept, created, struggled and fought for
agency in our household. We all left home determined to change the world and make it a
better place for others. My Dad, who passed away in 2008, tried patriarchal resistance and
control, and then resorted to generous love and support. His generous legacy and memory
continue to inspire. My appreciation is
? to Dad, Mossie, who is always with me and whom I miss so much
? to my remarkable sisters Lori, Cindy and Hayley whose connection nurtures, inspires
and sustains me throughout my life
? my ongoing appreciation is to Mom, Mona, for your inspiration and belief in your
daughters that they can do the impossible. I appreciate you being there for me from the
beginning, for introducing me to Nhlanhla Xaba, for your investment and belief in Artist
Proof Studio from day one, and for being the spark that ignited the flame, and for
keeping it alight
? to Taffy, my faithful dog who was at my heels from the beginning of this journey. He
was rescued from abandonment by Sister Sheila Flynn in February 1995 and has stuck
to my side all the way, and even though he can no longer see or hear or run, he
ix
remains under my desk through the countless hours of writing to see this project
through. He provides me with the ultimate lesson in resilience.

The person who makes everything possible is my rock and my partner, Robyn van der
Riet. She holds the thread so I can fly and stay connected to the ground. She makes the
impractical practical and the unreasonable, possible.
x
CONTENTS

ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................................. i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................................... iv

CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................................. x

LIST OF ACRONYMS .......................................................................................................................... xiii

LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................ xv

PREFACE......................................................................................................................................... xxviii

CHAPTER ONE: MAPPING THE JOURNEY......................................................................................... 1
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 1
Rationale ............................................................................................................................................. 4
Aims .................................................................................................................................................... 7
The Chapters....................................................................................................................................... 9
Theoretical Framework ..................................................................................................................... 12
Methodology ...................................................................................................................................... 22
Assessing Change ............................................................................................................................ 28
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 30

CHAPTER TWO: ARTIST PROOF STUDIO: Redress, Reconciliation and Rebuilding.................. 32
PART ONE: Redress: Founding and Early Years, 1991-2003 ......................................................... 32
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 32
The Founding of Artist Proof Studio .................................................................................................. 32
Redress ............................................................................................................................................. 33
Redress, a journey towards Reconciliation ....................................................................................... 40
PART TWO: Reconciliation: Artist Proof Studio 2003-2005 ............................................................ 41
Recasting Reconciliation: The Fellowship program at Brandeis University 2003-2005 ................... 45
The Aftermath of the Fire: Building toward Reconciliation ................................................................ 46
Ubuntu as a framework for Reconciliation ........................................................................................ 49
Defining the project and launching the new studio ........................................................................... 49
Incorporating ubuntu as Organizational Structure and Practice ....................................................... 50
Researching ubuntu in APS students? communities ......................................................................... 53
Transforming through creativity......................................................................................................... 55
PART THREE: Rebuilding: The Artist Proof Studio Artist as Change Agent ................................ 59
African Identity and South African Art ............................................................................................... 60
Artist as change agent ...................................................................................................................... 63
Engaging Community: Expanding the Concept of ?Community Centres? ......................................... 64
Men as Partners ................................................................................................................................ 67
Citizens at the Centre ........................................................................................................................ 69
Experiential Learning ........................................................................................................................ 69
Team Building through Mural Painting .............................................................................................. 70
Artists as citizen-agents .................................................................................................................... 72
Assessing Community-based arts centres as social movements ..................................................... 72
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 74

CHAPTER THREE: CREATING AWARENESS ? COUNTERING DENIAL: THE NATIONAL PAPER
PRAYERS HIV/AIDS AWARENESS AND ACTION CAMPAIGN 1996-2008 ..................................... 76
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 76
The Implementation of the Paper Prayers Campaign ....................................................................... 84
Paper Prayers: from Awareness to Action, some conclusions ....................................................... 100
Activism and Action: Paper Prayers, 2006-8: The Reclaiming Lives case study ........................... 101
Conclusions: Can art save lives? .................................................................................................... 108

xi
CHAPTER FOUR: PHUMANI PAPER: FROM A GOVERNMENT POVERTY ALLEVIATION
PROGRAM TO SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISES............................................................................... 112
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 112
Papermaking as Research: Setting up the Papermaking Research and Development Unit (PRDU)
........................................................................................................................................................ 118
Phumani Paper Projects: A Brief Introduction to the Sites ............................................................. 122
The Pilot project: Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal ............................................................................. 122
Papermaking sites for the regional provinces: Gauteng ........................................................ 123
North West Province Sites ..................................................................................................... 125
The Free State site ................................................................................................................. 127
Sites in the Eastern Cape ....................................................................................................... 128
The Limpopo Province sites ................................................................................................... 129
The Western Cape Paper sites .............................................................................................. 130
The Case-study of Kuyasa Papermaking in the Western Cape ............................................. 131
Poverty Alleviation: Linking Practice with Theory ........................................................................... 133
Phumani Paper: Poverty alleviation project or small business? ..................................................... 133
CSIR Case study ............................................................................................................................. 137
Sustainability or Dependency: the Challenge of Phumani Paper ................................................... 146
Archival Paper Production: A case of failed promises by government ........................................... 153
Systems Theory as a critical lens for analysing development ........................................................ 157
Reflections on Resilience ................................................................................................................ 161
Assessing Impact ............................................................................................................................ 164
Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................... 167

CHAPTER FIVE: TRANSFORMATIVE PEDAGOGY IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY . 170
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 170
Traditional Research versus Public Scholarship ............................................................................. 179
Papermaking as a Research and Development Program .............................................................. 185
Case Study: David Tshabalala ........................................................................................................ 192
Phumani Paper and the University of Johannesburg...................................................................... 196

CHAPTER SIX: CULTURAL ACTION FOR CHANGE: AN AIDS ACTION CASE STUDY .............. 205
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 205
PART ONE: Framing and Methodologies ........................................................................................ 206
Starting the Process: Goals and approaches ................................................................................. 206
Framing the Approach: Concepts, issues and theory ..................................................................... 208
Visual Culture and Public Action ..................................................................................................... 210
AIDS Action and Gender: HIV and women?s empowerment .......................................................... 212
Methodology for the Intervention .................................................................................................... 216
Academic goals and approaches for the AIDS Action interventions............................................... 216
Multi-disciplinary, Arts-based Research .......................................................................................... 217
Visual Methodologies: Photovoice, Paper Prayers and Community Mapping ................................ 220
Photovoice: Imaging and Imagining the world ................................................................................ 220
Paper Prayers: Expressions of Hope .............................................................................................. 221
Community and Visual Mapping: a pathway out of poverty ............................................................ 222
Assessment Methods ...................................................................................................................... 223
PART TWO: The Intervention ........................................................................................................... 225
PHASE ONE: The Pilot Phase: New Partners/New Knowledge: 2005-6 ....................................... 225
Summary of the 2006 Pilot Project Intervention .............................................................................. 227
Kutloano ? A Case Study of the Intervention: July-August 2006 .................................................... 231
The Photovoice discussion and images .......................................................................................... 233
Action Plans .................................................................................................................................... 233
General Summary of the Findings of the Pilot project intervention ................................................. 234
Visual outcomes as research evidence .......................................................................................... 234
PHASE TWO: The Roll-out of the AIDS Action Intervention 2006-8 ............................................. 235
Case Study of Phase Two: The Kutloano Group 2007-2008 .......................................................... 238
A visit after the second Intervention in Kutloano: May 2007 ........................................................... 238
PHASE THREE: The Third Intervention of the Kutloano Case Study: March-July 2008 ............ 240
Visual Mapping or the Tshupatsela ................................................................................................. 240
Summary of Findings from the Intervention: Cultural Action for Change ....................................... 241
xii
PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................... 245
Possibilities arising from the Intervention and Public Policy Implications ....................................... 245
The Use of Mapping for navigating a way out of Poverty: The way forward for Cultural Action for
Social Change, 2008-2010 .............................................................................................................. 247

CHAPTER SEVEN: FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS ...................................................................... 252
PART ONE: Navigating Possibilities Using Visual Voices ............................................................ 252
Reflections ....................................................................................................................................... 252
Capacities for Building Resilience ................................................................................................... 254
The value of the arts in enhancing democratic practice ................................................................. 255
The Challenges of transformative citizenship ................................................................................. 258
Linking democratic citizenship with self-creation and social transformation ................................... 259
Applying Theory to Practice to chart a way forward........................................................................ 260
Visual mapping: a process of navigating possibilities ............................................................ 262
Cultural Sites: influencing the formation of values ................................................................. 263
Transforming Leaders in Practice .......................................................................................... 264
Assesing Cultural Action: Beyond the Cultural Lens....................................................................... 265
Shifting the Paradigm ...................................................................................................................... 269
PART TWO: Voices from the Field ................................................................................................... 270
From this story to many stories ....................................................................................................... 270
Themes ........................................................................................................................................... 271
Agency: Thabang?s story ........................................................................................................ 271
The power of dreaming: Felicia?s story ................................................................................... 274
Artistic curiosity and creative adaptability: Aletta?s story ........................................................ 275
Resilience and Agency: Roselina ........................................................................................... 276
Artist as democratic citizen: ?One man can? ? an Artist Proof Story ...................................... 277
Economic agency and Aspiration: The Bosele Papermakers, Lehurutse .............................. 278
Self-creation: Nelson?s story ................................................................................................... 279
Narrative as an agent for citizen-activism and healing: Gadi ? Creating hope for the hopeless
................................................................................................................................................ 281
Resilience and the power of the visual voice: John?s story .................................................... 282
A paradigm shift: Lilo .............................................................................................................. 284
Deep democracy: David ......................................................................................................... 285

APPENDIX 1 ....................................................................................................................................... 288

REFERENCE LIST .............................................................................................................................. 295
xiii
LIST OF ACRONYMS

AiD Artist in Development Programme
AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
ANC African National Congress
APS Artist Proof Studio
ARC Agricultural Research Council
AZT Azidothymidine (an anti-HIV drug)
BAT Bartel Arts Trust Centre
BEE Black Economic Empowerment
CARE Community AIDS Response
CAS Create South Africa South
CCMA Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration
CFDR The Centre for Design Research School of Design Northumbria University
CICI Creative Inner City Initiative
CIGS Cultural Industries Growth Strategy
CRIC Community Resource and Information Centre
CSD Centre for Science Development
CSIR Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research
DAC Department of Arts and Culture
DACST Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology
DST Department of Science and Technology
EDL Educate Develop Learn Foundation
GEAR Growth, Employment and Redistribution
FADA Faculty of Art Design and Architecture
FRD Foundation for Research Development
FUBA Federated Union of Black Artists
HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus
IDASA Institute for Democracy in South Africa
IRSDP Integrated Rural Sustainable Development Programme
MAP Men as Partners
MAPPP-SETA Media and Publishing Print and Paper-Sector Training Authority
MTN Mobile Telephone Networks
NAPWA The National Association of People Living with HIV and AIDS
NRF National Research Foundation
NGO Non Governmental organization
NOAH Nurturing Orphans of AIDS for Humanity
OVC Orphaned and Vulnerable Children
NORAD The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
NQF National Qualifications Framework
PAR Participatory Action Research
PP Phumani Paper
PRDU Papermaking Research and Development Unit
xiv
RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme
RAU Rand Afrikaans University
SAB South African Breweries
SABC South African Broadcasting Corporation
SAQA South African Qualifications Authority
SASPU South African Students Press Union
SAYCO South African Youth Congress
SEE Serving Emerging Enterprises
SMME Small, Micro and Medium Enterprise
STIs Sexually Transmitted Infections
TAC Treatment Action Campaign
TWR Technikon Witwatersrand
TRC Truth and Reconciliation Commission
UNDP United Nations Development Program
UNICEF The United Nations Children?s Fund
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UJ University of Johannesburg
WSSD World Summit on Sustainable Development
VCT Voluntary Counselling and Testing
WITS University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

xv
LIST OF FIGURES

CHAPTER TWO
Figure 1: Plate 01 Print workshop for Sekhukhune Youth of the ANC Youth League,
Limpopo Province, 1990.
Figures 2a & b: Plate 01 Freda: The French Tool Etching Press, 1992.
Figure 2c: Plate 01 APS 57 Jeppe Street, Newtown: Johannesburg, 1992.
Figures 3a: Plate 02 Founding artists: Nhlanhla Xaba, Gordon Gabashane and Sokaya
Charles Nkosi, APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, 1993.
Figure 3b: Plate 02 Founding Members APS, Artist Proof Studio, Newtown:
Johannesburg, 1992.
Figure 4a: Plate: 02 APS Nhlanhla Xaba with class of 1995, Artist Proof Studio, Newtown:
Johannesburg. 1995.
Figure 4b: Plate 02 Nhlanhla Xaba with FUBA Students Neo Mda, Lucky Jiyane, Mike
Nene: APS, 1994.
Figure 5a & b: Plate 03 Street printing with a steamroller, Jeppe Street Newtown, Arts Alive
Festival, 1993.
Figure 6: Plate 03 Exhibiting street prints, Jeppe Street: Newtown, 1993.
Figure 7a & b: Plate 03 Project Literacy: APS collaboration with writers (a series of 12
readers), 1996.
Figure 8a: Plate 04 Volatile Alliances Group portraits behind Kim and Nhlanhla presenting
Portfolio, at Artist Proof Studio, 1995.
Figure 8b: Plate 04 Volatile Alliances Collograph plates, 1995.
Figure 8c: Plate 04 Volatile Alliances Portfolio for Africus Johannesburg Bienale. A
Portfolio of 60 colour etchings involving nine countries and 35 South
African artists, 1995.
Figure 8d: Plate 04 Collaborative monoprint tile-print, 1995.
Figure 8e: Plate 05 Peter Scott from the Museum School of Fine Arts with APS
participants of Volatile Alliances collaborations, 1995.
Figure 8f: Plate 05 Constructing New Identities: Portrait composed juxtaposing the
?exquisite corpse? process of different portrait section combinations,
1995.
Figure 9: Plate 05 Collaborative collograph print: ?Celebrating Arts and Culture? for the
Gauteng Legislature, 1995.
Figure 10a & b: Plate 06 Urban Futures: Collaborative Printmaking at APS (The late Jones
Mathabula and team of youth group), 1999.
Figure 10c: Plate 06 Xenophobia Urban Futures Print enlarged by the Cell C city-art
initiative on Turbine Hall, 2003-2006.
Figure 10d: Plate 06 ?Xenophobia? linocut print by Masekwameng, Sikhosana , Phailane,
Dlamini and Phuma, 1999.
xvi
Figure 10e: Plate 06 An Exhibition of Urban Future Collaborative Prints at Brandeis
University, Waltham: United States, 2003.
Figures 11: Plate 07 Artworks by APS members and students: 2004-7.
Figure 12: Plate 08 Teacher Training Graduates from Curriculum Development Project
(CDP), APS and former TWR (The facilitator, Charlotte Schaer in the
centre), TWR, Johannesburg, 1999.
Figure 13: Plate 08 International Workshops at APS Visiting Artist Veerle Rooms from
Belgium demonstrating a new technique of chine coll?, Newtown:
Johannesburg, 2006.
Figure 14a: Plate 08 Visiting artists Birgit Blythe and Judy Quinn from Boston with second-
year class, APS, 2005.
Figure 14b & c: Plate 09 Learning cyanotypes, van Dyke Brown, photograms and alternative
photo techniques, APS, 2005.
Figure 15: Plate 09 Eileen Foti from Rutgers University teaching collaborative printing in
Lithography, APS, 2000.
Figure 16a: Plate 09 Aftermath of the Fire, APS, 1 President Street, Newtown:
Johannesburg, 2003.
Figure 16b & c: Plate 09 Searching through the rubble at APS, 2003.
Figure 17a & b: Plate 10 Press cuttings after the fire, 2003.
Figure 18a: Plate 10 Discovery of Kim?s State of Emergency print: ?burnt victim?, 2003.
Figure18b: Plate 10 Plaque written in ash ?I miss you Bra?, 2003.
Figure 18c: Plate 10 Kim Berman, Fires of the Truth Commission?, 2001.
Figure 19a: Plate 11 Collaging from fragments of prints pulled from the ashes, Bus Factory
Basement, Newtown: Johannesburg, 2003.
Figure 19b: Plate 11 Group Collage: Healing, Permanent Collection, APS, 2003.
Figures 20a & b: Plate 11 Collages on the stairway of the New APS, Newtown: Johannesburg,
2004.
Figure 20c: Plate 12 Detail of Reconciliation Panels, group collage, 2003.
Figure 21: Plate 12 The staircase of New APS showing welded plates, Newtown:
Johannesburg, 2004.
Figure 22: Plate 12 The welding team: Thomas Ncube, Nathi Ndladla and Synneth
Ndaleni making the metal fence collages at APS, Newtown:
Johannesburg, 2004.
Figure 23: Plate 13 Temporary Basement Workshop below the New APS, Newtown:
Johannesburg, 2003/4.
Figure 24: Plate 13 Tribute prints to Nhlanhla Xaba: by Jacob Molefe, Paul Molete,
Newtown: Johannesburg, 2004.
Figures 25a: Plate 13 The Launch of APS, 9 March: Ritual Performance by students,
Newtown: Johannesburg, 2004.
xvii
Figure 25b: Plate 13 The Launch of APS, 9 March: The launch outside the studio,
Newtown: Johannesburg, 2004.
Figure 25c: Plate 14 The Launch of APS, 9 March: Opening Speech by Steven Sack,
Director of Art and Culture of the City of Johannesburg. Newtown:
Johannesburg, 2004.
Figure 25d: Plate 14 The Launch of APS, 9 March: Blessing by Sangoma, Newtown:
Johannesburg, 2004.
Figure 26a & b: Plate 14 The New APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, March 2004.
Figure 27a: Plate 15 Ubuntu Project with Staff, Staff Workshop, on a team building retreat,
Broederstroom, 2004.
Figure 27b: Plate 15 Organogram: New Management and Team structure, 2005.
Figure 27c: Plate 15 Organogram: APS Organizational Structure, 2005.
Figure 28a & b: Plate 15 Kim Berman and Stompie Selibe at the Brandeis Fellowship:
Recasting Reconciliation, Boston, 2004/2005.
Figures 29a & b: Plate 16 Selibe and APS class participating in an Ubuntu workshop using
Music and Dance, APS, 2005.
Figure 30a & b: Plate 16 Ubuntu Project with students: Relief linocuts: Washing the Feet and
The Chair, 2005.
Figure 30c & d: Plate 16 Nelson Makamo Ubuntu story: The Tree of Life, 2005.
Figure 31: Plate 17 The New Artist Proof Studio, Newtown: Johannesburg, 2005.
Figure 32a & b: Plate 17 Professional Studio Collaborations (Muzi Donga and Gordon
Gabashane), New APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, 2005.
Figure 33a: Plate 18 Activism: APS Panels used for Advocacy workshops by Men as
Partners (MAP) 2006.
Figure 33b & 33c: Plate 18 APS gender rights Activism: Men as Partners Murals: Unveiling at
Baragwanath Hospital, Johannesburg, 2006.
Figures 34a & b: Plate 18 Sonke Justice Artists against Xenophobia: Murals in Yeoville, 2008.
Figures 35 a, b, c, d: Plate 19 One Man Can: Sonke Justice and APS, Bree Street Taxi rank and
Soweto, School 2007.
Figure 36a & b: Plate 20 Workplace learning outreach: APS volunteers providing art activities
for refugee children, Refugee Centre for victims of Xenophobic
violence, Rifle Range, Boksburg 2008.
Figure 36c & d: Plate 20 Noah Centres outreach for orphans and vulnerable children Diepkloof
and Pimville. Visiting APS for the Exhibition event, 2008.
Figure 37a: Plate 21 Team Building Murals: Trevor Thebe and APS Mural team for
Standard Bank, Standard Bank Gallery basement garage, 2006.
Figure 37b: Plate 21 APS artist teaching Standard Bank employees to paint murals,
Standard Bank basement garage, 2006.
Figure 38a: Plate 21 Team building murals for law firm Bell Dewar: Murals. John Taos and
his team of attorneys. Parking basement of Bell Dewar, 2007.
xviii
Figure 39: Plate 22 Thabo Moseki and Lehlohonolo Mashaba, APS graduates, 2007.
Figure 40a: Plate 22 Xenophobia Mural, with Sonke Justice, Yeoville, 2008
Figure 40b: Plate 22 APS students painting a wall to honour John Taos?s story from
Rwanda and protest against Xenophobia in South Africa, Outside
Johannesburg Art Gallery, 2008.
CHAPTER THREE
Figure 1a: Plate 23 Printing a Paper Prayer, anonymous, 2008.
Figure 1b: Plate 23 Paper Prayers, from the campaign, North West Province, 1998.
Figure 2a & b: Plate 23 The earliest ?embroidered prayers? made by the collectives of women
in Bushbuck Ridge, Northern Province, 1998.
Figure 3a: Plate 24 Paper Prayers Embroidery collectives, Women?s Embroidery
Collective, Bushbuck Ridge, 1998.
Figure 3b: Plate 24 Mapula Embroidery Group, Winterveld, 2002.
Figure 3c: Plate 24 Chivurika Collective, Mphampo Village, Limpopo Province, 2002.
Figure 3d: Plate 24 Ikageng Collective, Artist Proof Studio, Gauteng, 2007.
Figure 4a: Plate 24 Siyazama Project, Break the Silence, KwaZulu-Natal, 2001.
Figure 4b: Plate 25 Break the Silence ? HIV/AIDS portfolio, Art for Humanity KwaZulu-
Natal, 2001.
Figure 5: Plate 25 Roselina Molefe, Women on Purpose project, Winterveld, 2008.
Figure 6: Plate 25 AIDS Memorial Quilt: The Names Project. Washington DC, 1998.
Figure 7: Plate 25 Gideon Mendel Positive Lives, Durban Art Gallery, 2000.
Figure 8a: Plate 26 APS student preparing a pallete for printing Paper Prayers. APS,
1998.
Figure 8b: Plate 26 Phumzile Rakosa from the Art Therapy Centre attending a Paper
Prayers workshop, APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, 2008.
Figure 9a & b: Plate 26 The Paper Prayers Campaign: Carol Hofmeyr Teaching Paper
Prayers to school children in Jane Furse, Limpopo Province, 1998.
Figure 9c & d: Plate 26 The Paper Prayers Campaign: Terence Fen teaching Papermaking
for Paper Prayers, Winterveld, 1999.
Figure 9e: Plate 27 Workshops for Clergy (Parktown Parish and others), APS, Newtown:
Johannesburg, 1998.
Figure 9f: Plate 27 Workshops for clergy: Rabbi Singer with mixed group, APS, 1998.
Figure 9g: Plate 27 Leaf printing workshop at Tinswalo Hospital, Mpumalanga Province,
1998.
Figure 10a: Plate 27 Paper Prayers for World AIDS Day Exhibitions: Paper Prayers
workshop, APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, 2008.
Figure 10b: Plate 27 Exhibition at the BAT Centre, Durban, 1998.
Figure 11a: Plate 28 Making Paper Prayers: Using a Press to print a found object, APS, 2006/7.
Figure 11b: Plate 28 Making Paper Prayers: Hand colouring, Bosele group, North West
Province, 2006/7.
xix
Figure 11c: Plate 28 Making Paper Prayers: Rubbing plate with a spoon, Sodwana Bay,
KwaZulu-Natal, 2006/7.
Figure 11d: Plate 29 Making Paper Prayers: pulling a linocut print, Sodwana Bay,
KwaZulu-Natal, 2006/7.
Figure 12a: Plate 29 Paper Prayer by Dipuo Letanka, Madikwe, North West Province,
2007.
Figure 12b: Plate 29 Comments by participants on making a Paper Prayer, 2007.
Figure 13a & b: Plate 30 Embroidered panel by Karos Workers, Latabele, Mpumalanga 1998.
Figure 13c, d, & e: Plate 30 Embroidered Panels by Chivurika women, 1999-2000.
Figure 14: Plate 30 Emily Maluleka, Mapula embroidery, 2000.
Figure 15a: Plate 31 Kopenang Group, Tsakane, Gauteng, 2005.
Figure 15b: Plate 31 Ikageng Group, APS, Newtown Johannesburg, 2005.
Figure 16a: Plate 31 Mphambo Home Based Care group, Giyani, Limpopo, 2005.
Figure 16b: Plate 31 Chivurika Group, Mphambo Village, Giyani, Limpopo, 2005.
Figure 17a & b: Plate 32 National Campaign: Embroidered panels: collaboration between APS
linocuts and embroidery groups, 2000.
Figure 18a: Plate 32 Karos Workers narrative cloth, Tzaneen, Mpumalanga, 1998.
Figure 18b: Plate 32 Embroidered narrative: Lestina Malatjie, ?The Cycle of AIDS?, Karos
Workers, Mpumalanga, 1999.
Figure 19a: Plate 33 Deputy Minister Brigitte Mabandla making her speech to launch the
National Campaign, APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, 1998.
Figure 19b: Plate 33 Linocut Paper Prayers, 1998.
Figure 20a: Plate 33 AIDS Memorial Wall: Unveiling by DACST, 1998.
Figure 20b: Plate 33 Wall in disrepair outside the former APS, 1 President Street ,
Newtown, 2004.
Figure 21: Plate 33 Pledge cloths for different Ministries, a collaboration between APS
and Paper Prayers collective, 2000.
Figure 22a: Plate 34 International World AIDS Conference, Durban, 2000.
Figure 22b: Plate 34 Cultural Program, BAT Centre, 2000.
Figure 23: Plate 34 Minister Ngubane making a Paper Prayer, International Conference,
Durban, 2000.
Figure 24: Plate 34 Paper Prayers Workbook for facilitators: A Guide to extend the
National Campaign into schools, 1999.
Figure 25a: Plate 35 Joyce Sithole giving a lecture, Frauen Museum, Bonn, Germany,
2000.
Figure 25b: Plate 35 Workshop, Frauen Museum, Bonn, Germany, 2000.
Figure 25c: Plate 35 Exhibition, Frauen Museum, Bonn, Germany, 2000.
Figure 26: Plate 35 Tumelong Hospice, Winterveld, 2005.
Figure 27a: Plate 35 Exhibitions of the Paper Prayers Campaign for United Nations,
location unknown, 2001.
xx
Figure 28: Plate 35 Chivurika Group preparing Paper Prayers banner for the exhibition at
the United Nations, Mphambo Village, Giyani, Limpopo, 2001.
Figure 29a: Plate 36 Product Development for Paper Prayers embroideries: ties and hats
for Barcelona International AIDS Conference, 2002.
Figure 30a, b & c: Plate 36 Paper Prayers products for the World Summit on Sustainable
Development, APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, 2002.
Figure 31a: Plate 36 Ikageng Group, APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, 2008.
Figure 31b: Plate 36 Ikageng products, stuffed felt animal toys, APS, Newtown:
Johannesburg, 2008.
Figure 32a: Plate 37 Paper Prayers outreach program: Teen project: Paper Prayers made
at APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, 2006.
Figure 32b: Plate 37 Vatiswa Mtyalela (3rd year student mentor) standing with Pretty
Mazinga, (a teen participant) in front of their Paper Prayers and
portraits, APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, 2006.
Figure 33: Plate 37 Chris Molefe with a group of children at a NOAH Centre, Diepkloof,
Soweto, 2008.
Figure 34a: Plate 37 NOAH exhibition with children from Diepkloof NOAH site, APS,
Newtown: Johannesburg, 2008.
Figure 34b: Plate 38 Children from NOAH site in Katlehong performing their musical
program at APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, 2008.
Figure 34 c: Plate 38 Artwork on exhibition, APS, Newtown: Johannesburg 2008.
Figure 35a & b: Plate 38 Sonke Murals in collaboration with APS: Soweto Schools Mural 2007.
Figure 36: Plate 39 Jones Mathebula, APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, (Deceased
November 2005).
Figure 37: Plate 39 Sasol Wax Awards Poster, 2006.
Figure 38a: Plate 39 Reclaiming Lives Project 2006: ?Honouring Lives?, Tribute portraits,
2006.
Figure 38b: Plate 39 Molefe Twala printing a tribute portrait for the book, APS, Newtown:
Johannesburg, 2006.
Figure 39a: Plate 39 Reclaiming Lives: Tribute Wall: Aardklop Exhibition, Free State, 2006.
Figure 39b: Plate 39 Kim Berman demonstrating dipping a print into wax to seal the print
for the overlay print on the wall, APS, Newtown: Johannesburg, 2006.
Figure 40: Plate 40 Kim Berman, ?Mourning our Future?, etchings (800x1600cm) 2006.
Figure 41a & b: Plate 40 Installation at Sasol Gallery, Rosebank, Johannesburg, 2006.
Figure 42a: Plate 40 Tribute Cloths APS artist in collaboration with Paper Prayers
Collective: Chivurika embroidered portraits, 2006.
Figure 42b: Plate 40 Detail of cloth embroidered and beaded by Women?s Health
Collective, Hillbrow, 2006.
xxi
Figure 43: Plate 40 Artist book of 100 tributes: Etchings and artists statements on
handmade paper. Edition ? compiled by Kim Berman, bound by B
Marshall, August 2006.
Figure 44a, b, c, d & e: Plate 41 Extracts from Reclaiming Lives: Artist Book, 2006: Artists? portraits
and statements.
Figure 45a, b, c & d: Plate 42-43 Paper Prayers Workshop: Reclaiming Lives ll at APS, Newtown:
Johannesburg, 2008.
CHAPTER FOUR
Figure 1a & b: Plate 44 KwaZulu-Natal Paper and craft packaging Group, Eshowe, 2001.
Figure 2a: Plate 44 PRDU collection of bast fibres for paper research, Marydale
Basement, University of Johannesburg, Doornfontein, 2000.
Figure 2b: Plate 44 Research in the PRDU, Marydale Basement, 2004.
Figure 2c: Plate 44 The Phumani Paper Training team with Asao Shimura, (former TWR)
2004.
Figure 2d: Plate 45 Zhan? Warren, Paper as an expressive medium, University of
Johannesburg, 2006.
Figure 3a: Plate 45 Phumani Paper products display, SARCDA Trade Fair, 2006.
Figure 3b: Plate 45 Lifestyle products developed by UNESCO AiD program, Phumani
Paper National Office, Doornfontein Campus, 2006.
Figure 4a: Plate 45 Research, training and technology in papermaking production: Lee
MacDonald, visiting expert from Boston, USA, PRDU, Doornfontein
Campus, 2005.
Figure 4b: Plate 45 Research, training and technology in papermaking production: Gail
Deehry, visiting expert from Rutgers University, USA demonstrating
bookbinding for Papermaking trainers, PRDU, 2002.
Figure 4c: Plate 46 Research, Training and technology in papermaking production: Asao
Shimura giving the ?Golden Pineapple Workshop? to students and
papermakers in the Marydale Basement of the former TWR, 2002.
Figure 5: Plate 46 Sales Graph from Phumani Paper Annual Report, 2007/8.
Figure 6: Plate 46 Phumani Paper Section 21 Company marketing banner, 2007.
Figure 7a: Plate 46 The Tswaraganang Group, Winterveld, 1999.
Figure 7b: Plate 46 Making Paper, Tswaraganang, Winterveld, 2007.
Figure 8a: Plate 47 Cubuya decorticated and drying in Gethsemane, Ecuador, 1999.
Figure 8b: Plate 47 Sisal/cubuya plant, Gethsemane, Ecuador, 1999.
Figure 8c: Plate 47 Papermakers, Gethsemane, Ecuador, 1999.
Figure 8d: Plate 47 Transporting fibre by donkey, Gethsemane, Ecuador, 1999.
Figure 9a: Plate 47 Bronwyn Marshall, Archival Research Project, University of
Johannesburg, 2003.
Figure 9b: Plate 47 Cotton and Sisal fibre for archival paper, 2003.
xxii
Figure 10: Plate 47 Minister Ngubane with Siyazama members Launching PPRP in
Parliament, Cape Town, 2001.
Figure 11: Plate 48 Organogram: 21 Phumani Paper Projects in seven provinces, 2002.
Figure 12a: Plate 48 Map with original Phumani 21 Sites, 2001.
Figure 12b: Plate 48 Map with current 15 Phumani Sites, Phumani Paper Annual Report,
2006/ 2007.
Figure 13a: Plate 49 Sorting sugar cane leaf fibre for processing into pulp, KwaZulu-Natal,
1999.
Figure 13 b: Plate 49 KwaZulu-Natal Pilot; Gathering sugar cane for processing into paper,
KwaZulu-Natal, 1999.
Figure 14a: Plate 49 Zulu pots and plates packaged with handmade sugarcane fibre
paper, 2002.
Figure 14b: Plate 49 Nozipo Buthelezi, former Station leader at KwaZulu-Natal
Papermaking and Craft, 2001 (Deceased 2005).
Figure 15a: Plate 49 Modifying designs of the packaging for the pots, Eshowe, KwaZulu-
Natal, 2003.
Figure 15b: Plate 49 Training silkscreen printing, KwaZulu-Natal paper and packaging
group. Eshowe, KwaZulu Natal, 2003.
Figure 15c: Plate 49 Modifying pots by adding paper pulp to the clay, Endlovini, KwaZulu-
Natal, 2003.
Figure 16: Plate 50 Endlovini Potters with Fundi Biyela, visited by D. Kruger, Phumani
Paper Project accountant, Eshowe, 2002.
Figure 17a: Plate 50 Original Eshowe papermaking group, KwaZulu-Natal, 2001.
Figure 17b: Plate 50 DST (Deputy Minister Hanekom) Visit to KwaZulu-Natal Paper and
Packaging, Eshowe, 2003.
Figure 18a: Plate 50 Thandanani Group and products,, Doornfontein Campus, University
of Johannesburg, 2007.
Figure 18b & c: Plate 50 Handmade paper stationery products by Thandanani, Doornfontein
Campus, 2006.
Figure 19: Plate 51 Selina Pule and Gertrude Mngadi from Tandanani, Phumani Paper
National Office, 2008.
Figure 20a: Plate 51 Twanano Group, Ivory Park, 2005.
Figure 20b: Plate 51 Twanano and the Eco-cities Co-operative, Ivory Park, 2002.
Figure 20c: Plate 51 Showcase for WSSD, Twanano, Ivory Park, Gauteng, 2002.
Figure 20d: Plate 51 Milkweed paper from Twanano, Ivory Park, 2003.
Figure 21a: Plate 52 Kopenang Group, Tsakane, Ekurhuleni District, Gauteng, 2005.
Figure 21b: Plate 52 Sr Sheila Flynn with the Sithand?izingane Care Project, Tsakane,
2005.
Figure 22a: Plate 52 Thutukani group, Tsakane, Ekurhuleni, 2007.
xxiii
Figure 22b: Plate 52 Eco-fuel briquettes, Doornfontein Campus, University of
Johannesburg, 2006.
Figure 23a: Plate 52 Bosele group in their new premises, Lehurutse, North West Province,
2008.
Figure 23b: Plate 52 Jacobeth Lepedi: Bosele project manager, Lehurutse, 2008.
Figure 23c: Plate 53 Bosele women casting paper, Lehurutse, 2004.
Figure 24a: Plate 53 Tswaraganang group, Winterveld, 2005.
Figure 24b: Plate 53 Nhlanhla Mabizala from MAP with Tswaraganang women,
Winterveld, 2007.
Figure 24c: Plate 53 Tswaraganang women making paper and pulp, Winterveld, 2005.
Figure 25a: Plate 54 Amogolang group, Mmkau Village, North West Province, 2005.
Figure 25b: Plate 54 Woman casting paper, Amogalang, Mmakau, 2005.
Figure 26a, b & c: Plate 54 Madikwe group processing Sisal for cooking and pulping, North West
Province, 2007.
Figure 27a & b: Plate 54 Mandy Coppes, ?Richie Man? Kgabane Paper fibre range, University
of Johannesburg, 2001.
Figure 28a: Plate 55 Kutloano warehouse, abandoned mining site, Welkom, 2000.
Figure 28b: Plate 55 Kutloano group, Welkom, 2008.
Figure 29a: Plate 55 Rising Sun building their workshop, Organic Farm, Mdantsane,
Eastern Cape, 2002.
Figure 29b: Plate 55 Rising Sun group Launching their building, Farm, Mdantsane, Eastern
Cape, 2002.
Figure 30a: Plate 56 Ma Vera and group casting paper on the organic farm, Mdantsane,
Eastern Cape, 2002.
Figure 30b: Plate 56 Rising Sun Products, Mdantsane, Eastern Cape, 2004.
Figure 31a: Plate 56 Asao Shimura demonstrating uses of pineapple fibre, PRDU,
University of Johannesburg, 2004.
Figure 31b: Plate 56 Lilo Papermaking Bathurst, Eastern Cape, 2004.
Figure 32a: Plate 56 F Vukeya and G Tshikhuve outside Papermill at Akanani Centre,
Elim, 2004.
Figure 32b: Plate 56 Komenani group making products, Elim, Limpopo Province, 2002.
Figure 33a: Plate 57 Komenani group processing banana fibre, Akanani, Elim, Limpopo,
2005.
Figure 33b: Plate 57 Banana Fibre cooking, Akanani Centre, 2005.
Figure 34a: Plate 57 Chloe group (Dikopaneng) cooking sisal fibre, outside Polokwane,
2005.
Figure 34b: Plate 57 Kim Berman and Walter Ruprecht with a stack of sisal pulp sheets
produced by Chloe Dikopaneng group, Phumani Paper National
Office, 2005.
Figure35a: Plate 57 Lebone group with Walter Ruprecht, Makopane, Limpopo, 2005.
xxiv
Figure 35b: Plate 57 Lebone papermakers casting and couching paper, Makopane, 2005.
Figure 36a: Plate 58 Kwa NoThemba, workshop for the disabled in Khayelitsha, Western
Cape, 2002.
Figure 36b: Plate 58 Siyazama group, Khayelitsha, Western Cape, 2007.
Figure 36c: Plate 58 Siyazama Stationery products, Khayelitsha, Western Cape, 2003.
Figure 36d: Plate 58 Siyazama group visited by Deputy Minister and Norwegian dignitary,
Khayelitsha, Western Cape, 2006.
Figure 37a: Plate 58 Kuyasa members couching paper, Kommetjie, 2001.
Figure 37b: Plate 58 Kuyasa products from Port Jackson Willow fibre and natural dye,
Kommetjie, Western Cape, 2003.
Figure 37c & d: Plate 59 Kuyasa paper Products at the Craft Festival, Spier Wine Estate,
2002.
Figure 38: Plate 59 Flower Valley Trust: a papermaking project on a fynbos farm:
pounding invasive plant fibre for making paper, Western Cape, 2001.
Figure 39: Plate 60 CSIR Beater at Imboni Craft, Sodwana Bay, KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.
Figure 40: Plate 60 Government officials from DST visiting a CSIR site, Richards Bay,
KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.
Figure 41: Plate 60 Visit to CSIR Bakery by DST officials, Richards Bay, 2005.
Figure 42: Plate 60 Durant Sihlali showing his paper pulp paintings, Amakondo Paper
Sudio, Roodeport, 2004.
Figure 43a: Plate 61 Twanano group visited by Deputy Minister Derek Hanekom, Ivory
Park, 2003.
Figure 43b: Plate 61 Twanano hand-beating milkweed fibre, Ivory Park, 2002.
Figure 43c: Plate 61 Beaten fibre ready for casting, Twanano, Ivory Park, 2002
Figure 44a: Plate 61 Harvesting milkweed outside Ivory Park, Midrand, 2003.
Figure 44b: Plate 61 Twanano bast fibre strippers, Ivory Park, 2003.
Figure 44c: Plate 61 Milkweed bast fibre, PRDU, University of Johannesburg, 2003.
Figure 45a, b & c: Plate 61 Phumani pets produced by Twanano Group, Phumani National
Office, Doornfontein, 2007.
Figure 46a: Plate 62 Phumani Archival Mill, University of Johannesburg, Doornfontein
Campus, 2005.
Figure 46b: Plate 62 Moreno Duplex Hollander Beaters, PRDU, 2003.
Figure 46c: Plate 62 Products made for the South African National Archives, Archive Mill,
University of Johannesburg, 2005.
Figure 46d & e: Plate 62 Deputy Minister Department Arts and Culture, Ntombazana-Botha
launching the Archive Mill, University of Johannesburg, 2005.
Figure 47a: Plate 62 Archival product range for catalogue, PRDU, University of
Johannesburg, 2007.
xxv
Figure 47b: Plate 62 Jeannot Ladeira and Bronwyn Marshall (PRDU) presenting paper to
Alexio Motsi of the SA National Archives, Phumani Paper National
Office, 2006.
Figure 47c: Plate 63 Archival Mill Registered as a co-operative: Rags2Paper, May 2008.
Figure 47d: Plate 63 Manuscripts from Timbuktu, Mali requiring restoration, 2002.
Figure 48a: Plate 63 Storeroom of sisal fibre Chloe, Limpopo Province, 2006.
Figure 48b: Plate 63 Cotton rag cut up for archival papermaking, PRDU, University of
Johannesburg, 2003.
Figure 49a: Plate 63 UNESCO-funded new product development (AiD) for Amogalang,
Mmkau, North West Province, 2006.
Figure 49b: Plate 63 Hermina Sephati demonstrating new products to Tswaraganang,
Winterveld, 2006.
Figure 50: Plate 64 Women on Purpose: Hermina Sephati, Winterveld, 2008.
Figure 51: Plate 64 University of Johannesburg Vice Chancellor visiting Phumani Paper,
University of Johannesburg,Doornfontein, 2007.
Figure 52: Plate 65 David Tshabalala, promoted to National Program Manager of
Phumani Paper profiled in Legends News, October 2008.
Figure 53: Plate 65 New Products for Ambiente Gift Fair February 2009, Frankfurt ,
Germany, Phumani Paper National Office, 2009.
CHAPTER FIVE
Figure 1: Plate 66 Teaching paper pulp sculpture to youth in a Correctional Services
rehabilitation centre, Hillbrow, 2002.
Figure 2a & b: Plate 66 David Tshabalala with 6 000 dolls, preparing for the WSSD March,
Braamfontein, 2002.
Figure 3: Plate 67 The start of the march organized by Friends of the Earth for the
WSSD Summit, Johannesburg, September 2002.
Figure 4: Plate 67 The paper dolls stored outside Wits University, Johannesburg, 2002.
Figure 5: Plate 67 The march with the dolls received headline news in The New York
Times (5 September 2002).
Figure 6a: Plate 68 Papermaking students (Mandy Coppes) in the Basement of Marydale
Building, Doornfontein Campus, 2000.
Figure 6b: Plate 68 David Tshabalala & Steven Mokoena preparing pulp, Doornfontein
Campus, 2000.
CHAPTER SIX
Figure 1a& b: Plate 69 Eshowe group, KwaZulu-Natal, 2000 and 2002.
Figure 2a: Plate 70 Eco fuel briquette project, Doornfontein Campus, University of
Johannesburg, 2007.
Figure 2b: Plate 70 Eco fuel briquette project, porta-press, Doornfontein Campus, 2007.
Figure 2c: Plate 70 Packaging of Eco-fuel briquettes, Graphic Design Department,
University of Johannesburg, 2007.
xxvi
Figure 2d: Plate 70 Logo of Eco-fuel briquettes, University of Johannesburg, 2007.
Figure 2e: Plate 70 Thutukani Paper and Craft group, Tsakane, Gauteng, 2007.
Figure 3: Plate 71 Photovoice and Change, Caroline Mashiane?s story, Twanano, 2006.
Figure 4a & b: Plate 72 Ra Hlasane demonstrating printing techniques, Madikwe group, 2007.
Figure 4c: Plate 72 Example of a Paper Prayer and Narrative, (K. Oordira), Madikwe,
2007.
Figure 5a & b: Plate 73 APS Trainer conducting workshop, at national Phumani Mapping
Workshop, University of Johannesburg, July 2008.
Figure 6: Plate 73 Map of sites for AIDS Action intervention, Phumani Paper Annual
Report, 2008.
Figure 7a & b: Plate 73 Transcribing stories using a multi-disciplinary team, Winterveld, 2005.
Figure 8: Plate 74 Stompie Selibe and Twanano Papermaking Group, Ivory Park, 2005.
Figure 9a & b: Plate 74 Demonstration of printmaking techniques for Paper Prayers, Ivory
Park, 2006.
Figure 10: Plate 75 Photovoice: Rose Mashile, Winterveld, 2006.
Figure 11: Plate 75 Pilot project training team (partial) with Kutloano Group, Welkom,
2006.
Figure 12: Plate 76 Kutloano Group, Welkom, 2006.
Figure 13a& b: Plate 76 Kutloano members learning how to use a camera, Welkom, 2006.
Figure 14: Plate 76 HIV Training using role play, Kutloano, Welkom, 2006.
Figure 15: Plate 77 APS Facilitators teaching Paper Prayers, Kutloano, Welkom, 2006.
Figure 16: Plate 77 Mamoeti Mano and Masechaba Molelekoa creating their Paper
Prayers, Kutloano, 2006.
Figure 17a: Plate 77 Paper Prayer by Matshidiso Sepagela, Kutloano, 2007.
Figure 17b: Plate 77 Paper Prayers by Masechaba Molelekoa, Kutloano, 2007.
Figure 18a: Plate 78 Photovoice: Mamoeti Mano, Kutloano, Welkom, 2006.
Figure 18b: Plate 78 Photovoice: Masechaba Molelekoa, Kutloano, 2006.
Figure 19a & b: Plate 79 Paper Prayers: Imboni, KwaZulu-Natal Qongwana District,
Sodwana Bay, 2007.
Figure 19c: Plate 80 Making Paper Prayers, Imboni, Sodwana Bay, KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.
Figure 20a: Plate 80 Lesego Khunou conducting an AIDS Action workshop, Madikwe,
2007.
Figure 20b: Plate 80 HIV Training materials, PAR handbook (Equity in Integrated Health
Care), 2008.
Figure 21a, b, c, & d: Plate 81 Mapping Workshop at Kutloano, Welkom, 2007.
Figure 22a: Plate 82 Women on Purpose: Tlaki Radebe, Winterveld, 2008.
Figure 22b: Plate 82 Women on Purpose: Fundii Biyela, at the University of Johannesburg
Paper Prayers Exhibition, 2008.
Figure 23: Plate 83 Interviews: Women on Purpose Mamoeti Mano and Masechaba
Molelekoa Welkom, 2008.
xxvii
Figure 24: Plate 84 Portrait of Masechaba Molelekoa, Kutloano 2008.
Figure 25: Plate 84 Julie Mehretu: ?City Citings?, Detroit Institute of Arts, and Reflections
about Visual Mapping (Kim Berman).
Figure 26: Plate 85-87 Table1 Poverty Indicators: KwaZulu-Natal: Umkhanyakude District
Municipality.
Table 2: Poverty Indicators: Free State: Matjhabeng.
Table 3: earnings, social grants and bread winner status Mid-term
review.
Table 4: Knowledge of HIV organizations, referral and own testing.
xxviii
PREFACE

The period in South Africa between 1991 and the first democratic elections in 1994 could be
regarded as the most significant moment of change in the country?s history. Many feared that
South Africa was on the edge of chaos. But, simultaneously, an opening was created for
cultural and social transformation: this particular time created significant possibilities for South
Africans to comprehend themselves in new ways. With the prospect of political change, the
country was faced with the challenge of transformation, and the promise of the fulfillment of the
anti-apartheid movement?s vision of unity, diversity and democracy. I interpreted this challenge
as an opportunity not to reject or turn away from its complexity, but to learn to live with
complexity creatively.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, South African university students were caught up in the political
turmoil of the time and my experience of that period of revolution and protest changed my life.
What took place in the 1980s, led to a new economic and social order. It was a period of
struggle against the system on many levels. I immersed myself in the debate about the role of
art in politics and society. My art was strongly political, despite the lack of support on the part
of my teachers. I left South Africa for the United States in 1983, and having the opportunity to
think even more deeply about these issues, I wrote my Master?s thesis at the School of the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston on the subject of the political role of art (Berman 1989). At that
time I became convinced that if art is to be socially transformative it cannot remain limited to
so-called high culture and confined to the sacred precincts of the museums, but rather must be
engaged with communities. In the 1990s, after my return to Johannesburg from the United
States, I was once again inspired to become immersed in contributing to the process of
change toward an equitable society in South Africa. In addition to making artwork, I founded
community-based arts projects that were aimed at the empowerment of black South African
artists and crafters who, due to the inequities of apartheid, would otherwise have no or very
few opportunities for further education and training.

At the start of this dissertation, I ask the question: Why?
Why do I do this?
For me, making an artwork has a significant physical and emotional impetus; it is driven by a
need to translate a personal and visceral response to one?s life experience into a mediated
expression of a public communication. Embarking on a PhD is not, for me, precipitated by the
same urge or impulsive need; it is driven by something else.

xxix
In 2003, during a research visit to the United States, I was scavenging in the Brandeis
University library on a quest for inspiration to convince myself to register for a doctorate. My
institution (that evolved from a Technikon to a University in 2005) required that I extend my
studies, even though the Master?s of Fine Art is the terminal degree in studio art. Although I
had been a recipient of significant research funding for many years, I now had to translate that
activity into a doctoral proposal to upgrade my academic qualifications in order to qualify for
continued funding support.

The problem is that I tend to be a sceptic, a radical. I operate on the margins of academia in
that I challenge the hierarchy and institutionalism of the university system, and for that matter
most systems. I am intoxicated by the notion of transformation: that space for radical change,
creative re-invention; the arena of possibilities. I believe that the most meaningful learning
happens outside the classroom, and outside the confines of entrenched systems.

My own experience as a lecturer in a higher education institution has been to create radical
pockets and spaces for students' active engagement with a nation in the process of change. At
Brandeis University, I was hunting for alternative models for fulfilling this new research
requirement of upgrading my academic qualifications, but in a way that made sense to me.
How to own the idea of transformation, internalize it, receive it as a new ground for creative
engagement and challenge? While at Brandeis University, I met with the Director of the
Women?s Studies Research Center and Professor of Sociology, Dr Shulamit Reinharz, and
was inspired to read her book, On Becoming a Social Scientist (1979). During the 1970s she
was, as I am now, questioning the uses of methodology. I was struck by her argument:
Social scientists approach problems ? with many strategies at their disposal.
Their first responsibility, after reviewing the literature on a given topic, is to
select methods that best fit the problem at hand. Methods are selected not by
asking ?which particular method is useful for this problem?? but by asking
?which methods are legitimate at all??

She concluded: ?To overcome alienation, the discipline of sociology must be changed?
(Reinharz 1979: 35). In spite of the fact that Reinharz?s book is over two decades old, it
provided me with a model for seeing the research process as a radical journey that could well
include rejection initially, if it is in the end to make a genuine contribution:
My journey consisted of learning, using, becoming dissatisfied, rejecting, and
then creating a method of my own.? I was able to break the cycle of
expectation, alienation, and rejection by examining the process itself and
using, rather than denying, my own experiences. Through this process, I
learned that rejection is an instrumental component of development and
creativity. The very act of rejecting that which others take for granted or hold
sacred releases creativity at the social cost of assuming the status of deviant.
xxx
To reject social conventions creates the possibility of social invention
(Reinharz, 1979: 45-46).

Two years after reading this, and with support from my long-term mentor Pam Allara, I finally
found the courage, as well as an enthusiastic and open-minded supervisor based locally, Lara
Allen, who was willing to take the risk with me, to register for a PhD. Since the time of
Reinharz?s publication, revolutionary strides have liberated knowledge from the positivistic and
Cartesian model of scientific knowing, yet many institutions still cling onto traditional
pedagogical styles and institutional structures. Not infrequently, these structures can cause
resistance to new technologies, community engagement, broader access and changed
ideologies of learning. All of these I have faced in the process of researching this PhD, and
may well face in its reception.

The central question of this thesis is: Can the visual arts contribute to positive social change in
post-apartheid South Africa? This question does not fit into a particular discipline, but straddles
the arts, development studies, sociology, politics and cultural studies. It has no comfortable
disciplinary home, and no linked subject area for a degree qualification. The departmental
home for this doctoral thesis is the Division of Cultural Management, Heritage and Tourism,
within the University of Witwatersrand?s School of Arts. While this was a relatively new
program that had recently been initiated, my PhD proposal was accepted as the first in the
division, thereby entering into an open space with no precedents. The idea of self-creating an
opportunity in collaboration with intellectuals I have long admired in this opening field of the
cultural industries appealed to me. This research has therefore evolved in a space for
creativity, exploration, rejection, imagination and invention, akin to the practice of art-making.

Despite my initial hesitancy in embarking on this thesis, it is a remarkable privilege to have
been an artist, activist and educator in South Africa from 1990 to the present. The challenges
posed by social, political and cultural transformation in the country opened up creative spaces
that permitted innovation, imagination and dreaming to take place. Epochal shifts span the
discursive conditions in which the initiatives I analyse emerged. The politics of resistance in
the 1980s, the utopian dream of President Nelson Mandela?s rainbow nation of the late
1990s,1

1 The former Archbishop Tutu has been credited with coining the phrase Rainbow Nation to describe the
multiculturalism of
and the realities of President Thabo Mbeki?s government from 1998-2008, have
shaped the kinds of responses discussed in the case studies. Dynamic possibilities emerged:
yet if these stories are not told and collective experiences shared, this creative space will start
post-apartheid South Africa, but it is widely associated with Nelson Mandela?s presidential
term.
xxxi
to close and be forced back into restrictive systems of certainty and ?safety.? A conservative
trend in institutions has, in fact, already started closing doors on participatory and collective
practice. It is therefore imperative to find or create methodologies for interventions, analysis
and critique that will strengthen multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary practice and theory in
the domains of development and arts education.

A Personal Reflection
This preface serves as a self-reflexive investigation of why my work in this thesis is the way it
is, and what shapes my radical view of my world. I was asked by my supervisor, Lara Allen, to
dig deeper into the core of what is behind my ability for not giving up and fighting a system that
seems impossible to change. She encouraged me to explore my personal belief system: what
the principles are that drive my understanding of the world and why I have such resilience and
persistence in fighting an unfair system. I considered the formative phases of my life growing
up in a family that was at odds with their philosophies: capitalism on my father?s side and
socialism on my mother?s side. I joined a radical student movement at Wits University, leaving
the country in the 1980s and working for the anti-apartheid movement abroad, returning home
only after Nelson Mandela was freed. I deeply believed that the idea of building a rainbow
nation was possible to transform South Africa and I have dedicated myself to this cause ever
since. This belief drives both the projects I have founded and my own art-making.

I have also gradually understood that my awareness of the Holocaust made a deep impression
on me as a child and has a strong connection with my artwork. During August 2008 I attended
a moving service of Yom Hashoa ? the day of remembrance for the six million Jews who
perished and the millions of others who died senselessly in the Holocaust. It is one of many I
have attended over the years. As children growing up in the years following the second World
War, my siblings and I heard many stories of survivors and were encouraged to read
testimonies, listen to their poems and narratives, and to see the photographs and art works ?
?lest we forget?. I am sure these visual images changed my perceptions of human behaviour. I
learned that survival is a mission of resilience, determination and faith in the future. It is about
purpose, possibilities and responsibility to others. We as children learnt to use the Holocaust
experience to try and understand the horrors of extreme evil, hatred and racism and to learn
how we can contribute towards a just, moral and humane society. My understanding of the
Holocaust gave me the strength to speak out, abhor the consequences of racism and be
aware that an ideology of supremacy, power and hate can and did lead to the extermination of
a people.

xxxii
It was in this context that I grew up in apartheid South Africa instinctively knowing that a
system that separated people by their race was iniquitous. My own ?nanny? who was entrusted
with caring and nurturing me and my sisters was living in entirely inferior conditions to our
family and not even permitted to eat food from the same plates as we were. The only
difference I could detect was that she was black and therefore not equal to us. Racism in
South Africa became an irreconcilable burden for me.

Both my mother and father?s families escaped the pogroms in Lithuania at the turn of the
century. My father?s family landed in London and made their living from selling merchandise in
the East End of London before coming to South Africa where they established a shipping and
confirming business. My maternal grandfather?s family came from a religious family in a small
village of Lithuania but who in the late twenties adopted a secular socialist and communist
philosophy. When they arrived in South Africa in 1910 they started a small business that grew
until it became a large wholesaling warehouse. They became successful businessmen who
used the opportunities available to them to not simply acquire wealth, but to become
philanthropists and patrons of the arts. My maternal grandfather was a founding member of the
Labour Party, which at one time was the main opposition to the Nationalist apartheid
government in power. He fought for the rights of every South African for a fair and equitable
society and was radically opposed to the inadequate living conditions, schools and health
services endured by the poor black communities. Perhaps in retrospect, I could characterize
one of the sources of conflict in our household as a philosophical conflict between socialism
and capitalism; the materialism of the early Jewish immigrants in Johannesburg and the
enclave of the Yiddish cultural group of writers, poets, artists and musicians. Because of my
grandparents? patronage, I grew up surrounded by and influenced by the art of Irma Stern,
whose paintings and colourful narratives of her life filled their walls. The stories told by my
grandfather to us as children were about the triumph of the downtrodden and poor over their
circumstances. These early influences shaped my sense of right and wrong in the world.

There are no direct analogies for the Holocaust but there are lessons to be learnt. I cannot
bear to see young people die of AIDS when they have a choice of survival and often refuse to
fight for their lives because of the social stigma of the disease. By hiding their condition and
choosing not to take anti-retroviral medication, they are surrendering their right to life.
Victimization as a result of oppression and hatred is unacceptable. How do we respond, other
than to find ways within our own lives to fight it ? ?lest we forget??

xxxiii
Perhaps my experience as a student ensured that I have made my mission to help foster a
positive sense of self in my students, especially when the politics and social structure of racism
worked to break down the individual?s sense of self-worth in the world.

My sisters and I attended a government school where I confronted anti-Semitism and racist
ideology from my classmates and teachers. Furthermore, intuitively, I did not accept the world
view that was presented at a young age in school and continued at university where the
teaching style of one particular lecturer was to break down students? confidence through
ridiculing our work. When I arrived at Wits University in 1978, I was also particularly ostracized
for insisting on including a social or political message in all of my work. This had the effect of
increasing my determination to achieve and to speak out. I joined the radical student
movement and became deeply involved in student politics that included making artworks for
the radical student press union?s newspapers (SASPU National) which were banned as soon
as they were printed.

In 1983 I left South Africa with my partner at the time to attend a Summer Art program in
Boston. The sense of freedom we experienced as a lesbian couple in that nurturing and
supportive environment was liberating, and we decided to apply to graduate school and study
for Master?s degrees in Boston. I remained on a student visa for four years accumulating
valuable experience as a printing intern and teaching assistant, and became active in the anti-
apartheid movement in Boston. When I watched Nelson Mandela?s release on an American
television set in 1990, I felt convinced that it was time to go home. My relationship had ended
two years prior and I wanted to be part of Mandela?s rainbow nation. I returned home and
founded the Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg.

The style of pedagogy in the Boston School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University
was to facilitate each art student?s growth and expression. I thrived on this nurturing approach,
and have since adopted it in my interaction with my students, along with setting up high
expectations for achievement.

The feelings and identity of being a victim of an unjust and de-humanizing apartheid system,
leaves one incapacitated, and is not conducive to being open to learning. Many of the students
I taught at Artist Proof Studio in the 1990s arrived psychologically and emotionally damaged,
and angry, resenting those who had privilege and benefits. Many Artist Proof Studio artists at
that time had a negative sense of themselves and did not trust their ability to shape their
worlds. They were poor and resented hand-outs. They were ashamed of their inferior levels of
literacy and therefore refused to write, or dropped out of learning programs because their
xxxiv
writing and reading skills in many cases were inferior to the more junior students. Teaching in
the early and mid-1990s there was much to overcome, yet extremely talented Artist Proof
Studio students who acquired enhanced skills were able to develop confidence and
leadership, and to compensate for the gaps in their apartheid education.

My sense of achievement as an educator stems from my ability to inspire people to imagine
themselves out of poverty, or out of mediocrity. To help students find their own sense of
potential and power. I can experience that ability by making a difference to someone else?s life
through teaching or sharing creative skills and capacities. Making a difference in someone?s
life becomes a motivation or even a mission. In many ways my students at Artist Proof Studio,
the University of Johannesburg and Phumani Paper have experienced this sense of meaning
in their ability to facilitate the development of an individual?s growth. Perhaps this nurturing
process, feeds my own sense of self, and it is what keeps me doing the work I am doing.
Expressing my belief in the potential of the individual has worked for some students to achieve
beyond their average expectations of themselves while others get angry for having pressure
put on them and it adds to their stress. Yet the satisfaction of achievement is often appreciated
in retrospect and the individual develops a self-motivated work ethic that takes them beyond
what they thought they would otherwise have settled for. This is the journey of ?self-creation?.

Helping to reformat another person?s vision of themselves through imagination and creative
processes is not only empowering to the receiver, it is incredibly powerful for the facilitator. I
get a sense of deep satisfaction and reinforcement of an otherwise fragile ego, when leaving a
workshop or class that I know has inspired students, or increased their determination to move
out of their apathy, energizing them to achieve greater heights. This process of supporting the
students? belief in themselves demonstrates that each of us is able to make our own
contribution to change.

Perhaps the lesson of this exercise is no more profound than the impetus to use our own gift of
trust and learning (passed on by our teachers) and to pass it onto others in order to facilitate
growth and agency. This helps individuals to imagine their own potential to be agents of
positive change. In many ways this impetus for passing on lessons learnt is the underpinning
rationale for this thesis. It is another medium and format for the expression of voice and for
?self-creation,? a theme that runs through this work.

The voice and role of the artist is central to this thesis. Yet, the focus is not on the making of
art, but rather on how creative activity can be the catalyst to create change. My own art-
making does not form part of this narrative, but yet being an artist, and finding a visual and
xxxv
metaphoric voice is a key part of my identity and energy, or creative juices that run through
who I am. My artistic voice is quieter than my activist/educator voice in some way, but it is an
essence that feeds my energy, restores my sense of self, nurtures my broken spirit and gives
me the well-spring to be resilient. These are the qualities or sensibilities that seem to belong in
the realm of the romantic mythology of the artist. Perhaps this research project is a quest to
dissolve this form of elitism and make it more accessible. I chose to be a printmaker because
of its accessibility. Printmaking is the ultimate democratic medium in art. But beyond the craft
and the skill of making, is a place where self-creation happens. It is that feeding of the soul,
the reconciliation of spirit and practice; the achievement of balance. Even for a moment. This
is the gift of art-making that I am trying to articulate and share through the long narrative
journey ahead.

1
CHAPTER ONE: MAPPING THE JOURNEY

Introduction
The argument that the visual arts can play a positive role in creating social change is based
on the premise that a creative collaboration between the community arts and development
fields is possible. This thesis argues for a paradigm shift in approaching development in a
way that an art educator approaches the facilitation of an artist?s personal and creative
growth. Dreaming and imagination facilitate self-expression. Developed further, self-
expression is arguably a transforming process of self-creation. Empowerment is the ability to
become an agent of one?s own life and to achieve self-actualization. When individual agency
is applied as a catalyst to inspire new possibilities, social systems respond to stimulate
change.

This thesis proposes that the visual arts can contribute positively to community development.
The literature in the community arts and development fields refers to people as
?beneficiaries?. Beneficiaries are always viewed in groups or as a block, rather than as
individuals.1
The premise underlying this argument is that if the development practitioner can help
participants to achieve agency, then development projects will have a much better chance of
I suggest that this reveals a fundamental problem in the development sector: the
humanity of individuals, driven by desires, hopes and dreams, is not acknowledged. It
appears that in the process of building a post-apartheid democracy, those in the development
sector (and particularly within government) have outlined their approaches to community
development in ways which have not yet incorporated methods of reaching out to and
nurturing the humanity of the individual. It is not true that beneficiaries are inert units within a
collective. This thesis proposes that this misconception is one of the primary reasons why
development projects fail. However, the question arises: If the recipients of development
interventions are not passive collective beneficiaries, then what are they? How can
development facilitators assist people to fulfil their potential and act productively for
themselves and the collective?

1 Numerous examples of this use of ?beneficiaries? are included in government documents; to give one example
from the Department of Social Development :
This discussion document is aimed at proposing strategies to link the beneficiaries of grants and the
unemployed to economic activity. Beneficiaries are unlikely to be in a position to use their social grant
income to invest in wealth-creating ventures. Instead, an investigation into the possibilities of creating
opportunities for social grant beneficiaries and the unemployed to participate in economic activities should
become a key focus if government is to meet the MDG?s 2014 (Extract from the Department of Social
Development Discussion Document 2006: 2) (www.welfare.gov.za/documents/2006/link.doc).
2
working. Further, I assert that the visual and creative arts are a means of acknowledging and
developing potential in people, and of facilitating the change in current terminology and
attitude from ?beneficiaries? to creative human beings. The investigation into the ways in which
art can contribute to social change derives from this premise.

In arguing that the visual arts can contribute to change, this thesis explores five case studies
to analyse how change manifests itself. Each case study presents different social challenges.
These include: linking research and practice in higher education; creating leadership and
professionalism in community arts education; encouraging agency and action in response to
HIV/AIDS education and support; facilitating poverty alleviation through economic and social
sustainability and, finally, combining the projects in a multi-modal Cultural Action intervention.
These challenges are explored in the different social arenas of Community Arts, Higher
Education, and urban and rural poor communities affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty. Each of
the case studies in these domains applies different pedagogical approaches and
methodologies that include: research and visual arts training; economic strategies using
technology and skills transfer in craft development; and visual arts strategies to facilitate voice
through HIV/AIDS education. Chapter Six combines these methodologies through an
intervention that assesses and provides evidence of the impact of individual and group
change that occurs through creative processes.

The case studies suggest that the following themes articulate the challenges for development:
agency, empowerment, voice, resilience, dreaming and imagination. This thesis proposes
that sustainability is complex and that these are the capacities that make or break it. It
becomes evident that these attributes are ignored when people are considered to be
beneficiaries. Development interventions that are targeted towards beneficiaries ignore the
complex psychological humanity of the individuals involved. The combinations of these
capacities put together permit the achievement of self-actualization. The visual arts as
methodology can be used to achieve self-actualization. Self-actualization enables individual
and group change.

This proposition is made in a particular political and social context. Underlying my argument is
the historical conflict between between socialism and capitalism. Put in the simplest possible
terms, capitalism can be generalized as economic growth arising through individuals acting in
3
self-interest,2 whereas socialism, in its broadest definition, assumes that the individual has
little importance, and that people work in collectives to progress.3
The question I ask is that if the energy for forward movement lies with the individual, as a
capitalist model holds, how then is it possible to harness that individual drive for the benefit of
the collective? How can one extract the entrepreneurial urge from the goal of exclusively self-
interested enrichment? I hold that the first step is to acknowledge that ?beneficiaries? are
individuals, with the individual seen as a person distinguished from others by a special quality
? as in the Western, enlightenment, democratic, capitalist definition. From this starting point
each case study proceeds from activities on the ground, using a range of practical
approaches that aim to expand the capacities of each individual within a group to empower
themselves as agents of change. The evidence for change that is offered is empirical and is
based on grassroots experience. This approach at the same time seeks a balance that is
counter to the self-enrichment ideology of capitalism to approximate the philosophy of
ubuntu.
However, poor people often
do not have the economic capital to advance effectively as individuals within the capitalist
system. The developmental response is often to persuade poor people to act in collectives in
order to move forward. The response by the neo-liberal policies of the Mbeki government has
been to promote the concept of entrepreneurship, which asserts that the wealth created by
the few trickles down to benefit the many poor.

4
My argument about the need to encourage individual potential is supported by A.H. Maslow
(1943), one of the original theorists of self-actualization, which Maslow defines as a desire for
self-fulfilment: ?the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that
one is capable of becoming? (Maslow 1943).
This theory and methodology argues for an eco-systems approach in which
sustainability and renewal are reliant on values of interdependence, partnerships, flexibility,
diversity and complex networks. Individual capacity-building is of little use without the
comparable development of networking skills.

2 Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country?s trade and industry are controlled by private
owners for profit, rather than by the state (Oxford English Dictionary 2007). Capitalism not only encourages
individuals to better themselves, but provides market incentives for them to do so.
3 Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of
production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole (Oxford
English Dictionary 2007).
4 Ubuntu is derived from Zulu humanist ethics ?umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu? translated as ?a person is a person
through other persons? or, ?I am because you are!? Ubuntu is one of the principal values of the South African
Constitution.
5 Kurt Goldstein (1939) defined self-actualization as a driving life force that will ultimately lead to maximizing one?s
abilities and will determine the path of one?s life.

4
I present the use of the visual arts as one way to explore this driving force of life in
combination with the complexity of economic development, and propose that by using
creative self-expression, it is possible to achieve in development interventions that which has
not been achieved before. The empowered individual can work as part of a group in
implementing change.

I also argue that the systems under investigation in this thesis are complex, and that a linear
reductionist analysis would be inappropriate. Complexity theory argues for the importance of
possibilities that lead to creativity and system transformation. This approach holds that
systems are most creative when they operate with a combination of order and chaos. I
suggest that this manifests as an individual drive for self-actualization within the paradigm of
ubuntu. This requires a balancing of socialism, as defined by collective action, and the
individualism that accounts for capitalist-style drive. The processes of creative dreaming and
imagining can assist an individual to aspire to be an agent of change; to go beyond self-
actualization towards agency and collective participation.

The argument of this thesis is that the hierarchy of the usual goals of current development
practice should be reversed so that the focus is firstly on the creation of empowerment,
agency and resilience, and only secondly on job creation and skills development. While
empowerment and resilience are certainly partly achieved through skills development, this
thesis holds that creative practice and aspiring towards change are greater goals, and the
ones that better guarantee long-term sustainability.

Rationale
One rationale for this thesis is the need to fill a gap that exists in the field of cultural activism,
that of sharing lessons and findings from interventions in order to build research and policy, in
order to increase the possibility of meaningful change taking place. My impression is that, in
the context of South Africa, activists for the most part are so busy acting and responding to
crises that not enough reflection takes place, and that the impact of interventions is often not
measured or monitored. This is partly because the culture of research is alienated from that of
practice: they occupy distinct worlds, with great divides between them. Research happens in
the elite world of higher education, while activism and community engagement happen on the
ground. Mark Taylor has recognized the importance of bridging this divide in his book entitled
The Moment of Complexity: ?Theory without practice is empty; practice without theory is blind.
The ongoing challenge is to bring theory and practice together in such a way that we can
theorize our practices and practice our theories? (Taylor 2003: 233). Perhaps, as the
5
American critic Lucy Lippard suggests, it is best to think of ideas rather than theories, which
tend to lock ?ideas up into boxes to which not all of us have the key.? The best theories evolve
organically, from practice (Lippard 2005: xxiii). It is in this manner that I aim to contribute to
theory through this research.

The rationale for this study has the following central components:
1) While there is an extensive range of community-based cultural activities, both within
South Africa and worldwide, systematic studies of their outcomes are mostly in the
initial stages. Therefore, qualitative analysis of projects that have employed different
visual arts strategies for change will contribute to knowledge in the creative, education
and development fields.
2) Central to the establishment of each of the case studies to be examined has been the
participation of students and artists in experiential learning programs, both in a formal,
research-linked educational context, and in an informal, non-governmental,
organizational capacity-building context. Progressive educators in the United States
have published extensively on the benefits of this link between formal and informal
learning environments. The analysis of these case studies will contribute to their
arguments for a fundamental transformation of the role of community engagement
within the academy.
3) The processes of reflection, self-criticism and analysis at the core of this thesis are
necessary for the continuity and regeneration of any community-based cultural
projects. Such processes help to clarify the many complex levels on which these
projects must work in order to ensure their survival.
4) Sharing strategies and narratives of resilience and agency can contribute to a
deepening of the discourse on development practice. The rationale for this approach
also holds that practice and experience should contribute to theory, from the bottom
up, and not the other way around.

Supervisors and the first readers of my thesis proposal advised me to reduce the number of
case studies in order to ensure that the scope of the thesis would remain within manageable
limits. However, I have insisted that the full sum of the parts is necessary for a
comprehensive investigation of creative approaches in each of the sectors of my involvement
as an educator. All four case studies and their summation in a final analysis are necessary in
order to substantiate the primary arguments put forward.

As a founder and leader of the programs that have been selected as case studies, a further
rationale for conducting the thesis research has been the need to address the following
6
discouraging questions that many cultural organizations face, particularly in an unstable
funding landscape:

? Why do so many cultural organizations fail?
? Why is it that some projects that have developed the complexity needed to be
sustainable often fail to achieve significant results?
? Why does ?change? itself, the event that cultural organizations are supposed to be
managing, feel overwhelming and create confusion rather than clarity?
? Why do many cultural activists find themselves swimming upstream, against the
system?
? Why do the expectations of cultural organizers frequently diminish to the point that the
best they hope for is to survive the disruptive forces?
And, finally, academia excels in theorizing systems. No real systems are as clean as the
models that are theorized. Activism is instrumental, theory is detached ? are the two
incompatible? How can theory that is applicable to everyday life be integrated into academia?

Specific responses to these broad questions will be addressed throughout the thesis, but are
posed here as the following initial questions: How can creative strategies respond to state
imperatives for democratic change? To what extent does the state impede or facilitate art and
culture as transformative in creating a new society? How can collectives that are organized
around creative activity engage social trauma effectively?

I have based my research on the following proposals that will be tested in this thesis:

a) The visual arts can provide a valuable tool for social transformation, particularly in
developing countries where literacy levels are low.
b) Grass-roots creative arts projects that ordinarily go un-analysed in any systematic way
are an important research resource in providing the foundation for new knowledge.
The projects? participants are partners and collaborators in generating this knowledge.
c) The comparative approach generated by juxtaposing these case studies can provide
useful examples and strategies to inform South African cultural and developmental
policies and practices.
d) The faculty of the imagination is an essential component in re-envisioning change in
complex environments such as post-apartheid South Africa. Visual artists bring
special strength to the project of facilitating the role of the imagination in aspiring for a
better future.
7
e) Many of the individuals who have participated actively in the projects under
investigation have become ?empowered.? Empowerment in this context refers first, to
the products or the art objects produced as manifestations of visual expressions that
are both healing and transformative, and, second, to the process of empowerment
whereby the external world is transformed through dreaming and vision. Self-
empowerment in this context also has livelihood implications, as the resulting products
are a source of income. I argue that the two functions of product and process can
assist in redressing the conditions of disempowerment resulting from damage caused
by the apartheid system.
f) The creative arts can be applied in different ways to alleviate social, spiritual,
environmental and economic poverty.
g) The arts promote agency and resilience; they enable individual dignity as well as
collective pride in culture; and they provide a means of expression to find ?voice?: voice
is a tool participants can use to ?navigate their way out of poverty? (Appadurai 2004).

Aims
This thesis sets out to investigate the above questions and assumptions through the case
studies of four community-engaged initiatives that have each, in different ways, responded to
state policies, foundation guidelines, and social imperatives. Artist Proof Studio, Paper
Prayers, Phumani Paper and community-engaged arts at the University of Johannesburg
each reflect a range of approaches that parallel the political transformation of a post-apartheid
South Africa from 1991 to the present. Further, the aim of this thesis is to document and to
critically reflect on the contributions to change arising from the various strategies used in the
case studies. Other objectives are to provide additional criteria for a re-interpretation of
current concepts of economic development and poverty alleviation; and to contribute to new
methodologies in approaching complex, sustainable community development projects.

A broader aim of this analysis is to provide a resource guide for cultural activism in South
Africa, and to demonstrate the dynamic possibilities that exist for collective experiences and
participatory approaches that have the potential to strengthen multi-dimensional and
interdisciplinary practices in the domains of development and arts education.

The following section will clarify defining concepts frequently referred to. ?Social change?,
?agency? and ?empowerment? are terms repeatedly employed in this thesis. While these words
have become jargon in development, this thesis attempts to reclaim their content and context.

8
The concept of ?social change? is linked to the meaning of change as set out by the South
African government in 1994 in its Reconstruction and Development Programme for
transformation:
South Africa has begun, for the first time in its history, to undertake the
task of the equitable development of the life opportunities of all its citizens.
It has a unique opportunity at this time to transform the means and the
methods through which its social goals are to be achieved (RDP 1994,
White Paper).

?Empowerment? in the context of this study is defined as an individual?s or group?s capacity to
make effective choices and the capacity to transform those choices into desired actions and
outcomes. The extent or degree to which a person is empowered is influenced by personal
agency (the capacity to make purposive choice) and the given opportunity structure (the
institutional context in which choice is made) (Alsop and Heinsohn 2005). The World Bank
has developed a set of tools for measuring empowerment in development practice. Alsop and
Heinsohn, who contributed to the World Bank?s policy paper, have provided a useful
differentiation between agency and empowerment. They suggest that asset endowments be
used as indicators of agency. These assets may be psychological, informational,
organizational, material, social, financial, or human. Opportunity structure is measured by the
presence and operation of formal and informal institutions, including the laws, regulatory
frameworks, and norms governing behaviour. Degrees of empowerment are measured by the
existence of choice, the use of choice, and the achievement of choice (Alsop and
Heinsohn 2005).

While I rely on the definitions provided by the World Bank policy document, I expand on the
meaning of agency, using the definition provided by Alexander and Mohanty. For these
scholars, agency requires that people imagine themselves as authors of their own lives:
Agency is understood here as the conscious and ongoing reproduction of the
terms of one?s existence while taking responsibility for the process
(Alexander and Mohanty 1997: xxviii).

Through its 1997 White Paper for Social Welfare and Population Development, the South
African government admirably articulated the aim of achieving an empowered populace as
the development of human capacity and self-reliance (Ministry of Welfare and Population
Development 1997: 15). Unfortunately, government?s ability to achieve this goal has proved to
be limited. Due to its lack of capacity to implement policies, the State is currently limiting the
development of human potential; some of its policies and practices enable growth, whereas
others undermine it. Currently, many of the cultural programmes that have contributed to the
growth of the cultural sector are experiencing severe damage through corruption and funding
9
cuts resulting from the neo-liberal economic priorities of the government?s Growth,
Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) policies. This situation issues a greater imperative to
individual and non-government organizations to infuse the country?s educational and
development strategies with a multi-dimensional and holistic approach, which converts the
culture of waiting, unfulfilled expectations and falling victim to poverty and HIV/AIDS, into
collective agency and a belief that ?We are the ones we have been waiting for?.6
The Chapters
The first four case studies constitute differing responses to the South African government?s
imperatives for social change towards the transformative ideals of non-racialism and equality
of rights and opportunities. Chapter Six combines these case studies in a series of
participatory action research interventions that aim to measure the processes of change in
terms of individual responses to the HIV pandemic. The interventions further seek to measure
increased economic and social participation of the community groups. The methodologies
used, and interventions described in Chapter Six use visual arts processes combined with
personal narratives. The narratives, stimulated by the visual artistic processes, contribute to
deepening the quality of the findings that are partially included in a commissioned sociological
impact assessment. What follows is a brief outline of each chapter that maps the structure of
the thesis.

Chapter One introduces the reader to the themes, rationale and objectives of this thesis. It
briefly outlines the core activities of each case study and the specific creative processes and
methods used in each project. It presents the framing theories and methodologies that will be
explored with different emphases in each chapter.

This thesis
argues that the creative arts are able to facilitate the placement of individuals at the centre of
their own lives as empowered agents of change, and can inspire ideas for collective action
that are rooted in the democratic processes of discussion and consensus.

Chapter Two introduces the first case study, Artist Proof Studio (APS), and its key goal of
developing leadership and activism among students training to become professional visual
artists. APS is a community printmaking studio founded in 1992. The fire that burnt down the
APS premises in 2003 provided an opportunity for rebuilding and for organizational change
after ten years of democracy. The founding inquiry that this case study explores is the role of
the imagination in envisioning a new organizational identity suitable for artistic practice within

6 This is a phrase used by Harry Boyte in his discussion on Civic Agency (2006). The original source is a song
from the civil rights movement in America dating to the 1950s.
10
post-apartheid South Africa. The chapter argues that the community-based art studio is
especially conducive to the process of preparing emerging leadership in the new democracy.
The journey of APS parallels South Africa?s cycle of transition that involved the three-part
process of reconciliation, redress and rebuilding. Finally, this chapter explores the different
visual strategies for developing and preparing artists as change agents in society.

Chapter Three explores the Paper Prayers initiative that was implemented as an HIV/AIDS
awareness programme of APS in 1998. The program was originally funded by government as
a highly successful visual arts awareness campaign that reached thousands of people
nationally. A year later, due to the reduction in government funding for creative HIV/AIDS
initiatives, the program had to seek new sources of financial support and new directions. This
case study argues that Paper Prayers offers a model of adaptability for a national program of
community-based interventions that respond not only to erratic funding sources, but also to
the shifting political terrain of HIV/AIDS policies in South Africa.

One of the key themes of this program involves the social consequences of HIV/AIDS with
regard to gender. Paper Prayers began as an awareness program directed primarily at
women, and gradually became a tool for social activism, particularly as elaborated in the
program ?Cultural Action for Social Change? in Chapter Six. Chapter Three also explores a
case study intervention, ?Reclaiming Lives,? that is directed primarily at changing the
ingrained patriarchal attitudes held by the predominantly male constituency at Artist Proof
Studio. It uses a collaborative and interactive art process to catalyse discussion and offer
support to overcome denial, and encourages all members to undergo voluntary counselling
and testing (VCT).

Chapter Four examines the issue of sustainability in arts-based poverty alleviation projects.
Phumani Paper, a national hand papermaking programme for job creation, was started
through a government objective of funding higher education institutions to implement
technology transfer and poverty alleviation. Although the grant offered exciting possibilities for
educational innovation as well as social transformation, extensive damage was caused by the
imposed program requirements. This chapter argues that the Government?s top-down,
bottom-line policy for poverty alleviation is based on a narrowly conceived and ineffectual
approach that ignores the capacities for practice, such as creativity and imagination, which I
hold are crucial to success. Using current development theory as well as systems and
complexity theory, the chapter examines Phumani Paper as a multi-layered project that
fosters community voice and agency, and argues that these are fundamentally important
factors that contribute to sustainability.
11
While Chapter Four addresses the weaknesses of government policies and suggests more
effective means of fostering social change, Chapter Five, ?Transformative Pedagogy in
Higher Education,? examines the crucial role that I argue universities should play in that
process. It argues that research in the arts can play a role in empowering previously
disadvantaged students and providing a model of knowledge creation that is fluid and
collaborative. Multidisciplinary and participative approaches to research have the potential to
both strengthen the role of the arts in the academy and to assist in shifting the paradigm to an
African-centred approach that values the role of community engagement in developing new
bases of knowledge. The goal of creative processes ? to enhance the self-actualization of
individuals ? provides the catalyst for activating a participatory and community-centred
paradigm.

In each of the four case studies I argue that the fundamental reason that the projects and
programs discussed continue to survive, although faced with significant problems, is the
power of imagination, aspiration and dreaming. I propose that participants in these
interventions are empowered by the creative process, which promotes dignity, pride, creativity
and leadership, in addition to income, and that these ?soft?, intangible attributes are the active
ingredients for success.

Chapter Six explores a multi-modal AIDS Action program that brings together the lessons
learnt from the four case studies to help sustain the struggling Phumani Paper enterprises,
which are coping with losses due to HIV/AIDS. Bringing together institutions of higher
education, Artist Proof Studio and the Phumani sites, the program uses the methodology of
Participatory Action Research and the visual interventions of Paper Prayers, Photovoice and
community mapping to provide the tools that nurture the development of voice and the means
to navigate one?s way out of disabling environments. The goal is to create the conditions for
agency to make choices that can improve health, social welfare and livelihoods. Monitoring
these changes through traditional social scientific methods in combination with creative and
innovative visual and participatory processes has started to build an archive of
methodological resources that can systematically track empowerment and social change.

Chapter Seven is the conclusion that analyses the findings of each case study and assesses
these together. The creative processes adopted in each project are presented as
methodologies to enhance sustainable development processes in countries such as South
Africa where poverty and low literacy rates create environments that are not conducive to
growth. The chapter argues that creativity, dreaming, enhanced skills and pride in
achievement, all work together to establish the resilience needed to survive the trauma of loss
12
and despair caused by the disappointment in government?s failure to deliver on promises, the
HIV/AIDS pandemic, the impact of gender violence and crime, and the cycle of poverty. This
concluding chapter is divided into two parts: the first examines the development challenges
and opportunities presented by the thesis, and the second presents the voices and stories of
the participants linked to specific themes of empowerment, agency and resilience. These
voices and stories from the field contribute to make a compelling case for the role of visual
arts in creating social change.

Theoretical Framework
The framing theories, terms of reference and new applications of concepts set out below will
begin to add substance to what has been identified in much of the preliminary work on the
role of the arts in social engagement. I argue that ?shifting the boundaries of knowledge?
(Marcus and Hofmaenner (eds) 2006) cannot be achieved by research and theory alone, but
requires the inclusion of practice, active participation and engagement. I have found that the
visual arts can be used as an effective bridge between academic knowledge and social
change. The theoretical frameworks summarized below are those that provide the
philosophical basis of my approach. Rather than attempting to be comprehensive, the
discussion focuses on the work of authors who have rigorously addressed the question of
bridging theory and practice, and who envision a new paradigm for defining and creating
knowledge.

This interdisciplinary study draws from post-colonial theory, theories of cultural engagement,
and theories of economic development, as well as the critique of research methods offered by
practice-based and Participatory Action Research. The latter implies a repositioning of more
traditional research and scholarship from the individual and the archive to the communal and
the collective. I also present systems theory and complexity theory as a means of framing the
multimodal and multidisciplinary flows that constantly shift the boundaries of knowledge-
making. What follows are short descriptions of the discursive fields that are expanded on in
each chapter. The categories presented integrate a selected literature review as part of the
theoretical framework below.

The first theoretical field to consider is concerned with cultural agency. A growing body of
literature has recognized the value of public practice that links creativity with social
contribution. I draw on the work of Doris Sommer, who has defined and analysed the term
?cultural agency? in Cultural Agency in the Americas (2006), in which she argues: ?Giving the
name ?cultural agency? will perhaps make these arts and their effects more visible to
13
scholarship and to activists who stay alive to inspiration? (Sommer 2006: 20). She
distinguishes this grassroots-based approach from the older discipline of cultural studies,
which is ?seen as a label for standard interdisciplinary practices [that] describe or denounce,
political and economic asymmetries. But critique can dead-end if it doesn't nudge toward
change? (Sommer 2006: 4). To counter this stasis, Sommer advocates the founding of ?a
scholarly praxis, a blueprint for academic work committed to advancing energetic, creative,
non-harmonious but non-violent democratic relations? (Sommer 2006: 7). Sommer goes on to
outline the approach and practice of the cultural agent, which aptly expresses my own
philosophy.

The cultural agency approach insists on academic study and cultural activism as reciprocal
and mutually beneficial enterprises. The scholar of cultural agency is thus at the same time a
cultural agent: ?the scholar as cultural agent ? seeks a path out of the long-acknowledged
sense of despair and paralysis that has gripped engaged intellectuals since the late 1980s?
(Pratt 2006: 330). Sommer has been influenced by prominent cultural studies scholars who
have long argued for a shift in the field. For example, in his essay ?Cultural Studies and its
Theoretical Legacies?, Stuart Hall states that cultural theory is not ?a will to truth? but ?a
practice which always thinks about its intervention in a world in which it would make some
difference, in which it would have some effect? (Hall 1992: 286).

Finally, Sommer also warns against universalizing theories and generalized practices.
?Instead of tracing the familiar routes from inequalities back to power, where movement gets
stuck and protesters can feel paralyzed, cultural agency pursues the tangents of daily
practices to multiply creative engagements with power and to get some wiggle room?
(Sommer 2006: 20). As she points out, ?the goal is no longer the dusk of capitalism before the
dawn of an egalitarian utopia, but rather many small foci of reform ? The virtue of this
pluralized approach is to recognize multiple if modest agendas? (Sommer 2006: 7).

The theoretical fields of globalization, nationalism and cultural theory provide an important
context for cultural agency. Although community activism is locally based, it is strongly
influenced by the effects of the spread of global capitalism over the past quarter century.
Arjun Appadurai (2001) cautions that globalization threatens to homogenize cultures, making
it difficult to find a position from which to criticize its effects. However, he argues that one
positive result of globalization is the emancipatory potential of a politics of the imagination.
?The imagination is no longer a matter of individual genius,? and ?It is a faculty that informs
the daily lives of ordinary people in myriad ways: it allows people to consider migration, resist
state violence, seek social redress and design new forms of civic association and
14
collaboration, often across national boundaries? (Appadurai 2001: 6). Urban sociologist
Saskia Sassen (2001) proposes that the nation state is little more than a territory within the
global, capitalist economy, but she argues that the geography of globalization is partial and
not all-encompassing and challenges contemporary theory and research to ?identify and
decode what ?national? means today? (Sassen 2001: 276). Sassen?s analysis is pertinent to
South Africa, where the ?new? nation was declared when globalization?s reach appeared
unstoppable. As a result of its decision to participate fully in the global economy (through
GEAR), the country?s identity could perhaps be regarded now as less a nation state than as a
brand.

Community cultural development is a theoretical field in the United States with a growing
body of literature being published that includes James Grave on Cultural Democracy (2005),
Colin Mercer Towards Cultural Citizenship (2002), William Cleveland Making Exact Change
(2005) and Art and Upheaval (2008) and Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard. In their first book,
Creative Community: the Art of Cultural Development, Adams and Goldbard provide a range
of definitions, core purposes, processes and methodologies, paving the way for the
theoretical analysis of the artist as cultural practitioner. In their view, ?community cultural
development practice is uniquely suited to respond to current social conditions, uniquely
powerful in its ability to speak to the whole person and the whole community, nurturing and
supporting communities? resilience, especially in the face of globalization? (Adams and
Goldbard 2001: 105). Their seven ?unifying principles? guide my analysis, with an emphasis
on the fourth principle: ?Culture is an effective crucible for social transformation, one that can
be less polarizing and create deeper connections than other social change initiatives?
(2001: 14).

Their second volume, Community Culture and Globalization, examines community cultural
development as an oppositional response to globalization, which ?determines what aspects
of culture will be preserved and supported? (Adams and Goldbard 2002: 19). Although I fully
support their belief in the effectiveness of grassroots action, I argue that in proposing the
local as a direct counter to the global, the authors overstate their case. The effectiveness of
community-based interventions must surely be judged in part by their integration into public
policy. This view is supported by educator Henry Giroux's analysis of pedagogy: ?Culture is a
strategic pedagogical and political terrain whose force as a crucial site and weapon of power
in the modern world can be extended to broader public discourses and practices about the
meaning of democracy, citizenship, and social justice? (Giroux 2000: 38). The challenge, I
suggest, is to work on many levels simultaneously. In ?Evolution of Intentions in Development
Institutions,? Metsi Makheta, a policy advisor for UNDP, argues for a new level of thinking
15
that would solve intractable problems, such as development work in the face of the HIV/AIDS
pandemic. In her view, creativity is central to leadership?s meeting this task. ?By leadership I
refer to the quality to be courageous enough to act without precedence ? taking a leap into
the dark with belief in the creative faculties of development actors? (Makheta 2004: 149).

The courage required to implement effective action is likely to be counter to rational business
practices that funders expect from development projects. In their paper, ??Irrational?
Organizations: Why Community-based Organizations are really Social Movements,? Susan
Seifert and Mark Stern (2000) summarize the results of their study of over fifty community-
based arts and cultural providers in the Philadelphia area. They argue that rational business
practice is the wrong measurement stick for assessing these projects; rather, arts
organizations are the glue of community life, sustained by the beliefs and commitment of
their members. They argue that because these are social movements, lacking orthodox
organizational practices, community cultural centres could be judged as failures. I argue with
Stern and Seifert, that development projects should be regarded as social movements and
that the criteria used to judge success must therefore be different: standards of
?sustainability? should give credit to organizations that succeed in engaging and mobilizing
their communities. Their premise is supported by the essays in an anthology edited by
Vijayendra Rao and Michael Walton entitled Culture and Public Action (2004), which address
the complex interrelation between culture and development and propose that a ?cultural lens?
can better inform future research and public policy on development.

One of the arguments investigated in this thesis is that art can improve people?s lives in the
face of ongoing multiple traumas of violence and disease. The questions posed earlier
generate others that include: How is it possible to train in times of plague? What are the
effects of trauma, and how can such projects address them? What must happen to make
such projects sustainable? And more fundamentally: is the belief that creativity provides a
means to foster empowerment and aspiration viable? If so, can small interventions, such as
those represented by the case studies, have a wider application?

These questions are explored in many of the chapters, most fully in Chapter Six. The Cultural
Action Intervention I analyse there has developed indicators that measure significant change
in collaboration with cultural action methodologies such as Photovoice, Paper Prayers and
community mapping.

Another field of theory that provides a context for this research is the role of art as cultural
activism. The extensive body of literature on activist art in the United States, by Carol Becker
16
(2002), Grant Kester (1995), Suzanne Lacy (1995), Nina Felshin (1995) and others, has
argued strongly for the importance of the role of the artist in society, as opposed to the
outdated modernist conception of the artist as positioned exclusively in the realm of the
aesthetic. A prominent critic, Carol Becker, Dean of Columbia University?s School of the Arts,
challenges artists who ?cross over, move between cultures [and] struggle to raise serious
issues of gender, class and race ? to reach out to audiences greater than just the art world?
(Becker 2002: 37). South Africa has its own inspired history of activist art, from the resistance
art of the 1980s ? Paul Stopforth, Dumile Feni, William Kentridge (in Williamson 1989 and
Williamson and for example Sue Williamson,7 Jan Jordaan,8 Kate Wells9
The literature of economic and development theory and practice has provided the
underpinning theoretical framework that directs the link between cultural activism and
economic development. This thesis argues for the use of the visual arts as a methodology to
facilitate the process of self-creation that permits individuals to make a difference in their
communities. In order to pursue the goal to ?multiply creative engagements with power?
(Sommer 2006), I propose a creative approach to community development. To structure an
argument against the South African government?s approach to development, which has
focused on economic improvement at the expense of human values and emotional wellness,
this thesis adopts the influential development theory of Amartya Sen, who critiques ?fierce?
development approaches that neglect ?soft-headed? issues, such as social safety nets and
basic democratic rights (Sen 1999a: 35). The validity of Amartya Sen?s concept of
?development as freedom,? that is, development as the fostering of individual and community
). Activist art exists
in many different guises, from public art (murals, performance interventions) to community-
based projects. Whatever forms they take, all share the belief that art does not belong to an
economic elite, but is a communal resource where the line between creators and viewers is
often blurred. In a 1994 seminar presented by Zakes Mda on the role of culture in the
process of reconciliation, the novelist argued that the notion of the arts playing a role in social
action and transformation is not new in Africa. ?In pre-colonial Africa, art did not only ?mean?,
it also functioned. This was before its commodification, which came with westernization. Art
was part of the common festival, and all members of the society, among other activities,
participated in its production and enjoyment? (Mda 1994b: 1).

7 The work of South African activist artists, such as Sue Williamson?s AIDS activist billboards, can be found in a
range of texts including A Decade of Democracy (Bedford 2004).
8 Jan Jordaan?s activist work through Artists for Human Rights and Art for Humanity has been well documented in
a new Anthology: Art and Upheaval, William Cleveland (2008). This book also documents my own arts activism in
a chapter entitled ?Prayers, Paper, Fire? (pp.127-151).
9 See activist artists: Kate Wells, Siyazama (http://www.siyazamaproject.co.za),,Carol Hofmeyr, Keiskamma Trust
(http://www.keiskamma.org), Andries Botha?s Amazwi Abesifazane, Voices of Women (http://www.cas.org.za/).
17
agency in any program of economic aid, is a core argument of this thesis. Based on his
research on development projects in India, he argues persuasively that development cannot
succeed if framed exclusively in terms of economic aid provided to passive recipients.
Rather, if development is to be successful, it must be part of programs that provide for
individual agency: ?With adequate social opportunities, individuals can effectively shape their
own destiny and help each other? (Sen 1999a: 11). Sen redefines development as ?a
momentous engagement with freedom?s possibilities? (Sen 1999a: 298). This argument has
direct implications for the study of community cultural development and economic
empowerment. The concept of poverty must be redefined through this lens, which includes a
crucial feminist argument that the agency of women is key to poverty alleviation.10
The gap between economic theory and practice is difficult to bridge, but the existing literature
documenting development projects provides helpful guidelines.
Poverty so
defined has many different aspects, including lack of access and opportunity. This is
discussed further in Chapter Four.

11
In South Africa most development projects are defined by a set of external objectives: the
priorities and criteria set by the donor agency. There is an expectation that the local
implementing agency will impose these requirements onto a target community. I argue with
Edgar Pieterse that when these development interventions are mono-dimensional and the
deliverables are pre-determined by the donor without community participation, they fail.
Pieterse confirms that when the government or non-governmental organization agenda is
?delivery?, descending on a target community in order to ?do good,? the impact can be
damaging and disempowering (Pieterse 2004: 330). I have found Pieterse?s propositions that
comprise ?a development praxis suitable for our transitional times? useful as a framework for
an approach to community development (Pieterse 2004: 330). These principles elucidate the
multiple social layers that must be penetrated for development to be sustained. Pieterse?s
Naresh Singh further
argues that sustainability is a key indicator of success in development projects. In
Sustainable Livelihoods, he puts forward the conditions that must be met for sustainability:
economic efficiency, social equity, ecological integrity, and resilience. In addition, sustainable
development must be inter-sectoral, inter-level and participatory (Helmore and Singh
2001: 71, 89).

10 This is discussed further by Sen (1999: 189-203), and Alexander and Mohanty (1997: 1-13).
11 Literature includes Helmore and Singh (2001): Sustainable Livelihoods; Pieterse and Meintjies (2004): Voices
of the Transition; Kaplan (1996): The Development Practitioner?s Handbook and Sen (1999): Development as
Freedom.
18
model identifies the key interactive factors of the state, the global economy, civil society,
politics, individual aspirations, economic empowerment and institutional values.

Pieterse?s position is drawn from the work of cultural theorist Arjun Appadurai, whose
argument has influenced the theoretical positioning of this thesis. In his essay, ?The Capacity
to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of Recognition,? Appadurai posits that when community
activists operate with the premise of ?aspiration? and imagination, rooted in the participants?
articulated needs, they can bypass the inevitable, repetitive disappointments, anger and failed
expectations on delivery (Appadurai 2004: 69). Core to this thesis is Appadurai?s discussion
of futurity and the idea of agency and voice as the tools to ?navigate out of poverty.? ?By
bringing the future back in, by looking at aspirations as cultural capacities, we are surely in a
better position to understand how people actually navigate their social spaces? (Appadurai
2004: 84). I agree with Appadurai that the work of development and poverty reduction has
everything to do with working toward a better future, and that a deeper capacity to aspire can
only strengthen the poor as active participants in the battle against poverty.

Feminist activist and educational theory provides another frame of reference for critiquing
traditional development theory. According to feminist scholar Honor Ford-Smith:
As far as most development agencies are concerned, the place of theatre and
the arts is a non-issue. ?Development? apparently does not include pleasure,
even the pursuit of pleasurable opportunities for reflection or the creation of
cultural products that mirror the collective consciousness. ?Development?, one
concludes, is a ?scientific? phenomenon opposed, it is implied, to the arts, which
are dangerous luxuries threatening to undo all of science?s sweet categories and
Western social organization (Honor Ford-Smith 1997: 229-230).

This was written more than ten years ago, and much of her later argument continues to reflect
some of the attitudes common to socio-economic development practitioners, as well as
traditional approaches to research in the academy. For example, the revolutionary
contribution by social economists and anthropologists such as Sen, Appadurai, Pieterse and
Rao and Walton, has since introduced creative and expressive concepts into the language of
development. I argue that the introduction of creative methodologies in the practice of
development can extend an understanding of economic poverty to the alleviation of poverty of
the spirit. My own role as an artist and activist is closely tied into a commitment to social
justice and gender equity. The development of my personal belief system was informed by
Marxism and feminism, and my radical politics were forged during the apartheid regime's
repressive ?State of Emergency.? Both Marxism and western second-wave feminism, which
dominated debate during my student years, has since been influenced by post-colonial and
non-western feminist theories, such as those of Homi K. Bhabha (1994) and Chandra
19
Mohanty (2003), who call for a more nuanced examination of the intersections of race, class,
gender and culture.

In addition to race and class, all discussions of the disadvantaged and disempowered must
address the issue of gender. As the essays in Alexander and Mohanty?s Feminist
Genealogies make clear, ?neo-liberalism operates through different gendered ideologies of
women?s work? (Alexander and Mohanty 1997: xxiii). Defining Third World feminism in
opposition to Western feminism and academic Women?s Studies programs, they argue that
post-colonial nation states are inherently masculinist, and thus ?discipline and mobilize the
bodies of women in order to consolidate patriarchal and colonizing processes.? Gender issues
in South Africa are affected by the dual legacies of white and traditional African patriarchal
systems, which impede women?s empowerment and aspirations (Ouzgane and Morell 2005:
13).12
The theoretical approaches of Sen and Appadurai have been expanded upon by Edgar
Pieterse and Mark Swilling, who, in addition, apply the principles of complexity theory in
physics to social scientific analysis. I have adopted an aspect of the theory of complexity as a
useful framing paradigm for this thesis. Swilling?s premise is as follows: the paradigm of
complexity and uncertainty should be part of the mapping and analysis of development
projects. According to Swilling, even though complexity theory has been inspired by
developments in physics, it ?is not a single body of thought that stems from a clearly
identifiable central source? (Swilling 2004: 321). Citing the work in the field by Paul Cilliers
(1998), he argues that complexity theory offers a means to ?successfully rethink and re-
imagine society from an evolutionary and sustainability perspective? (Swilling 2004: 321).
The key elements of complexity theory as outlined by Swilling provide a useful provisional
guideline for the comparative analysis of the four projects under investigation. Among these
elements is the tenet that complex systems comprise a large number of elements that
In addition to Alexander and Mohanty (1997), Mohanty (2003), Albertyn and Goldblatt
(2007) and Ramphele (2008) have found that female education, reproductive agency and
economic empowerment enhance not only the position of women, but that of society as a
whole. In other words, they confirm Sen?s conclusion that, ?The changing agency of women is
one of the major mediators of economic and social change, and its determination as well as
consequences closely relate to many of the central features of the development process?
(Sen 1999b: 203-204). Sen?s position is convincing in that leadership amongst women is a
crucial aspect of ?development as freedom.?

12 ?The recognition that these factors [gender inequalities, violence and sexualities] are critical in the spread of
HIV/AIDS has made the construction of masculinities an important part of the research and intervention agenda
for the pandemic.? In Lahoucine Ouzgane and Robert Morrell, African Masculinities (2005: 13).
20
interact dynamically to form intricately textured patterns. This process of identifying and
analysing patterns is also central to the writing of narrative texts, as discussed by sociologist
and educator Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (Lightfoot and Davis 1997: 4). A complex system has
a collective memory that constitutes its history, and that, if documented as in this thesis, can
guide its future. Swilling suggests that complex systems theory ?holds promise because it
invites us to look for patterns rather than parts, probabilities rather than predictions,
processes rather than structures and non-linear dynamics instead of deterministic
causalities? (Swilling 2004: 321). The concept of complexity as an embracing theoretical
frame accommodates the multi-layered approach of this thesis.

The moment of democratic change in South Africa in 1994 opened up new possibilities for
re-imagining the country?s future, facilitated by Nelson Mandela and a vision of possibility that
used the metaphor of a rainbow nation.13
Fritjof Capra's The Web of Life, A New Synthesis of Mind and Matter reaffirms the value of
complexity theory in his work in the closely related field of systems theory. I have adopted his
approach as a useful framework for understanding the complex interrelationships described
To understand that moment in time and what
makes it so different from any other, it is helpful to frame it as ?a moment of complexity?. In
his book, The Moment of Complexity: Emerging network culture, Mark C. Taylor writes about
the era in which we live as a moment of unprecedented complexity, when change and
information can move faster than our ability to comprehend them. Falling between order and
chaos, the moment of complexity is the point at which self-organizing systems emerge to
create new patterns of coherence and structures of relation (Taylor 2003: 24).

In the context of this thesis, the systems under investigation are complex, and a linear
reductionist analysis would therefore be inappropriate. Complexity theory argues for the
importance of possibilities that lead to creativity and system transformation. It proposes that
systems are most creative when they operate with a combination of order and chaos. These
premises can support organizations to value diversity, change, and transformation, rather
than predictability, standardization and uniformity. In its approach to organizations as
dynamic, self-evolving complex systems, systems theory is now frequently used in
organizational change-management efforts. This popularization notwithstanding, the basic
insights of this approach are still illuminating for the analysis of the case studies in this thesis.

13 The term ?Rainbow nation?, coined by Desmond Tutu (1994) was elaborated on by President Nelson Mandela
in his first month of office, when he proclaimed: ?Each of us is ? intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful
country ? a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.?
(http://africanhistory.about.com/od/mandelanelson/p/qts_mandela1.htm).
21
in this thesis. According to Capra, living systems are networks that are organizationally
closed, but open to the flows of energy and resources. He describes shifts from a
mechanistic, linear hierarchical view to a holistic, ecological view; from the ?objective? to
?epistemic? (that is, the process of knowing). Systems thinking is process thinking
characterized by continual flow and change. Concepts of self-regulation and synthesis in
ecological systems exhibit the same basic principles of organization in human communities.
Values of interdependence, recycling, co-operation, partnership, flexibility and diversity all
contribute to sustainability (Capra 1996: 40). Systems theory is dependent not only on
information, but also on experience. For systems to be viable they must be sustainable and
resilient. The new sciences theories from which Capra draws argue convincingly for the
value of ?autopoiesis? and self-organization, which can be understood as another rationale
for constructing reflexive positioning and dialogic process.14

14 Models of dynamic living systems were pioneered by biologists and ecologists who stressed that living
organisms are best understood as integrated wholes. Capra draws on the new science and mathematics theories
from Nobel Prize winning chemist Ilya Prigogine (1980), Chilean neuroscientist Humberto Maturana (1980), fractal
mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot (1982), microbiologist Lynn Margulis (1991), and geochemist James Lovelock
(2000).
The ?new mathematics of
complexity? is qualitative in that it ?embodies the shift of emphasis from objects to
relationships, from quantity to quality from substance to pattern? (Capra 1996: 184).

This thesis explores alternatives to existing systems and theories in order to open up a space
for continuing questioning and imaginative responses to challenges of empowerment among
participants in development projects. In an edited compilation of essays ?New Paradigms,
Culture and Subjectivity?, one of the editors, Dora Fried Schnitman, expands on the concept
of flexible, evolving ?New Paradigms?:
The innovative-creative perspective of time, chaos as an organizing force,
complexity as an open world of possibilities, the active construction of subjects
in contexts, the view of knowledge as a generative process, are resources of the
new paradigms that allow us to shift from visions associated with an ordered and
predictable world to others in which turbulence, oscillation, and innovation are
part of everyday life: from visions in which we believed in a future guaranteed by
political, scientific, or therapeutic systems, to others in which the future is yet to
be constructed (Schnitman 2002: 346).

This theoretical approach creates an opening to the new and unexpected. It acknowledges
creativity as an ongoing response to particular events in particular situations. The new
paradigms allow the possibility to ?conceptualize designs or patterns in order to carry out this
task of constructing the future?. Fried Schnitman makes an argument for self-reflexivity
founded on and rooted in, ?the responsibility for our own constructions and the actions that
accompany them?. She continues:
22
From a dialogic point of view, truth is born locally, between people collectively
searching for it in the process of their dialogic interaction. The notion of dialogic
truth is a process, a meta-narrative, not content. These times demand that we
find ways to institutionalize dialogue as the form, (not the content) of meta-
narrative in postmodern society (Schnitman 2002: 347).

Participants in the studies under investigation jointly create a dialogue that develops through
action. The activities are ?generative processes?: surprise, uncertainty, and discovery, rather
than control and certainty, are the emotions associated with dialogue. In this pluralist vision,
dialogue searches for multiple voices. These networks of dialogues are significant
components of the creation of knowledge. New criteria are required for evaluating the
knowledge created:
a criterion for evaluating any research methods or other forms of participation and
their results is the reflexive ability to discern both one?s own horizons and voices
that speak languages different from one?s own (Schnitman 2002: 349).

Art may be considered one of those modes of knowledge that requires that we keep
ourselves reflexively open to diversity, to the unexpected, in order to discern those elements
that do not fit into our theories or dominant codes.

This investigation will explore contexts or conditions that facilitate the emergence and
maintenance of new possibilities of meaning and action. I see a challenge for facilitators,
educators, artists and group members to transform themselves from being observers in the
world to becoming active participants and constructors of a better environment. When
individuals are able to see themselves as being part of the solution for making a difference in
the world, positive change happens.

Methodology
The principal methodology used in each of the projects is one that percolates up from the
bottom. The premise is that the experiential approach feeds theory, and practice leads to
understanding. In this way, new knowledge is created. This approach continually asks the
question: What are the participants revealing about life? In order to envision changes in their
lives, all participants are encouraged to actively use their imaginative capacities, to ?dream.?
Dreaming is the ability to make what is not there appear. It opens up the possibilities for self-
creation. The methodology in each case study therefore views art-making as fundamental in
the dual processes of integrating life skills and dreaming a better future. Below I have
presented a short discussion of different methodological approaches to be used in this thesis;
namely research and education methodologies, Participatory Action Research and visual
23
research, self-reflexivity and, finally, methods of assessment. Each method is expanded on in
the various chapters, and Chapter Six explores these methodologies in combination.

Paulo Freire?s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) remains the foundational text for a model
of teaching and learning that begins with the existing knowledge of the ?learners? and
considers learning to be collaborative rather than force-fed. In We Make the Road by
Walking, (Bell 1990) the conversations between Freire and Myles Horton provide cross-
cultural examples of changing systems from within. As Freire?s writings make clear, there
often tends to be a radical disjunction between academia and the community at large. The
literary scholar Julie Ellison has identified this as the ?two cultures problem,? and argues that
universities can strengthen their academic reputations by fostering experiential learning and
research (Ellison 2002b). In Cultural Politics and Social Movements, M. Darnovsky cautions
that academics cannot fill their public roles adequately without strong ties to social
movements or community organizations (Darnovsky 1995: xix). During its ?transitional? phase,
South African educational policy (White Paper 1997), directed tertiary institutions to engage
with issues of community access and rebuilding. In response to this directive, most higher
education institutions list three tenets for academic excellence: learning, research and
community (Perolda and Omar 1997: 88). However, the third element, which I argue is
crucial, is in practice often ignored. Despite the promise of the 1996 White Paper on
education, the more radical impulses within higher education communities have been
constrained by the neo-liberal economic policies established under President Thabo Mbeki.
George Subotzky argues that the concern for ?public good through pursuing redress, equity,
and redistributive justice [is] increasingly constrained by the hegemony of global market-
orientated, neoliberalism.? He argues that the transformation agenda of the first eight years of
democracy was replaced with a globalized market model of the university. I explore in
Chapter Five how community-based arts research can counter the influence of competitive,
power-driven, conflict-ridden organizational processes that characterize the academy at
present, toward more consensual, cooperative ways of learning. The arts can play a role in
introducing the concept of research as relevant, fluid, inclusive and collaborative and I
propose that this model can contribute to the challenge of evolving an ?African? research and
education paradigm for the arts.

American educator Henry Giroux lays the blame for educational institutions? lack of
community involvement on their increasing corporatization, and argues that if they are to
properly fulfil their roles, schools must ?play a vital role in developing the political and moral
consciousness of [their] citizens.? He calls for ?educators to develop ethical projects out of the
specificity of the contexts and social formations in which they undertake efforts to combat
24
various forms of oppression? (Giroux 2000: 35). Expanding Giroux's concept of pedagogy to
academic research, Appadurai argues for a research culture based on imaginative rethinking
of given relationships between pedagogy, research and activism in the age of globalization.
He calls for the democratization of research in the ?context of certain dominant forms of
critical knowledge? (Appadurai 2004: 3).

The approach common to each project is premised on Freire?s (1970) and Augusto Boal?s
(1979) philosophical and ethical underpinning that transformational learning starts from the
bottom up. The predominant methodology for democratic, collaborative academic research,
Participatory Action Research, is used to frame the case study analyses. There are a number
of prominent methodologies and terminologies for participative inquiry, including experiential
learning, cooperative inquiry, action learning and action research (Reason 2001). Without
attempting to draw fine distinctions, I will adopt the term Participatory Action Research (PAR)
in this thesis. As defined by Peter Reason, PAR is a ?coming to know,? rather than a formal
academic method of research. He defines PAR as a methodology for an alternative system of
knowledge production, based on the people?s role in setting the agendas, participating in data
gathering and analysis, and in controlling the use of its outcomes. PAR emphasizes the
political aspects of knowledge production, creating knowledge directly useful to a group of
people. The research process involves full reciprocity, so that ?each person?s agency is
fundamentally honoured, both in the exchange of ideas and in action? (Reason 2001: 324-
339). This thesis presents PAR as embracing richer, more intense forms of inquiry when
applying artistic forms of expression.

As an expanding PAR methodology, one of these artistic forms of expression, Photovoice,
has been successfully used in a range of interventions to give expression to voices that have
not been heard. As defined by Caroline Wang, ?Photovoice is a participatory action research
strategy by which people create and discuss photographs as a means of catalyzing personal
and community change? (Wang 1998: 75). Psychologist Brinton Lykes has used Photovoice
to record the stories of genocide in Guatemala that had been silenced for years (Lykes 2001:
363) and Caroline Wang has used it as a healing process in clinics in rural China (Wang
1998: 85). The findings and presentation of annual PAR exchange programs with the
University of Michigan and seminars held at the University of Johannesburg from 2005-8
have confirmed the value of Photovoice as a research method suitable for visual arts
25
practice.15
Throughout this thesis, my own role as the founder and director of the programmes is
continually interrogated. However, it is important to address directly the impact of the
Chapter Six explores an art-based variant of PAR in the implementation of
Photovoice, which has been successfully used to catalyse change in a range of interventions.
While the case studies in this thesis focus on the use of art methodologies as an instrumental
way to achieve social goals, they also acknowledge the fundamental power of art-making as
a way to make meaningful objects. The combination of the two has the effect of voicing
experience for the individual and the group.

Self-reflexivity is a core methodology in this thesis. My theoretical approach to analysing the
case studies is influenced by the work of anthropologist Clifford Geertz. Following Geertz, I
will position myself as an ?insider researcher,? who, as the founder of these projects cannot
claim to be an objective observer (Geertz 1973). However, I will attempt to achieve some
distance in order to examine the fundamental assumptions underlying my efforts.

As a senior lecturer in the Fine Art Department at the University of Johannesburg, I have
been engaged in an invigorating and challenging process of linking research activities with
community engagement and artistic practice since 1995. In this thesis I document and
analyse over eighteen years of activism, comparing the idealistic aims with the actual
outcomes. As I am the founder of, and therefore a subjective figure in, the projects under
investigation, there is an inherent challenge in researching and evaluating my own work.
Tensions arise as a consequence of my varied positions as participant, observer, researcher
and manager. Reflexivity, I argue, opens systemic discourse that challenges a linear, analytic
and traditional approach to research methodology. Furthermore, one of the rationales for my
inquiry in the form of a PhD thesis is the need for reflection, that is, for development activists
to be highly critical of their own practices and motivation for engaging communities. The
questions to be addressed are: Can development activists propose a model of good practice
from lessons learned? Is it possible to draw on a community?s history to come to terms with
the past in order to shape a future? What role does the imagination play in this process? I
discuss the impacts of my positionality below, but also include self-reflexive analysis at
various other points in this thesis. These include personal reflections in some of the chapters
that seek to respond to the broader theoretical questions using an introspective and personal
voice.

15 ?New Partners/New Knowledge: Sustaining Learners and Social Change through Participatory Action
Research.? A collaboration between the University of Michigan and the University of Johannesburg. Annual
Seminars at University of Johannesburg, 2005-2008.
26
stereotype associated with being a white South African middle class Jewish woman who is
the founder and director of an arts organization. Artist and critic Shalene Kahn is critical of
this ?type? in the South African art world. Her article ?Doing it for Daddy? describes the ?white-
female-only ascendancy? into positions of power in the art world:
There is a growing dissatisfaction with the white domination of the visual arts
industry. The ascendancy of white women into positions of power suggests a
glaring lack of faith in black cultural workers and intellectuals. Viewed cynically,
the rise of white women into exclusivist structures, many of them dating back to
the apartheid era ? will sometimes infiltrate the centre not to effect change but
to maintain power (Kahn 2006: 56).

Honor Ford-Smith, who was the founder of the feminist collective ?Sistern? provides a useful
analysis of colonial images of middle class women as patrons and ?social mothers? in
Jamaica. This is a useful comparison in the context of South African post-colonial race, class
and gender stereotypes as critiqued by Kahn:
The ?good? middle class woman of both races is she who has no needs, never
speaks about herself, never expresses anger except on another?s behalf. She
works tirelessly for the welfare of others, and she is passively heterosexual, or if
necessary, asexual. She remains at the centre but does so without looking
inward to her own needs ? For women to speak out about their own needs is to
presumably risk being seen as ?self-indulgent? in a situation in which oppression
is formulated as a fundamentally economic relation and in which solutions to
economic instability are equated with psychic well being (Honor Ford-Smith
1997: 247).

Honor Ford-Smith critiques her own role as leader in her group:
by keeping our mouths shut, we allowed the construct of the good woman to
remain intact. We missed an opportunity to envision and formulate new images
of women?s identity and interclass relations.

The opportunity to reflect on building new democratic organizations such as Artist Proof
Studio and Phumani Paper, physically and symbolically from scratch, led me to understand
the importance of identifying the diversity of roles, functions, needs, not according to
education, class and colour, but as ranges of skills and capacities which could be acquired
and built. The way we at APS understand the democratic organization is not simply white-run
or BEE (black economic empowerment implies black-run and black-owned). The
contradictions, differences, and ideological conflicts are not perceived as obstacles to the
collective, but opportunities to develop the richness and complexity of group work. A variety of
structures and decision-making processes take place in each unit according to the team
structures. However, the matter of white female leadership is an ongoing issue, especially at
Artist Proof Studio where the members have been frequently both dependent and resentful.

27
The term ?management? is still interpreted as the heavy-handed silencing of individuality. It
still carries the baggage of the white authoritarian regime and racist oppression. Chapter Two
explores a different model of an African leadership style expressed in the model of ubuntu
practice, which can help reframe paradigms that are not so western-identified. The possibility
for me to write and research, and to have the opportunity of stepping out of ?doing? has been a
most valuable process in developing new models of leadership. The issue of race and class is
fundamental to the dynamics of activism and networking in South Africa. I have included a
brief discussion of racial identities here as it is integrated into the methodologies of
participation and collaboration as fundamental to the approach of this thesis.

Post-modern theorists have critiqued fundamental categories of Western epistemologies,
including those of personal, national and racial identities. Homi Bhabha has argued that:
It is one of the salutary features of postmodern theory to suggest that it is the
disjunctive, fragmented, displaced agency of those who have suffered the
sentence of history ? subjugation, domination, diaspora, displacement ? that
forces one to think outside the certainty of the sententious (Bhabha 1994: 56).

On the other hand, these critics do not deny the effects of racism or the importance of the
examination of ethnic identity. As Paul Gilroy argues, ??Race?, and its attendant imaginary
politics of community ? provide a contemporary example of how ?traditional? ties are created
and re-created out of present rather than past conditions? (Gilroy 1994: 417). For example, in
analysing race in the South African context, Adam Habib rejects the category of ?Indian?
applied to him. Arguing instead for hybridity, Habib claims that:
The reassertion of racial identities and the establishment of ?racial cultural?
spaces is seen as necessary, because it is believed that the legacy of
institutionalized racism is ? a product of an invisible cultural norm that promotes
?whiteness.? The problem with this argument is that it detaches ?cultural?
inequalities from their material dimensions. (Habib 2004: 246-7).

Despite this argument, Habib acknowledges that ?redress? for specific ?racial? groups remains
a priority, highlighting the inevitable gap between theory and politics. The artist/activist cannot
ignore this central issue of ?race,? whether or not the term is placed in quotes. Questions of
representation, of the ?right? to depict ?the other?, as well as the unavoidable fact that most
community cultural development projects in South Africa are founded by whites, render
ongoing arguments about ?race? central in practice, even if ?unsettled? in some theory. I argue
that the visually-based methodologies presented through the different interventions in this
thesis are able to cross and penetrate boundaries to activate agency. Each intervention in the
different case studies explores different strategies and practices that use visual arts-based
methods to transcend racial and cultural divisions in cross-cultural engagement.

28
Assessing Change
The challenge of assessing change that links participatory action-based research, creative
practice and more traditional methods of social scientific research methods has required
innovative, mixed-method and multi-modal approaches. Chapter Six explores an assessment
and monitoring design that can accommodate a mix of ?hard? quantitative data and ?soft?
information emerging from personal and visual narratives. The purpose of the assessment
strategies is partially to provide evidence of the role of the arts in bringing about positive
social change, and to contribute arts-based methodologies as new knowledge for the
development field. This thesis argues that process-orientated research interventions produce
more sustainable development results because they are locally relevant. As the AIDS Action
intervention demonstrates in Chapter Six, participatory processes can be costly and time-
consuming. It takes time to listen, negotiate, learn new skills and artistic practice, develop
personal narratives and take action. The true value of participation is that for knowledge to
have value to the community participants, it should lead to empowerment and agency.
Edward Jackson and Yusuf Kassam have edited a book called Knowledge Shared:
Participatory Evaluation in Development Cooperation. They define participatory evaluation as:
a process of self-assessment, collective knowledge production, and cooperative
action in which the stakeholders in a development intervention participate
substantively in the identification of the evaluation issues, the design of the
evaluation, the collection and analysis of the data, and the action taken as a
result of the evaluation findings (Jackson and Kassam 1998: 3).

This approach, however, is not always possible or practical to implement, and the converse of
using conventional approaches can result in self-centred analysis and non-participatory
evaluations that do not engage the stakeholder. The assessment methodology in Chapter Six
argues for blending participatory evaluation with results-based management, which requires
both meaningful engagement as well as the use of indicators and monitoring methods to
assess change.

The criteria for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the other case studies in this
thesis are primarily qualitative, and many of the positive outcomes cannot be accurately
measured or assessed by numerical data. The argument for a qualitative analysis is
supported by Mark Stern and Susan Seifert, who argue that the criteria used to judge
community-based visual arts initiatives should be their success in engaging and mobilizing
communities, rather than the values of rational business practice that are frequently used,
such as profitability, or efficient operation (Seifert and Stern 2000: 4). The process of defining
the terms ?active engagement? and ?mobilized communities? is the focus of my assessment
approach (Pieterse 2004: 348, 349). I share with Edgar Pieterse the premise that processes
29
are as important as outcomes, and that, like community-based projects themselves, analysis
must work on many complex levels.

Furthermore, the need for evidence of change required by the donor and research community
has resulted in a collaborative design for an impact assessment of the program. Donor
agencies want to know that their funding criteria have been met, and the academy wants to
be reassured that scientific and verifiable research procedures are being followed. To meet
the more inflexible requirements of documenting evidence of change, a social science
researcher was commissioned to conduct an impact assessment of the AIDS Action project
described in Chapter Six, using a range of indicators (du Toit 2008b). The research project
was collaboratively designed to respond to methods and indicators that use a range of
approaches, including the traditional ones. For example, the World Bank Policy research
paper for measuring empowerment in practice, the method for assessing the success and
uses the framework of asset endowments (Alsop and Heinsohn 2005). Another guide for
NGO use in monitoring change is The Most Significant Change (MSC) Technique. The value
of this approach is that it focuses on impact rather than activities. Because participants act as
researchers, MSC has the potential to be an effective means for members of the community
projects to articulate how change has occurred in their lives (Davies and Dart 2005).16
The anthology Culture and Public Action (Rao and Walton 2004) refers to a ?cultural lens? as
a way of addressing problems of inequality and empowerment. The authors acknowledge that
a diagnostic process could involve a range of mechanisms including socio-economic

In order to present the voices of the current participants in the projects, a range of
methodologies has been used, that include the use of student researchers, project
participants and collaborators to gather data through focus group interviews and PAR-based
student exchange projects. The data is both visual and textual, including photographs and
paper prayers consisting of participant responses in diverse vernaculars. The narratives
describing the visual responses and the evaluations of the workshops, together with a
comprehensive documentation of the process of each intervention in the form of workbooks
and in some cases tape recordings, have contributed to a rich archive of materials that
provides a thorough documentation of challenges, dreams and aspirations of over 130
participants. I argue that these voices, both in the form of the artistic and narrative expression
provide compelling evidence of the role that creativity and the visual arts have in catalysing
agency and social change.

16 See MSC manual www.clearhorizon.com.au KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 5).
30
assessments and participatory engagements. The participants of public action need to be
engaged as central agents in the formation and implementation of policy (Rao and Walton
2004: 361). Similarly Arlene Goldbard in New Creative Community (2006) proposes values
for unifying and assessing the cultural development field. She identifies values in practice as
yardsticks to assess actualities against aims. Some of these include: active participation,
diversity, equality of cultures, commitment to culture as a crucible for social transformation,
prizing cultural expression as a process of emancipation, an encompassing understanding of
culture and valuing artists as agents.

Much of the primary research used in this study is extensively documented in collected
reports, grants, lectures, and master?s theses. I have developed an archive of primary
materials that includes annual reports for funders, including financial reports; collaborative
learning projects within the organizations; individual student research projects linking formal
and informal educational institutions, from the certificate to the master?s level; impact
assessments through student research, government and donor-commissioned poverty
alleviation reports; commissioned due diligence reports; student/community Photovoice
projects; student/participant workbooks and journals to create self-awareness and collective
memory; external reports through international student internship programs; reports on
collaborative international exchanges to build social awareness of Human Rights, HIV/AIDS,
and indigenous stories/knowledge; and partnership-building reports by visiting artists,
scholars and other professionals as mentors to help build student expertise and capacity
within the organizations. The archive also includes relevant letters, memoranda, contracts
and official documents relating to ten to fifteen years of the histories of these four programs
as well as the raw data, including interviews and transcriptions of the impact assessments of
the Cultural Action interventions. The documents referred to in the footnotes throughout the
thesis form an archive of materials that are catalogued and housed in my office in the Visual
Art Department at the University of Johannesburg. Artist Proof Studio houses the records of
the visual materials.

Conclusion
The objectives of this thesis have been defined broadly as articulating a range of strategies
and approaches that consider the role of art and artists in contributing to enriching and
building sustainable communities and helping individuals to achieve self-actualization.
Creative practice that involves dreaming and imagining allows for the development of agency
and the belief in possibility. Flexibility and diversity equip the individual to survive
disturbances or shocks and to adapt to changing environments.
31

A diverse and tolerant community is resilient, and capable of adapting to changing situations.
The analogy to systems theory is useful to understanding the value of complex approaches.
Complex systems suggest that diversity of interpretations, learning styles, mistakes and
creativity enrich the process. This paradigm shift in methodological approach calls for
exploring contexts or conditions that facilitate the emergence and maintenance of new
possibilities of meaning and action. This study seeks to draw conclusions that may equip
facilitators, educators, artists and participants with processes to transform ourselves from
observers of our environments into participants and agents of change.

This thesis constitutes a critical assessment of each of the programs I am involved with. The
theoretical framework draws from the diverse fields and approaches discussed above, and
the methodologies are collaboratively designed with participants and in response to each
program. The methodology described in the final chapter aims to monitor and measure the
impact of change using visual arts interventions that will be ongoing until 2010. The initial
results provide clear indicators of the efficacy of the visual arts as methodology and process
that creates change and enhances sustainability in development. Yet, it is the voices and
stories of the individual participants that for me are the most compelling evidence of the role
of the creative arts and cultural practice in feeding the depth of agency needed to uphold
South Africa?s young democracy.
32
CHAPTER TWO: ARTIST PROOF STUDIO: Redress, Reconciliation
and Rebuilding

PART ONE: Redress: Founding and Early Years, 1991-2003

To exist, humanly, is to name the world, to change it (Freire [1970] 2003: 88).

Introduction
This chapter traces the history of the Artist Proof Studio from 1991 to 2008 in three phases.
These phases ? redress, reconciliation and rebuilding ? parallel the challenges faced by the
country as a whole in its transition from an oligarchy to a democracy. The final section draws
conclusions about the role of the artist as an agent of change and active participant in the
South African democracy. In the early 1990s, after Nelson Mandela?s release from prison,
the nationalist government and anti-apartheid coalitions were actively engaged in trying to
address the extreme inequities resulting from the oppression of the apartheid years. Once
the new government was formed, it recognized the need to reconcile the nation as a whole to
its tortured past, in order to move forward. Another need was to strengthen the new
democracy through civic engagement. The programs of Artist Proof Studio (APS) addressed
the needs for both reconciliation and citizen participation.

The Founding of Artist Proof Studio
It is not often that one gets an opportunity to implement a dream. Since the late 1980s, while
I was making artwork that addressed the oppressive State of Emergency, I have always
believed that printmaking and papermaking are artistic strategies or interventions that could
make a difference to the lives of people in oppressed or impoverished communities. During
the height of repression in South Africa, when the African National Congress (ANC) and anti-
apartheid political activity was banned, I travelled to the rural Northern Province (now
Limpopo) with Elleck Nchabeleng, a long-time ANC activist who was part of the underground
movement of the MK (Umkontho We Sizwe)1

1 Translated ?Spear of the Nation,? was the active military wing of the African National Congress.
, to give ?art workshops? to youth. At the time
cultural and art activities were not banned, so these were seen by the ANC activists (known
as ?comrades?) as a tool for motivating and organizing youth for political resistance. I
provided a suitable cover when we were followed and questioned by the apartheid police: I
was going to teach art to young people (Figure 1).
33

The power and intensity of those days, when ?the young lions? embraced printmaking through
making their own screens from nylon stockings and wooden frames, making their own ink
from dye or food colouring, or woodblock prints carved from tomato boxes and printed with
shoe polish, remain a model for me. The youth printed slogans and posters, carved images
and symbols ? they toyi-toyied 2
Redress
and sang and felt incredibly empowered from their newly
acquired skills. I was convinced that visual art could contribute, as music and dance has
often done, to political change. As I wrote in the research paper for my Master?s of Fine Art
degree from Tufts and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1988:
Creating art cannot release a person from her/his responsibilities as an
individual in society. In this time of extreme crisis and abnormal conditions, is
it not the responsibility of the artist as citizen to identify with the organizations
and strategies fighting apartheid? (Berman 1989: 4).

In February 1990, on a television screen in Boston, I watched Nelson Mandela walk out of
prison, a new era for South Africa had begun. I wanted to be part of building a post-apartheid
South Africa, so I sold my car and possessions, bought a French Tool etching press ? the
Rolls-Royce of studio presses ? and took home my vision to start a studio in South Africa
based on the professional model of the Artist Proof Studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
where I had been an apprentice for six years.

Art in South Africa during the years of apartheid was unbalanced and distorted. White
students learnt only about Western European art, while black artists were able to enrol in
only a few mission schools or community art centres. I returned to South Africa in 1991 and
through my mother?s frame-shop and gallery, Frame-Up, I met Soweto-based artists
Nhlanhla Xaba and Vincent Baloyi. A relationship of trust was established through the
sharing of our art. After recruiting several of their artist-friends, they joined me in fixing up a
run-down warehouse building in a deserted part of Newtown. Together we scrubbed the
premises and knocked up a few shelves to create a home for Freda, the French Tool Etching
Press (Figure 2).

Our initial funding in 1992 came from the Creative Arts Foundation (which became the
National Arts Council), which provided ten bursaries, primarily for current students and
graduates from Funda Community Art Centre in Soweto, and classes began. Teaching was

2 Toyi-toyi is a South African militant dance step that became famous for its use in political protests during the
apartheid era.
34
far more than imparting technique, it was a process of mutual learning and exposure to our
different experiences of both life and art. Language and cultural differences made
communication difficult. But sometimes this was overcome using other modes. For instance,
one evening, when some of us were making monoprints, Gordon Gabashane, who is also a
musician, started dancing to the rhythms created by the colour and energy of the work
pinned on the wall. These small initial problems and the strategies unconsciously applied to
try to solve them were prescient. The struggle to address the insidious long-term effects of
racism and de-humanization would prove to be the major challenge that I and the founding
artists faced during the first decade of Artist Proof Studio?s existence, as these obstacles
held back our efforts to address their lack of opportunities for artistic and educational training
(Figure 3).

During the 1990s the key issue for South African artists was the struggle for economic and
personal empowerment. Many of our students faced parental disapproval for choosing art, as
they carried the very real burden of being the breadwinners for their families. As a result, the
studio?s focus was of necessity on capacity building and income generation. At Artist Proof
Studio, I developed three parallel programs in the areas of education, health, and poverty
relief to confront the difficult realities that could sabotage the achievement of hard-won
democracy in South Africa. (The latter two, which resulted in the Paper Prayers and Phumani
Paper projects, are discussed in subsequent chapters.) The first is the APS education and
capacity building program. At the time, only one in ten of South Africa?s black population had
a high school certificate.3
Registered as a non-profit organization in 1992 and accepted as a Section 21 company in
1995,
Even today, artists are accepted into the studio on the strength of
their portfolios and their commitment to making a career in art; few have completed their high
school matric certificates. At the studio, they receive scholarships for teacher training and
curriculum development, computer literacy and workplace development (Figure 4).

3 The matric pass rate was as low as 40% in the late 1990s, (see website:
http://www.southafrica.info/about/education/education.htm).
4 Artist Proof Studio as a not-for-profit Section 21 company, was constituted with a board of Directors. See
website: http://www.artistproofstudio.org.za and documents KB Archives (APS Draw 1: File 1a).
Artist Proof Studio joined a long tradition of community arts centres that have
provided education and access to facilities to talented black artists. The history of South
African community art centres has been extensively documented (Hobbs and Rankin (2003);
Sack (1988); Hagg (2004); Van Robbroeck (2004); Minty (2004), and Gaylard (2004)), and
collectively these publications chart the indispensable role that centres like Polly Street,
(established in 1949) and Rorke?s Drift Arts and Craft Centre (founded in 1962) played in the
35
development of contemporary black South African art practice.5
As the community arts movement flourished in the 1970s with the establishment of the
Johannesburg Art Foundation, FUBA (Federated Union of Black Artists) Academy, the
Mofolo Arts Center in Soweto, the Katlehong Art Centre in the East Rand, the Community
Arts Project (CAP), the Nyanga Arts Centre in Gugulethu in Cape Town, and the Funda Art
Centre in Soweto (opened in 1983 as the African Institute of Art), a deep political divide also
developed between the white-run and black-run centres. The more politicized centres, such
as FUBA Academy and CAP, accused the white-run centres of co-optation of black talent.
The FUBA Academy was founded as a union which explicitly ?guarded against exploitation ?
which is synonymous with black people? (Sephamla 1988, quoted by van Robbroeck
2004: 47). Despite the conflicts, all of these centres made a significant contribution to South
African art in terms of protest graphics and an art that expressed life in the townships.
Arguably, the latter
determined the subsequent development of a number of art centres, including APS, as many
of its founding members had graduated from Rorke?s Drift in the 1980s. These include
Charles Nkosi, Vincent Baloyi, Muzi Donga, Joe Ndlovu, and Gordon Gabashane. However,
the liberal paternalistic origins of these early South African community centres later conflicted
with the radical political aims of the independent black-run centres founded during the 1970s
and 1980s.

6
Given the exceptionally politicized context of the 1980s, Artist Proof Studio was born amid
suspicion and division. The co-founder, Nhlanhla Xaba, had taught at the FUBA Academy,
and had been a student at Funda Community Art Centre for a few years. His political
allegiance was with the Pan African Congress (PAC), the radical black consciousness
organization that had influenced the philosophy of FUBA Academy. Xaba recruited many
young artists and FUBA graduates, such as Osiah Masekwameng, Sam Mnisi, Mike Nene
and Lucky Jiyani, many of whom harboured suspicion toward a ?white-led? facility such as
APS. They simply assumed a level of racism and exploitation from me, because of the
reputed prevalence of inequalities in other white-run centres such as the Johannesburg Art
Foundation and Katlehong Art Centre. Gossip and agitation amongst other students
regarding my identity as a white artist and my role as founder and leader in the centre often
caused conflict and division among the members. The legacy of apartheid remained a

5 The work from the community art centres is also referred to as ?township art?, which is a term that has been
rejected by artists and historians and the simplistic categorisation refers to artists? depiction of the negative and
positive realities of life in the South African townships during and after apartheid (See Williamson 1989, 1996).
6 Other books on Resistance Art of the 1980s including Seidman (2007) Political Posters of the 1980s (2004),
Sack (1988) can be referenced on a newly-established website.
(http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/artsmediaculture/protest_art/archive/arch.htm).
36
difficult one, and relations among this first generation of members were especially fragile.
Issues of trust and mutual respect for the communal effort were threatened further by a
?culture of entitlement?7
From the beginning, art production at APS was defined as collaborative rather than
individualistic. The studio embarked on a range of ambitious projects that promoted
collaborative participation and encouraged a diversity of voices. These included the vibrant
Arts Alive Street Festival project in 1993-4, where APS artists made prints with a steamroller
on the street (Figure 5). In 1995, as part of the first Bienale in Africa, APS artists with
international partners, developed ?Volatile Alliances?, a print exchange linking ten countries
and bringing historically white and black art centres together to work jointly on identity-
themed prints (Figure 8).
that convinced the artists they were owed training, access to
materials and commissions, rather than considering these a privileged opportunity.

Fortunately Nhlanhla Xaba provided a force for non-racism at APS, and was committed to
supporting the collective efforts that were in accordance with the socialist aims emerging out
of the liberation struggle. The principle that unified the different members was the notion of
printmaking as a democratic medium accessible to all without regard to social or economic
status. This principle of commitment to community proved to be the case when those APS
member artists who had been drawn from FUBA Academy, Funda Art Centre, Alex Art
Centre, Mofolo Centre and Katlehong Art Centre, returned to some of those centres to teach
printmaking. Many are still doing so today.

8 Public commissions included monumental prints for the Gauteng
Legislature (1996), (Figure 9), the Urban Futures mural prints (2000) (Figure 10)9 adult
literacy books (1996/7) (Figure 7)10

7 The culture of entitlement is a phenomenon referred to in a South African context. The following authors refer to
it; Arumugam (1996) in his paper on ?Managing the culture of entitlement? and Fjeldstad (2004) in a paper that
argues that non-payment is related not only to inability to pay but also ?a culture of entitlement?.
8 Artist Proof Studio has an archive of the portfolio, but the list of participating artists and a description of the
project is documented in the Africus Johannesburg Bienale catalogue (1995: 86), and booklet for portfolio APS
Draw 1: File 9.
9 The linocut panel ?Xenophobia?, produced in 2000 by five APS artists, was enlarged to building size as part of an
art-in-the-city project and displayed on the side of Turbine Hall in Newtown from 2003-2006 (see Figure 10c).
10 The adult literacy books published by Project Literacy Productions 1996/7, Kagiso Publishers (see Figure 7),
published twelve readers at various levels of literacy in eleven South African languages and had APS artists and
students collaborating with the writers in illustrating stories. This project occurred over two years (1996 and 1997)
and the readers were distributed nationally. See KB Archives, (APS Draw 1: File 20).
and many others. These projects explored collaboration
across race and class, and employed diverse and participatory practices. The prints, often
created from found and recycled materials, included collographs, drypoints on sheets of
plastic, and woodblocks from tomato boxes; they were editioned using commercial printing
inks donated from commercial offset printers and other non-traditional sources. All these
collaborative processes characterized the spirit of building a co-operative, democratic and
37
public culture of art-making.11 For example, the five mural prints for the chamber walls of the
seat of the first democratically elected government in Gauteng depicted themes relevant to
citizens such as arts and culture, housing, and poverty.12 Each team of artist-collaborators
was led by an established or senior mentor who worked with a team of five young student
artists. Some of the artworks addressed the tensions surrounding race and gender relations,
such as a panel on informal housing and poverty, while others reflected the euphoric period
of the celebration of the ?Rainbow Nation? (See Figure 9).13
The talent and commitment of studio members, together with the quality of learning and
creative activities, contributed to the project of imagining a race-blind future. Artist Proof
Studio provided the space for artists to begin to give colour, form and texture to the vision of
a ?new South Africa?.
Each team arrived at the theme
and its representation through group discussion.

14 The country required new forms of expression to define an identity
that was no longer dependent on a western-defined aesthetic, but on something emerging
from the exhilarating sense of freedom from apartheid?s oppressive history.15
As this new collective aesthetic and politics was developing at APS, printmaking was also
seen as an important medium of income-generation. Not only did APS receive requests to
populate the walls and offices of the ?transforming? government, for example the councils on
labour (the CCMA), local government offices, union offices and training centres,
Its programs
began to promote ?reconciliation,? in that they brought together people across race and class
to work jointly on a variety of projects.

16 but also
from corporations who sought artwork that would reflect the progressive image of a new
South Africa. Corporate and government offices that were committed to changing their image
in order to brand themselves as part of the new South Africa, replaced imported posters of
French Impressionist scenes or still-life studies, with work by local black South African artists,
including many at APS.17
The Artist Proof Studio was fortunate to be able to benefit from the printmaking renaissance
resulting from these significant new markets, and for their part such institutions were able to

11 In 1990 I compiled a printmaking manual People?s Printmaking and Papermaking Handbook that provided
instructions on making prints from found and handmade materials (Berman 1990).
12 These prints are still on view in the Gauteng Legislative Chambers on President Street.
13 ?Rainbow Nation? coined by Desmond Tutu (1999) (see Chapter One).
14 The phrase was commonly used in this period.
15 For a discussion of how this question was addressed in music, see Allen (2004: 19-38).
16 Other examples include; the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), EDL Training Centre, SABC, Ford
Foundation offices and others.
17 Examples of corporate patrons include Nedbank, MTN, Sasol, South African Breweries (SAB), ABSA Bank and
others.
38
project a politically-correct image at a reasonable cost. Presently, for Artist Proof Studio, this
market continues to grow, and many young black printmakers are able to make a living from
sales of their work (Figures 11a-f; examples of APS artwork of the type that would be bought
by this market).18
In its early years, APS established itself as a dynamic and creative enclave that proved that
black and white artists and students could learn to work together harmoniously. Despite the
legacy of distrust, many studio members were inspired by Mandela?s vision of an integrated
society imbued with the spirit of the rainbow nation. Artist Proof Studio established paying
classes for students who were predominantly white, attending adult enrichment courses. In
the early 1990s many of the suburban older women who attended classes at APS had
previously interacted with black people only in their capacity as ?madams? interacting with
servants. Their new relationships as students being instructed by black teachers and
technical assistants required transformative shifts in relationships for both black and white
participants. The joint vision and commitment to this new society frequently produced a kind
of magical energy in the studio; there existed a common belief that art could play its part in
imagining and creating a better life for all of South Africa?s citizens. However, ?redress?
seemed to apply primarily to black men, and fewer opportunities were available to black
women. In South Africa?s black patriarchal culture, fine art was (and still is) gendered male,
and few black women applied to be members of Artist Proof Studio.

19 Even today, the
membership of APS is 80% male, and the gender imbalance continues.20
A primary reason for the founding of APS was redress: to compensate for the lack of art
education and facilities for representatives of the majority of the population. One means of
redress was to train teachers as well as printmakers. Like many community art centres, APS
responded to the acute shortage of art teachers in South Africa with the establishment of an
art teachers training certificate course at the former Technikon Witwatersrand in 1996. The
course was created in conjunction with the Curriculum Development Project (CDP), which
developed strong resource materials for learner-centred teaching to children, such as the
Khula Udweba project (Grow as you Draw) (Solomon 1996). The Teacher Training course
accepted into the course senior students from APS and FUBA Academy together with former

18 However, many APS artists have unrealistic expectations about the prices their works should receive. Pricing of
prints at APS is an ongoing dialogue and sometimes becomes a source of tension in retaining a commitment to
affordably priced and publicly accessible artworks.
19 See interviews with APS and women artists: KB Archives (APS Draw 4: File 10c).
20 The South African Parliament undertook to institute a one-third quota for women in government. APS tried to
address affirmative action to accept women artists, but has struggled to achieve more than 25% female art
students.
39
Technikon Witwatersrand fourth year students (with the purpose of providing art teachers
into township schools to begin to address the desperate lack of art education). Between 1996
and 2006, over 80 teachers achieved their certificates, and are currently working in schools
and art centres (Figure 12).

As the membership and programs of APS grew, so did the need for increased and stable
sources of funding. (APS in 2007/8 provided a home studio and resource centre for over 120
artists from Johannesburg and the surrounding areas). In 1996 the Ford Foundation awarded
APS core funding for a three to four year period, which allowed the studio to hire permanent
staff and formalize the organizational infrastructure. A studio manager, Cara Walters, was
hired in 1997, and the organization?s administrative needs were more efficiently met. I was at
the time teaching full-time in the former Technikon Witwatersrand and was only available on
a part-time basis to direct operations. Nhlanhla Xaba enjoyed the teaching and practice-
based programming of the studio and had little interest in taking on the administration
requirements of APS. The finances of the organization remain precarious, however, and in
this area APS is far from alone. Community art centres continue to struggle for survival:
The problem of funding remains, to this day, the single biggest threat to the
continued existence of community arts in this country. In the Neo-Liberal
international economic climate, any cultural body that resists profitability is
doomed to failure. The dearth of art education in South African schools and
the under-funding of the arts in general, remain as big a problem today as it
did in the past. So does unemployment. In addition, South Africa?s re-
incorporation into the international art scene means that our visual arts arena
has become more cut-throat, specialist and elitist than ever. It can therefore
be argued that now, more than ever, some of the fundamental ideals of
community arts need to be revived to enrich, democratise and diversify our
cultural praxis (van Robbroeck 2004: 50).

In its first phase, APS focused primarily on specialized printmaking and some drawing skills;
but there was very little focus on writing and educational training.21

21 This turned out to be a significant lack in the range of skills that our students graduated with as future
educators. This deficit in the education program will be discussed the ?rebuilding? section of this chapter.
Rather, through strong
international links, an active international visiting artists program was established.
Printmakers from the United States and Europe, who had participated in print exchanges
such as Volatile Alliances for the Africus Johannesburg Bienale in 1995, were keen to visit
South Africa and contribute to redressing inequalities though sharing skills. In this way APS
hosted some extraordinary educators and artists who, through their annual volunteer efforts,
offered excellent and highly specialized training. As a result, APS students were able to
develop an extensive range of skills in print media that very few art schools in South Africa
could offer. These included classic printmaking techniques such as etching, lithography,
40
drypoint, relief and screen printing, as well as an extensive range of alternative and
experimental techniques using photo-processes, paper collage/pulp processes, collographs
and found and alternative materials (Figures 13-15).

Not only did the international visitors expose APS students to some of the most innovative
contemporary processes, young APS artists were also given opportunities to go abroad and
teach first-world art students in Belgium and the United States alternative techniques of
printing with found and industrial materials. Since its inception, APS has facilitated more than
twenty international visits by young township-based artists, most of whom had never flown on
an aeroplane prior to their trip.22
As the organization grew and became a formal entity, we recognized the need for a
governing body. The APS Board of advisors was drawn from founding artist members as well
as dedicated people committed to the arts sector. Board members were drawn from
representative organzations such as arts training organisations, community art centres, the
corporate sector, arts lobby groups, galleries and the higher education sector. The Board of
advisors has since been restructured in accordance with Section 21 company policy for good
governance as laid out in the King ll Report (2006).

23 New advisors have been included from
the commercial and business sectors as well as the legal and training fields.24
Redress, a journey towards Reconciliation
Throughout its seventeen year history, Artist Proof Studio has striven to uphold the
democratic principles of equal opportunity and access to learner-centered education. Its
consistent aim has been to participate in the building of a new democratic South Africa that
promotes reconciliation, cultural diversity, equality, and above all, a culture that celebrates
human rights. During its first phase, APS focused on training previously disadvantaged
students both as artists and as teachers as a means of redress. Its learning curve has
resembled that of the country as a whole: the organisation has attempted to continually re-
invent itself as it grows.

From the
outset, the APS Board of Directors and Advisors has considered its management role to be
collaborative rather than top-down.

22 The artists include Jacob Molefe and Jones Mathebula (Belgium), Bongi Mkizhe (Belgium), Pontsho
Sikhosana(USA), Thabang Lehoybe, Motsomai Thabane and Molefe Twala and Hloni Matshaba (USA) and
others. See stories and interviews KB Archives (APS Draw 1: Files 17 and 10a).
23 King ll Report (2006) (http://www.iodsa.co.za/king.asp).
24 See annual report composition of the Board members, KB Archives (APS Draw 1: Files 2 and 3).
41
During this first phase of APS?s history, capacity-building was the most important goal. Many
of the artists coming through the organization were a product of Bantu Education.25
PART TWO: Reconciliation: Artist Proof Studio 2003-2005
The
psychological damage inflicted by apartheid created a victim and entitlement attitude among
the young black men and women at the studio. The building of skills and capacities such as
business practice and training in teaching and management facilitation, began to be added to
the learning program from 2000. (This will be expanded upon in the following section.)

In general, I would argue that these initial programs achieved the aim of redress. For
example, my young colleague Stompie Selibe was a product of Bantu Education, yet he
completed his high school certificate when he joined the studio and subsequently became
one of its leading teachers. He later partnered with me on the Brandeis fellowship described
below. In addition, he mentored other young artists as they began to assume management
roles in the organization. However, despite successes such as this, there was an absence of
theoretical, historical and analytical tools and programs because we were focused on
building vocational capacity.

26
The tragedy was enormous. Over 100 artists lost not only all their work, but a teacher,
mentor and friend. The period of mourning made it clear that the vision Nhlanhla lived and
died for had to continue. The news of his death catalysed the South African art world to
pledge support for rebuilding what had been destroyed (Figures 16-18).

It is not what you have experienced that makes you greater, but what you have faced,
what you have transcended, what you have unlearned (Ben Okri 1997: 61).

On 9 March 2003, Artist Proof Studio burned to the ground, taking with it the life of co-
founder Nhlanhla Xaba. Caused by an electrical fault from an appliance in the studio, the fire
spread to the chemical storage area, causing an explosion and conflagration that destroyed
the studio within hours. Xaba, asleep on a couch, never woke up from the asphyxiating
fumes.

25 The objective of Bantu Education was subservience and inferior knowledge transfer. See the Bantu Education
Act No 47 of 1953 (http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-projects/june16/bantu-eduaction-act-
1953.htm).
26 A previous version of the content in this section was presented in Berman (2006).
27 See extensive press coverage, and articles: KB Archives, APS Draw 1: File 13. Articles in South Africa and
abroad include: Maphumulo S., ?Tears as artist who died in the Fire is fondly recalled?, The Star, 11 March 2003;
Sassen, R.: ?Fire Metaphor for cleansing, but also destruction?, 21-28 March 2003, South African Jewish Report;
Temin, C. ?Rebuilding art from the ashes: Printmaker loses partner and studio to fire in South Africa; Boston fund-
raisers are planned?, Boston Globe, 19 March 2003; ?Aid for the Artist Proof Studio?, Art on Paper, May to June
Vol. 7, see also Figure 17.

The morning after the fire, people flocked to witness the devastation. There was a sense of
shock and disbelief. Those from APS gathered in a circle on the grass across the street from
the fire and shared stories about Xaba. Emotions ranged from sadness and loss to anger
and fear as people began to absorb the loss of the space that had become their home.
Spontaneously, senior student Stompie Selibe brought out his mbira and played a mournful
and soothing ?Healing Song.?28
Galvanized by the music, the students and teachers began scratching around in the burnt
rubble, prying off and peeling away the prints buried under the waste; dust was released as
each sheet was pulled out and shaken off. There were moments when the dust and ash
clogged the surrounding air, making it hard to breathe. Our coughing and choked
stammering contrasted with the clarity and delight of uncovering each new layer and
discovering treasure. We laughed and sang and then abruptly become silent in the shock of
discovering an article of Xaba?s. The artists gathered the fragments and laid them at the spot
where the body had been found, adding a message traced in ash: ?I?ll miss you bra?. I
uncovered one of my prints from the State of Emergency 1986, a body lying in the rubble,
assassinated by the apartheid regime (Figure 17). The ironic juxtaposition was eerie; the
pathos palpable.

29
One week after the fire, APS members embarked on a series of art exercises, including art
therapy support groups, designed to help people acknowledge and cope with the losses and
traumas caused by the fire.

We laid out all the fragments we had chosen and reflected on finding meaning in the
overwhelming chaos. The work began with Selibe rolling out a very large sheet of white
paper. He lay down on that paper, curling his body but reaching out with one arm. Someone
took a marker and did a body tracing. The discussion of healing though peeling off layers, of
unraveling the bandages when the wounds start to mend, became the theme for one of the
resulting images. The group decided to look for fragments and words in the burnt books and
papers that have to do with celebration and joy, growth and change, which could be glued
over the wounds of the healing body (Figure 19b).

28 A version of the healing song was recorded on Selibe?s album ?Ambient African Instruments: Drums and
Rhythms of South Africa? (2002: JLND 1014).
29 The fact that I had been working on a series of prints with the motif of fire, ?The Fires of the Truth Commission,?
added another layer of bitter irony (see Figure 18b).
Together with art therapists who came to assist the artists of
30 The Art Therapy Centre is managed by my sister, Hayley Berman. She was the first person I called to assist the
APS studio members cope with the trauma of the fire. She trains community art therapists and teachers in

43
the studio we decided to work on collaborative collages, and part of the process of producing
these works involved the voluntary participation in workshops to facilitate mourning. The art
therapy sessions provided the necessary space for studio members to experience their
feelings, share common stories and build support networks. There was a general
acknowledgment that one cannot build a new structure on the shaky and broken ground left
by the fire; a different organizational model with different foundations would have to be
created.31
Reconciliation is a process of ever deepening transformation. There is something very
paradoxical about building community ? it almost invites people to open up deep wounds.
The support work done with the Art Therapy Centre helped to initiate discussions about loss
and regeneration. In addition, several of our exercises seemed to turn the tide and initiate
work that was transformational. After Selibe?s workshops, I invited a visiting student intern
from Harvard University, Thenji Nkosi, to film the process of ?rebuilding after the fire.? The
video documentation became a vehicle for supporting studio members to articulate their
feelings; the recorded narratives of their stories enabled individuals to be ?heard.?

A temporary space rudimentarily equipped with borrowed etching presses was set up in an
area allocated by the Johannesburg City Council in order to implement the training programs
and ?out of the fire? projects. A generous donation by a prominent gallery owner, Linda Givon,
purchased 120 ?start-up kits? consisting of a portfolio, paper, printmaking tools and drawing
materials, which were handed to each Artist Proof Studio member to begin again. Additional
teachers were contracted to support the APS teachers who struggled to keep the students
motivated. The idea of a printmaking marathon inspired a number of artists to make works
from fragments out of the fire that were subsequently sold to raise money to rebuild the
studio (Figure 19a).

32
Several weeks after the fire, the artists worked in teams to build collages from the remains of
the burnt prints. The resulting large-scale panels that were produced are arguably some of
the strongest work ever to emerge from APS. One series of three panels was about ?Past?,

schools to use art to address trauma. Several APS students have been sponsored to attend training including
Stompie Selibe. A small grant was secured to contract the Art Therapy Centre to provide support and counselling
for some studio members for up to two months after the fire.
31 The experience of the art therapy process in the site of APS after the fire is reflected on by Hayley Berman in
an essay; ?Transforming objects in South Africa? (2005: 178).
32 Thenji Nkosi filmed documentary video footage of this process. The footage was also included in the
documentary film A Ripple in the Water (2007) OK/Alright Productions http://www.rippleinthewater.com/ KB
Archives (APS Draw 1: File 15).
44
?Present? and ?Future?, the other three were titled ?Conflict?, ?Conversation? and ?Reconciliation?
(Figures 20a-c).

The collages were metaphors for the many layers of reconciliation that took place after the
fire ? repairing damage, and bringing together disparate elements that seem not to belong
together, but that can nevertheless work in harmony. The process was one of mourning for
what had been lost, repairing what had been broken, and piecing together fragments. The
first series reflected the wounds and chains from the oppression of the past, the healing by
unravelling the bandages in the present, and regeneration by leaping into the future. The
reconciliation was about working together to create a new future out of the rubble of the past.
We discovered that the act of collage-making was reconstructive. We were able to re-
organize the burnt fragments, bits of the damage and the loss, into objects of beauty and
meaning. Today, they hang in the stairwell of the new APS. The fact that the students must
walk upstairs past these collages to get to the studio space on the first floor provides a
simple but powerful daily reminder of past, present and future (Figure 21).

Another group of artists found scraps of metal that they welded together to create new
sculptural pieces. These twisted metal remains, embracing elements of the burnt space,
were welded into the security fence of the new studio, providing a shield for the new venue
(Figure 22).

Faced with the enormity of the loss of the studio and Nhlanhla Xaba, artists, students,
advisors and friends were determined to rebuild, to start again, but this time incorporating the
lessons we had learnt from the previous decade. Under the inspired leadership of Nelson
Mandela, South Africa had demonstrated its capacity to reinvent itself through political
transformation. Within this context, the studio members and the APS board embarked on a
process to learn how an arts organization can re-imagine itself in order to create a structure
that embodies the spirit of post-apartheid reconciliation. We aimed to transform our
organization from one that holds the traditional balance of power (with the concentration of
skills and leadership held by white staff members) to one that reflects a greater democratic
change and promotes black leadership and empowerment. The first step in that process was
that of addressing the legacy of apartheid through art-making and workshops fostering
reconciliation, the necessary first step in transformation and rebuilding. Again, in parallel with
the country as a whole, which had recently undergone the painful testimonies of the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission (1996-2000), APS members probed deeply into the wounds
left by apartheid, using creativity to cleanse and heal.

45
Recasting Reconciliation: The Fellowship program at Brandeis University 2003-2005
Shortly after the collages were completed, I submitted a proposal to participate in a
fellowship program at Brandeis University?s International Center for Ethics, Justice and
Public Life on the topic of ?Recasting Reconciliation through Arts and Culture.? The two-part
program, consisting of two month-long residencies in 2004 and 2005, queried whether arts
and cultural work are critical to promoting coexistence and reconciliation in the aftermath of
violent conflict. It investigated theoretical frameworks for reconciliation, and examined the
nature of aesthetic engagement as an effective resource for peace-building. The program
invited fellows who were using the arts to address reconciliation in areas of the world dealing
with conflict such as Burundi and Rwanda, Israel and Palestine, Sri Lanka, Cambodia,
Kashmir, New Zealand and South Africa. The program critically examined the ways in which
the arts and cultural work are used to facilitate tasks crucial to reconciliation, including
assisting former adversaries to appreciate each other?s humanity, to empathize with each
other?s suffering, to address injustice, and to imagine a new future. It also provided a
valuable framework for examining the links between the creative process and changes that
need to be made at the personal, interpersonal and organizational levels. Over the course of
the two subsequent visits to Brandeis, I gained insights of enormous value for the rebuilding
process at APS, and so a brief summary of the workshops objectives is presented here.

Cynthia Cohen, Director of the program, identified seven processes that are involved in
learning about one?s own community and that of others. According to Cohen (2003b: 4):
Processes of coexistence and reconciliation almost always involve former
adversaries in culturally-inflected versions of at least some of the following tasks:
? appreciating each other?s humanity and respecting each other?s culture
? telling and listening to each other?s stories, and developing more complex
narratives and more nuanced understandings of identity
? acknowledging harms, telling truths and mourning losses
? empathizing with each other?s suffering
? acknowledging and redressing injustices
? expressing remorse, repenting, apologizing; letting go of bitterness,
forgiving
? imagining and substantiating a new future, including agreements about
how future conflicts will be engaged constructively.

Cohen argues that frequently, when promoting coexistence and reconciliation in contexts of
long-standing oppression, those in the subordinate group must be supported to define their
46
own experiences and re-name themselves. The liberatory educator Paulo Freire ([1970]
2003: 88) has made a similar argument: ?To exist, humanly,? he writes, ?is to name the world,
to change it.? 33
Through our discussions and presentations, the participants of the fellowship program
learned that within most institutions there is both a resistance and a willingness to change,
and that frustration, loss and failure are necessary ingredients of the growth process, and in
many ways are catalysts for change. Furthermore, the forum?s ten international fellows
learned that in order for change to be sustainable, transformation needs to happen at the
deepest levels. It requires us to challenge our notions of power, within ourselves, within our
relationships and in our institutions. We need to change our language, actions and policies
and link them to our belief systems, cultural norms and emotions. Over the fellowship?s two
years we came to understand that the work of reconciliation is endless ? each time a wound
opens, it must be healed before we can move forward.

34
The Aftermath of the Fire: Building toward Reconciliation

Finally, the findings of the process affirmed that reconciliation is fuelled, inspired and
sustained by creativity. I further realised that people must genuinely want reconciliation and
work towards it. When documenting this process in a paper published online by the Brandeis
University?s Ethics Center (Berman 2006a), I began to explore the notion that imagination
can be a useful key for deep transformation. This paper also introduces the idea that one
important route to change is through narrative, because of its ability to embrace complexity.
These themes are explored throughout this thesis.

Six weeks after the fire in 2003, I left for Boston for an international print conference and
fundraising event, with the hope that the rebuilding process was off to a good start. However,
when I returned a month later, I found that the temporary studio that had been hastily set up
for the fundraising print marathon had not been organized. None of the staff members had
taken the initiative to order chairs and tables for their classes, nor tried to improve a very
depressing basement workshop to make it into an environment more conducive for learning.
The negative ?victim of circumstance? mentality had re-emerged. Survival was the most
anyone could manage; members came daily into work, where they undermined each other to

33 This argument convinced me to undertake this PhD study.
34 Some of the most influential texts we engaged included fellowship participants: Cohen (1994, 1998, 2003); J.
Fox (1999, 2003); S. Marlin-Curiel (2001, 2002); I. Muan and L. Daravuth (2001); A. Hizikias (1993); F. Agbaria
(2001).
47
such an extent that conflict spilled into the classroom, and teachers gossiped to students,
pitting one against the other.

I expressed my frustration at the studio members? inability to move forward and take control,
but through our discussions, I became sensitive to the impact of feelings of disempowerment
felt by the artists, which was compounded by the legacy of trauma and damage inflicted by
South Africa?s political and social history. In the following weeks and months, the
management committee of APS was faced with challenging the artists to transform rotting
debris into fertilizer to stimulate new growth (Figure 23).

One project that sparked the artists? visualization of change was a workshop that I
conducted. A meeting of all active studio members was called in order for me to report back
on fundraising efforts and rebuilding plans. At that meeting, we collectively imagined what we
would want from a new studio. Each person expressed a dream; these were written down,
and collectively the dreams became a visualization of the future. Mobilizing the group?s
imagination shifted the stagnant and self-destructive energy into creative action. The dreams
that were expressed included:
? I see APS at the best printmaking centre in South Africa
? I see myself as a teacher to the newcomers
? We have an APS minibus for transporting members
? We have a newsletter
? We are well known in the world
? Famous people come and work with us
? We offer qualifications in printmaking
? We have a bigger centre than before
? We have a studio for drawing and a library for studying
? We can go overseas on exchange programs.

With the exception of the minibus, we have arguably fulfilled all of these dreams over the
years since the fire.

After the Brandeis Institute, I recognized the role of narrative as a process to stimulate
change. I accepted the opportunity for APS to host two visiting Brandeis University students
from the Coexistence Program. They were able to capture the stories and voices of the
artists affected by the fire in a series of interviews conducted over two months between July
48
and August 2004. I include extracts from one of these stories as it captures the essence of
the depth of the journey towards reconciliation and healing.35
The whole burning down of the studio separated us. We ended up seeing
ourselves as individuals rather than as a community or a family. Working on
the collages as a group gave us a chance to come back together and discuss
things. We had to work with something positive from something dead. Some
of us used to believe that APS was just a building and when you leave that
building you?re on your own. But today I believe that the people inside make it
what is: a home and a family.

Trevor Thebe joined the youth group of the studio in 1997 when he was seventeen years old.
He has worked as a drawing teacher and unit manager at APS since 2001. He received his
BTech in Multimedia from the University of Johannesburg in 2006. Thebe reflected on the
importance of creativity for his own recovery from the fire:
To me APS is a home. APS opened a lot of doors and it carried me. That?s
why it was so hard losing it in the fire. When it burnt down I felt that my dream
had been destroyed. I believed that my life had become a dead end and I
believed that I wasn?t going to be able to carry on. I saw myself as not having
a dream because I felt like it had been taken away. At APS I had finally felt
that I was with people that understood how I felt and who understood me. The
thought of not being able to see them or talk to them felt like a bad dream.

I never recovered until I made a print. I had to deal with the fire the best way I
could and the only way I could was to come up with an art piece that would
take away my rage. I had to come to peace about the whole situation and I
dedicated the artwork to Nhlanhla. It was about the journey from the
beginning: when I first came here, the journey I took every day, the journey
from when I was born to now, the financial struggles I went through and it was
about everything he taught me and how he was always pushing me to do
better. It was about the thought of one?s culture, where life starts. It was about
growth in a way. And inside it, it had all the questions that I had.

35 The two student interns from Brandeis, Darnisa Armante and Amy Schiller, conducted over 50 interviews in July
2004. Transcripts are available in KB Archives (APS Draw 1: Files 10 a-c).
36 Darnisa Armante administered questionnaires in August 2004 and summarized the feedback as follows. The
interviews are available in KB archives (APS Draw 1: File 12).
People consider APS their family:
?APS is my family? (10 times mentioned).
?The class we had with Stompie helped us to be close, like brothers.?
APS is a place of caring and ubuntu:
?APS is a place of truth ? it has established the spirit of ubuntu.?
?There is much respect towards each other and the space, and we love one another.?
?APS is living evidence that people of different genders, from different racial groups, can work together
toward a common goal and be successful.?
?APS changes the lives of young people to successes.?
People have big dreams for APS and for themselves:
?The processes we followed after the fire formed the foundation of my decision to always continue with art.?
?I would like to see myself being an inspiration to first-years.?
?I would like to see more branches of APS countrywide, especially in the townships.?
?I would like APS to be the biggest social centre in our country, accommodating lots of artists and giving a lot
of inspiration to people, building the next generation of leaders.?
?It was so inspiring to meet artists like me who wanted to achieve their dreams.?

49
Ubuntu as a framework for Reconciliation
According to Hizkias Assefa (2002), reconciliation is ?a process where people who have
been alienated from each other come together to build community again.? The word ?again?
implies that there once was a concept of community, so the question implies re-discovery, re-
claiming, and re-affirming this common humanity. In the case of South Africa, reconciliation
also meant reinforcing the fragile ties across racial divisions that had been built among those
involved in the struggle against apartheid.

To achieve reconciliation at Artist Proof Studio, the management introduced the concept of
ubuntu as an embodiment of the ethos and values of our common humanity. The meaning of
ubuntu is best captured through the expression: ?A person is only a person because of other
people.? As Archbishop Demond Tutu asserts:
We believe that ? my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with
yours. When I dehumanise you, I inexorably dehumanise myself. The solitary
human being is a contradiction in terms and therefore you seek to work for the
common good because your humanity comes into its own in belonging (Tutu
1999).

The word ubuntu was commonly used during Nelson Mandela?s presidential term to refer to
the re-establishment of citizens? common humanity as the core for building a new South
Africa. Ubuntu was also introduced by Tutu as a core value to frame the context of the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission. The traditional African roots of the philosophy of ubuntu
imply an ethic of sharing and hospitality, of honesty and humility. It is the ethic that
characterizes the ideal interaction among members of the extended family. When we moved
into the new APS, I presented a challenge to all our members to regard this as an ubuntu
space.

Defining the project and launching the new studio
Having identified ubuntu as a non-threatening, indigenous concept that embraces the key
principles of reconciliation, the teachers designed collaborative projects to help students
understand and apply the concept to APS?s rebuilding project. I asked them whether or not
ubuntu still existed in South Africa. Many students said no, that they had experienced
rampant crime, abuse, and disregard for people?s health and well-being as a result of
apartheid. Others said yes; it still exists when we care for each other. I then put a challenge
to everyone in the room, and asked if we could create an ubuntu space inside APS. Can we
discover ubuntu for ourselves and try to use it here? I asked the students to write down in
their journals what ubuntu meant to them. One outcome of this discussion was that the group
agreed that the second-year students would go out and collect ubuntu stories. They could
50
interview members of family, elders, or tsotsis (gangsters) on the street, and ask each for
their understanding or experience of ubuntu. These stories could then be shared with each
other. They would each make a selection of the stories to compile into a portfolio of prints,
narratives and interviews.37
Incorporating ubuntu as Organizational Structure and Practice

On 9 March 2004, one year after the fire, the new APS facility was launched in the converted
Bus Factory, a renovated venue for the expanded cultural precinct in Newtown. The hope
was that the celebration of our new quarters would express its revised collective vision. A
sangoma (traditional healer) performed a ritual for the protection of our new beginnings. The
mood at the launch was celebratory; large numbers of people attended the participatory and
inspirational event. I felt that the day was a testimony to the power of art to transform society
(Figures 25a-d). It was not just the opening of a beautiful building, a project that took hard
work and extensive funding to be realized. It was the opening of a new chapter for APS, with
a beautiful space to house a re-imagined, re-constructed identity of the APS. Our ubuntu
project could officially begin (Figures 26).

The generosity of our private and public donors and members of the community provided the
resources that enabled APS not only to rebuild our studio but to redefine our organizational
structure.38
? how do we, as a collective, live up to and deliver on the challenges inherent in the
support we have received?
The resources provided the opportunity for us to imagine ways to integrate
transformative principles deep within our structure and practice. I asked myself the following
questions:
? how can we learn from the past, and avoid repeating the same mistakes?
? how can we discard the heavy baggage of inequality and racialized power
dynamics?
? how can the new APS promote reconciliation, healing, empowerment and reflect
the spirit of a healthy democracy?
? how can we change the image of another white-run cultural organization? can the
centre be non-racial? Not black-run or white-run?

37 A collection of students? definitions and examples of ubuntu: see KB Archives (APS Draw 1: File 12).
The one-of-a-kind artists? book of student images and texts is in the art collection at APS and images from the
book are displayed on the Brandeis University Slifka website:
(http://www.brandeis.edu/programs/Slifka/vrc/papers/kim/Berman.pdf).
38 The list of donors is published in our annual report and on a plaque outside the studio. Donors include:
Goodman Gallery, Ford Foundation, Johnson and Johnson International, South Africa Development Fund,
Friends of APS in Boston, the City of Johannesburg, Alliance Francais and the Arts and Culture Trust.
51
? how do we reach below the surface to dissolve the bitterness and hurt that stem
from decades of injustice?
? can we sustain a creative and healthy work environment that produces
excellence?
? what steps have to be taken to sustain this vision for the future?

The APS board explored some of these questions in order to develop a new policy and
organizational structure. Members of the Board of advisors and directors attempted to
prioritize the various challenges involved in creating a model of African-centred learning and
leadership.39

39 List of APS Board members and minutes of strategic planning sessions for 2003/4 are in KB Archives (APS
Draw 1: Files 4 and 5).
We asked ourselves whether the member artists should be supported to
develop administrative skills or whether we should bring in new black leadership, and
decided to pursue both tracks.

The APS Board?s management team proposed an organizational organogram (or chart) that
replaced the classical hierarchical pyramid with a circle, (Figure 27b). The outside ring is an
advisory Council, the inside core consists of the students and artist members. The middle
ring is the Management Board, coordinated by the Studio Manager. The circle is divided up
into slices of a pie, with each slice representing a unit of the studio activities (such as
financial management, marketing, education and curriculum development, outreach and
development and professional studio practice.) Each unit has a mentor from the
management team or an outside expert, a staff member as a mentee, and where possible
student representatives or interns as part of their senior year of professional practice. This
model incorporates the spirit of ubuntu in that it functions effectively with full participation (I
am because of you), and requires the transfer of leadership skills across a range of levels.
For example, a member of an advisory council could be a staff person, who, in turn, would be
the mentor for students. This structure requires all parties to address racial power dynamics
in the process of skills transfer.

A range of team-building workshops was offered to assist people in these sensitive
mentoring interactions. I found the framework of ?appreciative inquiry? to be most useful in
this ongoing process of reconciliation. Since Cooperrider and Srivastva?s original definition of
the term in 1987, there have been many interpretations of this kind of team building
particularly in relation to organizational development:
52
Appreciative inquiry refers to both a search for knowledge and a theory of
intentional collective action that together are designed to help evolve the
normative vision and will of a group, organization, or society as a whole
(Cooperrider and Srivastva 1987: 159).

The way Appreciative Inquiry has been used at APS is to get the group to articulate themes
and dreams of ?what could be? and ?what will be?. The envisioned future is grounded in the
reality of the actual past (Hammond 1998: 8). By asking positive questions, ?appreciative
inquiry? draws out and highlights hopeful and empowering stories, metaphors, dreams and
wishes that embrace a spirit of optimism. It shifts away from vocabularies of deficit to
conversations of possibility, and prefigures the future we hope to create at APS. Moreover,
appreciative inquiry draws on the creative imagination and the arts to seek reconciliation and
empowerment.

Participation in decision-making processes empowers people and, more importantly, leads
towards democracy. The involvement of members of the team of teachers and mentees in
strategic planning has led to an increased sense of confidence and personal esteem, as well
as a collective commitment to the direction and decisions that are being taken for the
organizational development of APS. Since the introduction of the mentorship program in
2004, the goal of achieving stronger leadership by women at APS has met with success. The
mentees, particularly the black women, have thrived on added responsibility. For instance, by
the start of 2005 Pontsho Sikhosana was successfully managing artists? collaborations and
printing in the professional studio; Lerato Moereng was promoted to financial administrator
(and has since moved into the corporate sector); Margery Maleka became the APS Gallery
manager; Aletta Legae was acting unit manager of Paper Prayers and all the other teachers
have started designing and leading their own learning programs. However, the woman who
was appointed as operational manager in 2007, was an outside applicant and was unable to
adjust to the organic structure of Artist Proof Studio. Her one-year contract ended in 2008.

A major challenge I face at APS is the artists? ambivalence and reluctance to take on the
management responsibilities that have historically been the domain of the white middle class
women in the management team of APS. Repeatedly, the group expressed resentment that
the management positions were held by the resourced middle class women, even though the
black male teachers? leadership responsibilities were defined as equal to these women?s
administrative tasks. Yet interestingly, when an interview that took place for an educational
manager resulted in two equally qualified women candidates, I handed the final decision to
the eight black unit managers and teachers. My choice was the woman of colour; their
53
choice, unanimously, was the white woman. The reason they gave was that the white woman
was far less assertive and would respect their authority.

The white woman manager lasted less than two years and was replaced through the
promotion of Lucas Ngweng, the lead APS teacher since 2000. More recently the black
woman operations manager, replaced Cara Walters as Studio Manager, and encountered
resistance and conflict from the male education manager. She subsequently resigned and a
team of six managers and I meet weekly to take operational decisions.

Issues of gender and race remain a challenge at Artist Proof Studio. Empowered and
assertive black women in an environment of 75% to 80% male artists pose complex
challenges in the South African context. During the fellowship at Brandeis University, the
question of gender and power dynamics surfaced in one of the discussions. Stompie Selibe,
who was my collaborator on the fellowship, voiced a question that he presented as
representative of the black artists at APS: ?How can a white woman be a director of a black
collective?? The Brandeis fellowship had given me the opportunity to explore relations
between class, race and power ? a painful but necessary process. I had always seen myself
as a member of the liberation movement for South Africa and believed to my core in the
struggle for non-racism and democracy. That I was perceived as oppressive, authoritarian,
powerful and critical was difficult to for me to reconcile with my own self-image (Figure 28).

Thus, a key aspect of the ?reconciliation? process was facing my own role as a middle class
white woman leader of a black collective. Because I was the founding director of both Artist
Proof Studio and Phumani Paper, the organizations were often referred to as ?Kim?s projects?
rather than as collectives. I realized that I had failed to interrogate my own power and
position within APS, because the skills and vision I had brought were necessary to the
organization. As a result, I continued to deny the issues of power underlying my role, and this
had fueled resentment. Part of the ?reconciliation process? required me to further cede control
of the organization I had co-founded.

Researching ubuntu in APS students? communities
While the re-organization process, with its fraught revelations of the fissures within APS, was
underway, Selibe assigned his students the task of researching the multiple meanings of
ubuntu and collecting stories that reflected some of these meanings. The students
interviewed family members and friends. They shared their stories with each other and
discussed and debated the meanings of ubuntu. Then they worked in groups of four to
54
develop images that expressed their concepts or stories. They were challenged to reinvent or
re-interpret dominant symbols of South African culture and to communicate ideas that
expressed an alternative vision to violence and oppression. The task was not to depict an
imagined utopia, but to dream rich possibilities, while still acknowledging the dark sides of
racism, sexism and oppression within our communities and themselves.

Weeks of discussion, sketches and joint effort resulted in six collaborative panels that
expressed symbols and metaphors for ubuntu. These included footprints of a journey,
washing the feet of another, a tree of humanity with strong roots that allowed it to flourish and
bear fruit, and a nest with eggs held up with an artist?s hand. Each image explored concepts
of respect, negotiation, identity, tradition and imagination (Figure 30). The ubuntu prints now
hang at the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis.

In the end, this collective creative process led to a deeper understanding of self and other in
relationship to the group. It required participants to respect each other as well as the art-
making process itself. Individual spontaneity had to be constrained and negotiated in order to
achieve a compromise with the group. The need for negotiation and compromise explored
one of the key principles of reconciliation.

Selibe used a variety of approaches to facilitate these negotiations, such as drumming circles
and group activities (Figure 29). Nevertheless, an individual expressed resentment and
anger when a member of their team started carving over ?his? area of drawing. According to
Selibe?s account:
The sharing of ubuntu stories helped put the ideas into perspective.? There
was some resistance. A lot of them come from very difficult circumstances
where there is no ubuntu at home; some individuals really struggle to share.
One day I came into class with some apples. I cut them up into small pieces
and shared them with the group. Some were very surprised and moved. We
talked about how sharing brings people together. That was the lesson that
made a big difference in my class. People started talking about their families.
There is no negotiation, no checking in at their homes. They are told how
things are. There is no space to have a sense of yourself and your needs. I
had to help people with boundaries. We check in with each other before every
class; that was important in giving people an idea of appropriate behaviour.

An ubuntu story that was the stimulus for one of the ubuntu prints was told by Nelson
Makamo, a student from a rural community who came to Johannesburg to advance his
dream to be an artist.

55
Nelson Makamo: 40
Transforming through creativity
Creative processes as a means for healing and reconciliation have become integral to
deepening the journey of self-creation. The notion of perforating the barrier of fear, shame
and anger can be used constructively in a creative process. Perforation is something that
needs to happen in order to link surface and deep transformations ? but it has to be done
carefully.

This is my story, not just a story, but a way of life. This is my interview with my
Grandpa.
It was the first week of March. I had to travel from Johannesburg to Limpopo
to a large village called Avon. It had been a year since I visited my
grandparents and I had only three days, after which I had to go back to
Gauteng. I went for one reason: my assignment of ubuntu, because I knew
that my grandfather was the person to talk to. I knew his point of view made a
difference to me, as well as to others. He had understanding for so many
things that involve social issues. He knows how to turn a boy into a man.

The first thing I asked him was, ?What is ubuntu?? He answered with a smile:
?The quality of being kind to people and making sure they do not suffer more
than is necessary.? He continued, ?My son, our world is crammed full of words,
images, and sounds from our foremothers. What is happening today is too
much for us, we cannot breathe. We are always seeking to capture and to
understand the contradictions of this diverse continent. Many people are
caught between the mistake of the past and the possible calamities of
tomorrow. I was brought up by respect and caring, and also to transfer that to
my children, who were brought up with love and respect and caring.?

?Do you really want to know what is happening today? There is no respect at
all. We are putting material things first. That love for one another is gone. No
one to blame but ourselves. We did let things get out of hand, step by step.
We were supposed to act from the very first. But if we can plant that seed into
someone?s heart to let grow bigger and stronger, making sure that we take
good care of it, I?m telling you, it will attract others from the whole world who
will be touched.?

?We had enough of the past. That is gone. Yes, it is gone. If there can be love,
respect to us, the elders, and pass that on to children, the future will be full of
dynamic opportunity, and every child will be proud to be part of this universe?
(Interview by Armante, August 2004). (See Figure 30c and d of the Ubuntu
Tree that illustrates this story).

40 Makamo was interviewed as a second-year student in 2004. He currently works at APS as the Assistant Gallery
Manager and is managing a successful career through the sales of his own artwork. See Nelson?s story Chapter
Seven and the full transcript of his interview in KB Archives (APS Draw 1: File 12).
56
The metaphor of the ?Out of the Fire? collages was apt: as we pulled the fragments out of the
rubble of the burnt remains, the ashes had to be released into the air to prevent a poisoning
of the space. The patches or fragments that were stuck onto the surface of the collages
represented a fa?ade of recovery. But the damage was deep, and it was toxic. The pain had
to be transformed into positive healing through another art-making activity, the ubuntu
linocuts, and even then we were only one step closer in the ongoing journey. The process is
one of becoming and has no end.

The increasing need we found at APS to hold art therapy groups, music circles, and support
group workshops such as Men as Partners has had the effect of punching holes in the
reconstruction collages, the surface layer of our recovery. We had to create the spaces to
break the silences, to listen, to be heard, to tell individual and collective narratives and to
translate those stories into creative practice and a positive studio environment. In 2005 the
team of sixteen APS staff members participated in a ?healing from racism? workshop
facilitated by a consultant who used art-making as part of the process. Each of us as
participants shared stories of our heritage and childhood experiences of growing up with
apartheid. As a result, we were able to feel our commonality more deeply than our
differences. The unifier was our ability to respond creatively by translating feelings into
materials such as string, masking-tape and newspaper that allowed the expression of
binding, linking, wrapping and connecting. Feelings of fear and shame could be transformed
into a positive manifestation of co-creating by the shared activity. This experience influenced
some of the training interventions three years later as part of the AIDS Action Intervention
with Phumani Paper groups.

The exploration of ubuntu at APS addressed many of the questions that were identified at the
conclusion of the Brandeis Institute course. The students, teachers, and staff witnessed how
cultural work and the arts can be crafted to contribute to the rebuilding of relationships. We
saw how artistic processes can contribute to understanding self and other, and how they can
nourish the capacities required for reconciliation. We experienced the ways in which they can
help us recover from trauma, and how they can be useful in transferring our lessons toward
transformation of society at large.

Over the course of the year following the fire, the team of staff members attempted to
incorporate a spirit of ubuntu into the structure and culture of APS. Our efforts at
reconciliation were similarly collage-like, layering symbols and rituals, reorganizing fragments
of the old to construct something vibrant, generative and empowering.

57
To summarize, the elements of the collage process in re-constructing a new APS included
the following group processes: elements of the past framing the future (expressed through
collaged fragments of burnt rubble in the art and the new building); the inclusion of traditional
rituals in the process, such as the healer or sangoma restoring balance, blessing the new
space and paying respect to Nhlanhla?s spirit; art-making as both therapy and growth; the
collective participation of artist-members in branding the studio and making their mark; the
workshop processes, including the discussion of relevant themes in the curriculum and the
demarcating of professional and learning boundaries in the space; the use of music and
dance and the expression of feeling; the telling of stories; the incorporation of performance,
public display and exhibitions; and the creation of forums for listening and sharing and
respecting the space needed to explore and make mistakes. These qualities we as a team
felt could give substance to respecting the values of creating an ubuntu space at APS.
Other processes of re-constructing APS as a democratic organization extended to the need
to transform educational and management processes such as:
? collective and creative designing of a new curriculum and applying it in the learning
programs
? collaborative and team teaching across race, gender, culture and tradition
? facilitating the autonomy and independence of program leaders to find their voices
? implementation of processes to promote accountability and responsibility
? the redefinition of management structures, including the dissolving of the existing
board, redesigning a new governance structure, defining roles and responsibilities for
leadership, implementing the mentorship process
? the setting up sustainable mentorship relationships for students and teachers with
definable goals
? establishing partnerships and interfacing with organizations that provide new
opportunities for capacity building
? adhering to democratic practices in the organization and finding ways to pass on the
torch to the next generation of students.

As founder, mentor, author and researcher I determined during the restructuring process
from 2004 that I needed to distance myself from the daily life of the studio so that the new
leadership model could take hold. As a leader of APS I have now learnt to discern more
clearly when to act, and when to step back and let the process unfold without my
intervention, such as making way for new management and decision-making, while stepping
in to address strategies of action. My own learning process has involved developing the
ability to set up networks without trying to control the process, and allowing for mistakes,
58
which is part of empowerment and self-creation. It has also been necessary to learn to hold
people accountable and to increase levels of expectation as they grow in confidence. APS is
still grappling with many unanswered questions, including the implications of white authority.
However by asking these questions we are opening doors that have rarely been opened
before. The issues of race, gender and authority have not been brushed aside because they
are awkward or uncomfortable, they have been presented to APS members and students to
participate in the process of resolving some of the difficulties we have encountered in
confronting a vision for equity. It has become clear that it is important for the leadership
within APS to keep communication open and honest. When this happens, the trust that is
built in the team translates into confidence and shared pride, and this enables us to move
closer toward our vision for APS as a centre of African-centred learning and leadership.

In a conversation with Dr Hizkias Assefa, whom I met at Brandeis University during the
fellowship program, he commented:
Reconciliation requires awareness and humility on the side of the powerful
party in the equation, and confidence and courage on the side of the
disempowered. The ability to re-imagine self and other in the processes of
reconciliation is a key to understanding the role of leadership in the process.
Understanding helps us leverage small moments to create change.41

41 Assefa quoted from transcription of notes from Recasting Reconciliation through Culture and the Arts, 13
October 2004. Available: KB Archives (APS Draw 1: File 14).

In Assefa?s opinion, sometimes ?war itself creates a space for change, a readiness for peace?
(Assefa 2004: s.p.). The burning down of APS, the destruction that brought about acute
suffering, loss and trauma, was also a moment that created a space for change. It also
allowed us the opportunity to open up and expose the pre-fire anger and trauma. This insight
required us to develop a new vision of what could be.

During the time of reflection and re-structuring of APS, I received an invitation to participate
in an international word festival program linking art and literature in Brussels, Belgium in April
2004. My artwork was linked to poetry by South African journalist and poet Sandile Dikene,
who referred to himself as a survivor of the lost generation under apartheid. During our visit
to Brussels I had the opportunity to interview Dikene about an understanding of reconciliation
that has to do with remembering. I quote his words as his description of the pain and
subsequent healing through the truth and reconciliation processes is analogous to the APS
experience of searching for fragments in order to construct a collage.
Re-(member): members or parts; rediscovered and replaced:

59
A political definition of reconciliation wants to put humanity back in its place.
The TRC was about the seeking of limbs, digging up body parts, the painful
and harrowing search for a finger, and the celebration of recovering in pieces.

Healing takes you back to where the wound is; it?s a kind of macabre dance;
A part heals and then you go backwards with the next opening of wounds.
The national agenda of reconciliation is like an overarching blanket, but the
process is a painstaking picking up of the pieces. It is hectic, sore stuff,
psychological and biological ? it is not a political notion (Author?s interview
with Dikene, April 2004).

The TRC provided the country with a painful and self-reflexive phase of exploring inequities
of the past, reconciliation and healing. This purging of the past to make way for new growth
and change is precisely what we discovered in our collage-making processes.

Brandeis? ?Recasting Reconciliation? program posed a question about whether imagination
and dreaming can heal. What occurred after the fire suggests that it can. I suggest that
imagination and dreaming a better future are key to the transformation process at APS and in
South Africa as a whole. There is a power in dreaming the impossible. We did this through
mining the past. Ubuntu is widely believed to exist as an indigenous knowledge and cultural
system in Africa. At APS we have found that rediscovering and re-claiming this concept as a
strategy to create organizational change has been integral to the process of reconciliation. I
have presented Artist Proof Studio as a microcosm of the South African nation, (without the
complexities that a whole country would involve), in order to attempt to align the process of
reconciliation in the organization with a national vision of nation building.

Ubuntu served as a metaphor for envisioning a philosophy of rebuilding APS with values of
social justice, using symbolism emerging from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Although since then ubuntu has become something of a South African buzzword and clich?,
the concept remains a founding democratic value. It is associated with the image of a healthy
society, one in which there is a shared recognition of mutuality, interdependency and
interlinkage (Posel 2006: 89). This mutuality, linked to our capacity for voice and agency, is
what we strive for in creating an ubuntu space at APS.

PART THREE: Rebuilding: The Artist Proof Studio Artist as Change
Agent

APS was founded in good measure as a response to the challenge of building democracy in
a post-apartheid South Africa. The early mission was redress. Subsequently the fire forced a
process of physical rebuilding that exposed a deep need for psychological rebuilding through
60
the process of reconciliation. The struggle for positive change is ongoing, evolving and
transforming. The primary question that this process, and this chapter has posed is, how is it
possible to move from redress through reconciliation to deeper, transformational change that
?links deep structure with surface structure? (Krog 2003: 5). How does one bring to the
surface in a responsible, positive way, deep entrenched wounds in order to start healing
them? How does one deepen surface structure, to embed imagination and vision to create
meaningful and transformational change? How can the artist serve as a ?curator of the
community??42
African Identity and South African Art
In 2006 author Brenda Cooper made the following assertion about the transformation of
South African society, ?If new cultural forms are to supersede colonialism and apartheid, then
new identities must be fostered and fed? (Cooper 2006: 89). How do issues of identity or
identities contribute to social and individual transformation?

The question of identity in South African art consumes much art theoretical discourse at
present, and must be addressed in order to analyse the cultural production at APS, as well
as the current direction of its programs. Arguably, the concept at APS of artist-as-agent can
be seen to expand or, in some cases subvert, current art historical notions of post-colonial
artistic identity. It is therefore useful to explore the critical dialogue about post-colonial
contemporary art and artists in order to position the artist at APS within this larger,
international context.

This section analyses the shift in institutional philosophy that occurred after the end of some
of the ubuntu projects in 2005, and how these spawned a range of new initiatives that built
on some of the challenges that emerged. One theme APS identified in order to investigate
this challenge was identity (Figures 31 and 32).

During the Johannesburg Africus Bienale in 1995, when South Africa entered the
international platform of contemporary art exhibitions, and where installations were the
dominant format or indicator of a contemporary bienale?s cutting edge relevance, the artwork
produced at APS was assigned the derogatory label of ?ethno-tourist art? by the Nigerian-
born, United States-based curator Okwui Enwezor. Apparently this was because APS artists
were depicting ?township? scenes in prints that had a specific market. The fact that many of

42 The term is Jane Sapp?s, an American musician and community activist who participated in an aspect of the
Brandeis University Fellowship program.
61
the artists were able to sell sufficient work to earn their livelihoods implied, in his view, that
their artistic identity was associated with the lower art-form of the crafts. This designation
excluded the printmakers from participating in any of the mainstream activities. However, the
APS artists were not the only people to become unhappy with Enwezor?s elitist approach.
The disjunction between the lens of this international curator and the immediate South
African context was cited as one of the reasons (in addition to funding difficulties) that
caused the exhibitions to close early.

Since this experience, the question of the definition of African art has provoked numerous
debates, one which was been explored in the more recent Africa Remix exhibition curated by
Simon Njami (2006-7), which claimed to represent the ?contemporary art of a continent?.
Such a project would be problematic by definition. As the African scholar V.Y. Mudimbe
asserts in his book The Idea of Africa, there exists not only one history, but rather several
histories of African art. He invites questions of the ?authenticity of African identities,
geography and mythology.? The number of formal, historical, geographical and social mores
suggest that various artistic practices exist, each within its own socio-historical context.
(Mudimbe 1994: xi). However the curators, including Simon Njami, argued forcefully for a
broad African identity:
But let there be no misconception: stating one?s belonging does not amount to
proclaiming one?s Africanness. Africanness is self-evident. A fact. A
fundamental that can be kept silent. What shows through is the sense of this
Africanness. What makes a work open, legible to all, is the fact that it contains
a slice, no matter how tiny, of ourselves (Njami 2007: 18).

However, I would argue that the situation is more complex, and agree with the African
scholar Mammo Muchie, who states in response to Mbeki?s speech ?I am an African?:
When we speak of African identity, such an identity must be built on the
rejection of essentialism.? The negative connotation of essentialism has to
be replaced by the positive connotation of building an inclusive, tolerant,
civilized and combinational African identity (Muchie 2004).43
Achille Mbembe calls African transnational culture ?Afropolitan culture,? a term that refers to
Africans who live on the continent, but ?have not stopped coming and going, developing an

Perhaps this interpretation of African identity is useful in a search for an understanding of a
potential definition of artist-as-change-agent sufficient to meet the challenges of South Africa
today.

43 The African Renaissance Journal September/October 2004 takes up the question ?Who is an African?? using
Mbeki speech of May 1996, ?I am an African.? (Refer to the text of the speech:
http://www.info.gov.za/aboutgovt/orders/new2002_mbeki.htm).
62
invaluable wealth of perception and sensitivity in the course of these movements.? They are
usually people who can express themselves in more than one language. According to
Mbembe:
The centre of Afropolitism par excellence is, nowadays, Johannesburg in
South Africa. In this metropolis built on brutal history, a new form of African
modernity is developing. It is a modernity that has little to do with what we
have known up to now. Johannesburg feeds on multiple racial legacies, a
vibrant economy, a liberal democracy, [and] a culture of consumerism that
partakes directly of the flows of globalisation. It is where an ethic of tolerance
is being created, likely to revive African aesthetic and cultural activity, in the
same way as Harlem or New Orleans once did in the United States (Mbembe
2007: 26-29).

Indeed, Johannesburg is a dynamic, complex and exciting pan-African metropolis. There is a
rich exchange of creative opportunities in the inner city that makes Johannesburg a prime
destination for creative practitioners from throughout the continent and well beyond. As art
historian David Elliott, one of the co-curators of Africa Remix, stated: ?Here there are
possibilities for new constellations of thinking, reflection and enjoyment and, because art is
not life itself, little is at risk? (Elliot 2007: 31).

While I agree that the Johannesburg art community provides the opportunity for ?new
constellations of thinking,? I differ with the statement that ?art is not life? and ?little is at risk.?
Africa Remix engaged only one aspect of contemporary African art: that which fits the
contemporary global paradigm, with its emphasis on novelty and/or shock, and stock
representations of ?identity? legible to a western audience. It ignored the important
interventions of community-based art, which builds on a long-standing tradition of ?township
art?. Numerous books on township art have positioned this genre of art as key to the struggle
of liberation in South Africa [Sack (1988), Younge (1988), Williamson (1989) (1996)]. This
positioning should counter the tendency of the contemporary art world to malign this category
and thus marginalize and obscure this important part of South African art history.

I agree with the novelist Wole Soyinka who suggests that ?the pursuit of dignity is one of the
most fundamental defining attributes of human existence? (Soyinka 2004: 1). Central to the
argument in this thesis is the subject of dignity, which in my view, is fundamental to the role
of art in social change. Dignity and self-worth are closely linked to the capacity for agency
that can lead people out of spiritual and economic poverty. Although this topic will be
discussed in the contexts of subsequent chapters, it is also relevant to the discussion of art
production in contemporary South Africa. For many members of the Artist Proof Studio, the
issue is survival, and so the antithesis of Elliot?s statement is true; art becomes life itself; and
so everything is at risk.
63

I have described APS as a microcosm or a barometer that measures the pulse of South
Africa. I argue that the intertwining of art and life has become critical in the face of the
challenge of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The discourse of engagement has of necessity
changed. The framework is less reconciliation and healing from the past, but the need for
agency, activism, civic responsibility and participation, and this situation in turn has called for
a different paradigm for education at APS. The contemporary concept of struggle requires
exercising one?s citizenship for economic and social agency, self-healing and the facilitation
of group action. What does that term ?agency? mean for the education and training of artists
in contemporary South African society? For APS, the central project has been the Paper
Prayers for AIDS Awareness program, which will be discussed in detail in Chapter Three.

Artist as change agent
An extensive body of literature exists on activist art in the United States which argues
convincingly that the artist plays an important role in society. First encountered when I was
studying in the United States in the 1980s, American activist artists and critics have strongly
influenced the direction of my subsequent work. Some of these anthologies are referred to in
the theoretical framework in Chapter One. To re-iterate the point made earlier, activist art is
often related to community-based art, which in turn exists in many different guises, from
public art (murals, performance interventions) to community arts centres. The common
approach is that art does not belong to an economic or social elite, but is a communal
resource where the boundaries between creators, participants and the public are often
permeable. Arlene Goldbard describes community arts or community cultural development
as a range of initiatives undertaken by artists in collaboration with other community members
?to express identity, concerns and aspirations through the arts and communications media?
(Goldbard 2006: 242).44
The creative vision of an individual can inspire others, and has the potential to be felt
throughout an organization or community. However, to become catalysts for social change,
artists must reposition themselves as citizen activists (Lacy 1995: 177). In order to participate
in civic action, artists need to develop a set of skills not commonly associated with art-
making. To take a position in relation to the public agenda, the artist must act in collaboration

44 Goldbard (2006: 242) provides a definition of community as a dynamic process or characteristic. She quotes
from Raymond Williams? Keywords (1976): ?Community can be the warmly persuasive word to describe an
existing set of relationships or the warmly persuasive word to describe an alternative set of relationships. What is
most important, perhaps, is that unlike all other terms of social organization (state, nation, society, etc.) it seems
never to be used unfavourably and never given any positive opposing or distinguishing term? (Williams, 1976: 66).
64
with people with an understanding of social systems and institutions. New strategies must be
learnt in order to collaborate and ?undertake the consensual production of meaning with the
public? (Lacy 1995: 177).

It is my contention that the artist?s role can go far deeper than to give colour and expression
to freedom and democracy. Artists can be ?weapons? in the new struggle for an equitable
democratic society.45
Engaging Community: Expanding the Concept of ?Community Centres?
In Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development, (2001) and New Creative
Community (2006), Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard provide a range of definitions, core
purposes, processes and methodologies, paving the way for the theoretical analysis of the
artist as cultural practitioner. They present key principles that have been adopted by
practitioners of community cultural development to guide their work. These principles include
active participation in cultural life; diversity; equality of all cultures; the principle of culture as
an effective crucible for social transformation; cultural expression as a means of
emancipation, culture as a dynamic protean whole. One of their principles states; ?artists
have roles as agents of transformation that are more socially valuable than mainstream art
world roles ? and certainly equal in legitimacy? (Adams and Goldbard 2001: 24). Arlene
Goldbard in her subsequent book, argues for these principles to ?advance the movement?s
aims of pluralism, participation and equity?, and she sees this as a ?distinct, value-driven
practice? (Goldbard 2006: 82,83). Goldbard?s contribution to the field links the values of art
and democracy, and provides a useful and supportive framework for practitioners.

With Doris Sommer, I argue that human values and desires develop
through cultural practices that constitute vehicles for change (Sommer 2006: 7).

How can initiatives and reflections on cultural agency actually promote democratic practice?
According to Sommer:
Agency through culture is almost second nature to democratic life, whether
we take culture to mean collective and flexible everyday practices or the
individual departures from conventions that we call art. Cultural agency is a
name for the kind of political voice that speaks through aesthetic effects and
that can renew love for the world while it enhances the worth of artist-agents.
Instead of tracing familiar routes from inequalities back to power, where
movement gets stuck and protesters can feel paralyzed, cultural agency
pursues the tangents of daily practices to multiply creative engagements with
power to get some wiggle room (2006: 19-20).

45 Artists as ?weapons of the struggle? was used a 1980s slogan in the cause of destroying apartheid. See
Seidman?s book (2007) on struggle posters of the 1980s.
65
Community-based art ensures that art has cultural and social relevance. For instance, critic
Nicolas Bourriaud has written extensively on a revised understanding of current art practice.
He asserts that ?contemporary art practice must be understood as an act of structuring social
exchange? (Bourriaud 2002:16). Lydia Mathews also asserts that ?artists no longer [simply]
create objects; they are simultaneously involved in designing frameworks for social
interaction? (Mathews 2005: 124). However I would argue that in order to design frameworks
for social engagement, there has to be a directed effort to re-structure how art is taught and
learnt.

Miwon Kwon, in her book One Place After Another: Site-specific Art and Locational Identity
challenges us to exchange our ?overused and under-theorized? notion of ?community-based
art? for what she calls ?collective artistic praxis? (Kwon 2002: 166). For Kwon, the
?communities are invented during the art practice and consist of a provisional group that finds
its bonds through ?performing? the artwork.? This insight is true for the experience APS artists
undertook in ?performing the artwork? after the fire. What is valuable about this understanding
that Kwon proposes is that the practice of art-making reassesses and re-negotiates
democratic and dialogic activity. This view is supported by Mathews in describing a
community-based art project, Ties That Bind, who asserts further:
If a work is to truly engage democratic sensibility ? all parties involved in the
complex network of collaborative labor ? including the artist, the community,
the curators, the institution, and other participants ? must be ?uncertain? of
their identities. For democracies to function, they must recognise the goal is
not a community that is coherent, unified, or certain. Rather, all parties who
?animate democracy? must continuously negotiate a sense of subjectivity
through encounters with others who are different from them (Mathews,
2005 132).

This interpretation of community-based art proved helpful in redefining the social function of
an art space such as Artist Proof Studio. We have continually sought ways to explore a
democratic, dialogical cultural practice through collaborative projects such as ?Reclaiming
Lives?, (described in the next chapter on Paper Prayers), ?Bell Dewar and Hall team building
murals?, (described in the next section), ?One-man-can? (Sonke Gender Justice), ?Men as
Partners murals? and others.46
The future for urban youth in Johannesburg is full of economic opportunity and social threats:
the infection rates of HIV/AIDS affect at least 25% of the youth in Gauteng, and the lure of

46 These projects are described and catalogued in KB Archives (APS Draw 1: File 16).
66
drugs and crime is part of living in poverty and unemployment.47 Furthermore, South Africa
has one of the highest rates of rape and violence against women and children in the world.48

47 Statistics vary and most are dated. (See United Nation Statistics on HIV infection:
http://www.globalhealth.org/hiv_aids/ http://www.avert.org/statistics.htm;
http://www.unicef.org/southafrica/hiv_aids_729.html).
48 According to Statistics South Africa, rape victims in the country were more likely to be young women aged
between 16 and 25 (http://www.statssa.gov.za/).

The needs of the often-marginalized artist-membership at APS include ongoing crises of a
traumatized citizenry, such as harassment, pregnancy, jailing, theft, discrimination,
vandalism, alcohol and drug abuse, and psychological health problems. Artist Proof Studio
has responded to these issues using a range of strategies that include art therapy
interventions, referrals for counselling, HIV/AIDS awareness and support programs, and
enabling capacities for redress in the general learning programs.

How is it possible to educate artists in the time of AIDS, crime, violence against women, and
rampant materialism in an urban city and culture where the political role models are AIDS
dissidents? Young men can justify their practices of unsafe sex and multiple sexual partners
by citing examples set by political leadership. The most high profile examples are provided
by Thabo Mbeki?s position that there is no proof that HIV causes AIDS, and Jacob Zuma?s
public disclosure of having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman, which was
supposedly ameliorated by a shower after the act. APS attracts talented young people who
do not have the economic means to further their education. One goal of fostering the artist-
as-agent must be to subvert the traditional patriarchy of ?macho-culture?, to tap into the
sensitivities of the artist as ?feelers? in society, and to address the gender bigotry so prevalent
in South African culture. The APS constituency is primarily male youth whose values and
aspirations initially include material possessions and a hip facade. Some of their immediate
goals include the acquisition of cell phones, i-pods and labelled clothing as a reflection of
status, yet most of the young artists do not have the financial support from their families to
satisfy this acquisitiveness. In the South African context, I maintain that lessons in
leadership, public engagement, social responsibility, human rights, and empowerment must
be part of an artist?s education and training in order to counter the dominance of material
values in society more widely, and to instil a desire to address social crises.

Through innovative programs or interventions, APS initiates artistic activities that can prompt
cultural and social changes. As a community-based organization with a democratic and
participatory structure, the emphasis is on building a concept of the artist as a responsible
citizen. In 2005 APS revised its vision and mission so that it is linked to building youth to
reach self-actualization and to make a difference in society. It reads as follows:
67
Our VISION is a professional studio founded on a sense of shared humanity
where people of talent and passion can reach for excellence in art-making to
achieve self-sustainability.

Our MISSION is to provide an environment to develop people with a common
set of values, expressed in the notion of ubuntu, that have talent and passion
to achieve artistic excellence. We focus on printmaking and our allied
outreach programmes to build the capacity of people to reach self-
actualization and make a difference in society.

While this vision of education in the arts is idealistic, it is my belief that the arts can be
effective in preparing youth to be socially responsible and creative citizens capable of
confronting the life and death challenges for survival facing them on a daily basis. The
revised mission implies that APS has developed from a community-based art centre into an
activist organization; from a community arts centre as a place of nurturing and social
protection, to a social movement fostering activism and agency. The change does not leave
the fundamental principles of community-based art behind, but expands them to include the
proactive role of the artist-agent. This section will explore possibilities emerging from the
concept of APS as a social organization, or, in the words of Giroux as:
?? a strategic pedagogical and political terrain? whose force (through the
visual arts) ?can be extended to broader public discourses and practices
about the meaning of democracy, citizenship, and social justice? (Giroux
2000: 38).

Artist Proof Studio artists and students have participated in a range of projects that engage
social justice and democratic practice. The following case studies describe the different
artistic methodologies used to effect positive personal and social change.

Men as Partners
Men as Partners, a subsidiary of the United Nations agency of Engender Health is a
Johannesburg-based organization dedicated to changing patriarchal culture and the harm it
causes. Since 2005 APS has collaborated with this organization on training and outreach
projects. One of the most productive has been team mural painting. The Men as Partners
facilitators annually participate in a two-week project with second-year APS students. They
attend workshops and engage with gender stereotyping and the roles of men in society.
What emerges are deep prejudices against women and gay men and women.49

49 Men as Partners Manuals and workshop reports KB Archives (APS Draw 1: Files 18 and 19).
Students
debate and are asked to interrogate their own positions. The partnership agreement with
Engender Health / Men as Partners allows for an exchange of skills without financial
payment. In exchange for this training received from the facilitators, the Men as Partners
68
organization acquires visual aids useful in their ongoing advocacy work. The APS
participants apply their skills and talents to envision a society free of prejudice, one that
fosters equality between men and women. They create drawings and images that reverse
the stereotypes, such as men carrying babies on their back, men hanging and ironing
washing, and men nursing the sick. These murals can be seen in public spaces in and
around Johannesburg, as seen in the example on the wall outside Baragwanath Hospital in
Soweto (Figures 33b and c). In addition, some of the narrative pictures are painted on mobile
screens and panels for teaching aids, as well as reproduced on the brochures and website
images of MAP (Figure 33a and website).50
As a result of these class projects, some of the students are contracted onto MAP and Sonke
Gender Justice teams that conduct community workshops in schools and workplaces (such
as for farm workers in Groblersdal) and around the country. The partnership has been
mutually beneficial in that the artists see themselves as gender activists and role models,
and they also gain an additional source of income. Special events increase their pride and
agency, such as when the Manchester United football team joined them to launch a mural at
the Soweto Schools. Our partners at MAP have found that working with art and artists is
highly effective in achieving their educational goals (See Figures 34 and 35).

50 Further examples are available (http://www.engenderhealth.org/news/newsreleases/041217.html).
51 See Stakeholder interview from Men as Partners (KB Archives FF Draw 6: File 1a).

It is interesting to compare the Men as Partners murals with the collaborative work done in
the mid- and late 1990s at APS: the Urban Futures murals, for example. In the latter
collaborations, art students used their skills to depict generalized issues such as poverty or
xenophobia (See Figure 10d) as if these issues existed outside of themselves. Even though
the topics were workshopped, the artists depicted their subjects as observers and visual
commentators, who did not need to personally act on what they had learned. While both
processes arguably support Doris Sommer?s claim that ?culture enables agency,? I would
draw a distinction between the two. It is the participatory action and reflexive engagement
with organizations such as Men as Partners, when joined with artists? visual voices, that
enables agency. Sommer and many other cultural arts activists recognize the role of the arts
as stimulants or irritants for ?multiple? if modest agendas. At APS our experience has been
that the visual arts can enhance the campaigns of activist organizations whose agendas are
far from ?modest?, to create meaningful change for their participants.

69
Citizens at the Centre
The level of engagement seems to be the critical factor in deepening change. The question
of how concepts of citizenship and social justice can be translated into building a generation
of artists who no longer hold onto the mythology of the ?poor artist? (the bum, the outsider on
the margins, the victim always needing funding, help and handouts) has become the
pertinent challenge for Artist Proof Studio. Examples of programs that develop a language to
speak about citizenship in culturally rich and appropriate ways include the adoption of
progressive partners to introduce life skills that alter the patriarchal paradigm. If
transformation is an objective, diversity and democracy should penetrate the inner core of
the teaching and learning process.

For example, an important model for imagining the development of artist as citizen has come
from an initiative by Marie-Louise Str?m, who together with the Governance and AIDS
Programme at Institute for a Democratic Alternative in South Africa (IDASA), designed a
training manual entitled Citizens at the Centre ? AIDS Councils as Catalysts for Unlocking
Citizen Power to ?provide participants with tools to tap into the talents of local communities
that would support responses to the epidemic and that is driven by local needs, local
knowledge and local experience? (Str?m 2007: 3). This training manual is premised on the
idea that citizens, rather than institutions, should be at the centre of solving the AIDS crisis.
The manual confirms in a practical and useful way the radical notion that people and not
structures are the key to solving problems ? even with regard to those complex and
sometimes overwhelming challenges such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The philosophy of
?citizens at the centre? has inspired a number of initiatives at Artist Proof Studio to introduce
the notion of citizenship, empowerment, and the artists as agents of change. For instance,
the belief that the arts have an important role to play in educating citizens led to the
development of the various APS AIDS Action interventions. The IDASA manual was
referenced in designing a training manual for the AIDS Action intervention that is discussed
in Chapter Six.

Experiential Learning
Another example of arts activities at Artist Proof Studio that contribute to social change
through citizenship facilitation is the engaged service learning placements of senior learners.
Third year volunteers who have been in after-school centres to teach orphans and vulnerable
children art activities have helped to ensure that the students? attitudes and perspectives are
challenged. Other experiential workplace internships include: placements in corporate
environments; mentorships with business and professional experts; placements as assistants
70
to community leaders; research assistants; translators and facilitators for children?s
programs; or placements in a partner NGO such as the Art Therapy Centre or Men as
Partners. All of these placements recognize the value of skills and life experience to learning,
and have proven to be effective in making a contribution to the workplace, and also creating
change in individuals. When the APS students engage professionally they tend to rise to the
challenge, shoulder responsibility and assume leadership roles that prepare them to be
proactive and engaged citizens (Figure 36).

The inclusion of a wide range of knowledge and learning styles within the different student
classes at APS (for example, learnerships, professional development and youth portfolio
development) are diverse approaches that enable the creation of ?class-as-community?
(Duncan 2005: 188).This concept is a valuable pedagogical approach supported by APS:
The outcome of this kind of curriculum can be independent, critical and
reflective thinkers who have a strong sense of personal power and who see
themselves as proactive individuals engaged in the continuous re-creation of
their work world (Duncan 2005: 188).

Another goal at APS is moral engagement, which has been defined by Freire as ?learning to
perceive social, political and economic contradictions and to take action against the
oppressive elements of reality? (Freire 2003: 35).

Team Building through Mural Painting
The following is an example of building capacities that can only take place outside the
classroom environment, and can be seen as a preparation for leadership and responsible
citizenship. Before discussing this intervention into the corporate world, it is important to
distinguish APS?s ?spirit of empowerment? from BEE or broad-based empowerment, which is
one of the central policy planks in the ANC government?s bid to transform society (Khoza
2005: 196). In some ways this form of ?deal making? in the guise of empowerment has
resulted in the enrichment of a few, with little attention to delivery to the many. This black
?enrichment? has obscured the human rights values enshrined in the Freedom Charter that
called for the redistribution of wealth to the poor. Thus an enabling environment is still
required in order to cultivate a sense of self-worth by assisting young people to build self-
esteem and see themselves as valued members of the community. Artist Proof Studio has
recognized the value of building leadership capacities in the senior year of professional
development. According to Khoza, leadership through ubuntu requires three levels of
application: morality, transformation and best practice (Khoza 2005: 261).

71
Team building through mural painting enacts the APS interpretation of empowerment. The
law firm of Bell Dewar and Hall is a corporate sponsor of APS that supports eight students
annually. As part of their team building, APS was invited to participate in an art activity with
the Bell Dewar and Hall employees. During their strategic planning session, the law office
staff were asked to separate into eight teams and draw out the strategic plans of each unit in
the form of a diagram. One artist from the third-year learning program at APS was assigned
to each unit, which comprised ten to twelve people. The artist team-leader was tasked with
translating the ideas and symbols into images, which the team then painted as a mural on
the firm?s garage basement wall. The artists found themselves among groups of
approximately 90 staff members of highly motivated and competitive lawyers, litigators,
financial managers and corporate relations personnel. One young artist, deeply shy, and very
troubled (almost suicidal at one stage of his studies due to devastating personal difficulties
and loss at home), found himself as the team leader for the litigators. He managed to inspire
the group, and his team?s mural was judged by outside judges as the winner. The experience
boosted his confidence to such an extent that he became one of the top achievers in his year
at APS. He has since been offered a gallery exhibition and has plans to open his own gallery
in his rural home. He understands that he can reach for his dreams through his belief in
himself and his ability to be a catalyst for change (Figure 38).

That highly successful corporate professionals were required to learn basic skills from a
young black artist who may barely have had high school qualifications, was an exercise that
resulted in an enriching experience on both sides. The reversal of power, race and class
dynamics built confidence, humility and humour, and helped reach common ground across a
chasm of difference. The exchange of skills and exposure to such extreme opposites of
social and economic realities became a successful exercise in developing leadership.52
At APS we have learnt that practitioners need to have a range of skills to engage community,
business and corporate partners. Artists must not only be technically proficient, they also
need to bring diplomatic, organizing and partnership skills to the table. They need qualities
such as patience, optimism and a sense of humour, and the most important prerequisite for
this work is a love for and acceptance of the messy, unpredictable and complex nature of
community arts work. They also need organization and management abilities that require
self-confidence to take on the leadership of a project. People who need consistency and
inflexible systems are likely to become highly frustrated, and artists must be conscious of and
develop ways to address this potential stumbling block to collaboration. In this instance, with

52 See website for more information (http://www.belldewar.co.za/ArtMural.html).
72
Bell Dewar and Hall, both sides showed the flexibility and openness needed for a positive
outcome. Trevor Thebe, an artist and facilitator from APS, described his involvement in the
Sonke Gender Justice murals (Figures 33-36):
Painting murals gives power to those who take part in making them. To those
who pass by it works as a constant reminder of the message passed through
in the paintings made. One thing that was good during these workshops was
how people feel proud of what they see at the end of the project, expressions
you see on faces of those passing by and the pride of those who took part in
the painting. These are not painters but they end up with the confidence to
paint and carry on with what they have started (Sonke 2007).53

Artists as citizen-agents
Artists can catalyse expression when words fail and silence kills. I would also like to propose
that the integration of ubuntu as a philosophy of team and leadership building and the artistic
methods we applied to facilitate real internalization of the philosophy, has developed a much
stronger generation of APS graduates than previously. What projects like the team building
murals have shown is that APS can and is facilitating a new generation of leadership. Artists-
leaders can be conduits of creative energy that then enable intersectoral teams to achieve
meaningful results (Figures 37 and 38):
This place [APS] helps everybody from any background and provides new
dreams and also higher dreams to achieve (Sibusiso Chiloane, graduating
third-year student, November 2007).

Assessing Community-based arts centres as social movements
Politics is the art of the possible; creativity is the art of the impossible (Okri
1997: 127).

APS in its journey as an arts organization has posed many questions and constantly evolves
in its joint quest for stability and growth. There are also many challenges. For instance,
funding is erratic and the different donors demand different strategies. For example,
corporate funders require entrepreneurial business practice from the artists they support, arts
and culture councils fund specific educational or advocacy programs, and specific
foundations fund outreach to orphans and vulnerable children. APS has developed the
capacity to respond directly to a variety of funding priorities as well as varying community
ideas, needs, situations and opportunities. Its partnerships with the arts agencies and
corporations concerned with social investment have deepened and expanded the diversity
and complexity of its activities and outreach.

53 Comments and additional images of the Sonke Gender Justice murals can be found on their website. (See also
http://www.genderjustice.org.za/docman/organisational-documents/sonke-gender-justice-annual-report-2006-
2007/download-2.html).
73

A 2005 report from the Community Arts Network in the United States evaluated ten
community arts organizations, and the findings identified trends that are familiar to the
experience of APS (Cleveland 2005). The survey investigates six areas: how the programs
have defined success; the values that have influenced the design and delivery of the
programs; the kind of leadership and organizational practice; the support strategies that have
contributed to success; how the programs defined and measured successes and failures;
and what constraints confronting the programs prevent the ability to fulfil their missions
(Cleveland 2005: 102).54
The majority of Cleveland?s findings in his book Making Exact Change are applicable to
South African community organizations. Many community arts organizations are part of a
complex web of relationships. One of the report?s recommendations is to educate funders
about the complex ecology of community arts development. This knowledge should
encourage appropriate and participatory methods to evaluate social impact. The redefinition

The study provides a list of recommendations made by the organization Art in the Public
Interest that commissioned the study by Cleveland, Making Exact Change, as a resource
book to inform and support the community arts field. The author investigates ten case studies
in which he finds the values of flexibility, accessibility, responsiveness and respect to be core
qualities. The organization lists the comprehensive findings on their website that could inform
and support practice in the broader fields of arts-based community development (Cleveland
2005: 122). As mentioned in the introductory chapter of this thesis, I agreed with Susan
Seifert and Mark Stern in their characterization of development projects as ?social
movements? and that the assessment of ?sustainability? should be measured through
projects? success in engaging and mobilizing their communities. As a result of their study of
over fifty community-based arts and cultural providers in the United States, Seifert and Stern
argue against traditional business practice as a measurement of community arts projects.
They argue that because these are social movements, lacking orthodox organizational
practices such as efficiency and a clear chain of command, community cultural centres could
be judged as failures. ?Community cultural centres are not simply small businesses, and
should not be judged in terms of profit and loss? (Seifert and Stern 2000: 13). I expand on the
importance of identifying alternative criteria for the evaluation of community arts
organizations in Chapter Six.

54 Also available on the website (http://www.makingexactchange.org).

74
encourages funders to value innovation, creativity and diversity of outcomes. Reporting only
on deliverables listed as outcomes in a funder?s log-frame can actually harm the unique
creative structures of the community arts programs. Often the softer, non-measurable
outcomes are the most meaningful and sustainable. APS has a few long-term and steady
funders where the relationship is developmental, and the interaction resembles that of
consultative partners rather than grantees. For example APS has a ten to fifteen year
relationship with funders such as the Ford Foundation, Johnson and Johnson International
and the South African Development Fund who assist with guiding and supporting strategic
development goals of the organization. The studio?s more recent corporate patron partners
introduce an innovative form of collaboration in which they invest in the success and
promotion of young artists? careers. This latter model of partnering has enabled a steady
growth and expansion of diverse forms of income and enables the organization to tap into
resource building opportunities. With regard to the recommendations made by Cleveland
(2005) and Seifert and Stern (2000) in terms of reporting on funding, in the case of APS, this
would include reporting on human development: and the values that celebrate the
achievements of self confidence, the restoration of hope, the ability of a young person to
dream a better future, take initiative, become a catalyst and make a difference in another
person?s life. These are the qualities that build our future leaders and teachers (Figure 38).

Conclusion
Post-apartheid South Africa aspires to a value system that is reflected in the national
Constitution. The themes highlighted in the preamble to the South African Constitution affirm
the commitment to democratic practice, the promotion of human rights, and the ordinary
person?s role in active citizenship, expressed through the verbs ?recognize?, ?honour?,
?respect?, believe?, ?heal?, ?improve? and ?build? (Ramphele 2008: 126). All South Africans are
relative newcomers to citizenship in an inclusive democracy in their own country.

Maphela Ramphele asks the following questions:
How willing are South Africans to defend the right of fellow citizens who
question the abuse of state power that threatens the rights of some citizens or
their socio-economic welfare? Why were South African citizens silent for so
long while government undermined the rights of poor citizens to access to
comprehensive HIV/AIDS treatment that would have reduced fatalities? What
about our inaction in the face of our national epidemic of abuse of women and
children?

Ramphele asserts that civic mindedness means ?we have to go beyond doing no harm to
doing good? (Ramphele 2008: 128).

75
APS has taken up the challenge of training artists as active and engaged citizens who can
use their talents and skills to give colour, texture and shape to our emerging democracy, and
deepen understanding, and reframe issues in ways that present new possibilities to the
world.

The APS case suggests that the way one acts as an artist should not mean artists are being
excused from participation in civic engagement because talent has earned an artist the
privilege of sitting and painting in an ivory tower. Visual voices do not have to illustrate issues
of the day, but developing multi-modal literacies equips artists-as-citizens to engage
productively, effectively and often profitably with society. Collective, participatory,
collaborative practice is part of defining a community art centre agenda; it does not imply
controlling the content of individual artistic expression. Artists choose their own modes and
subjects. But the application of voice to ?do good? for society, is, I argue, part of the
responsibility of our new democracy. As an educator and organizational leader, I have
responded to what I believe is a critical need in South Africa, and that is facilitating an
enabling environment for transformative citizenship and leadership.

The three phases, redress, reconciliation and rebuilding, discussed in this chapter, have
traced the challenges faced by the country as a whole in its transition to a democracy. I have
attempted to present the processes that APS has used to shape the multiple ways artists can
discover their own capacities as creative voices for change, and the role that artists can
assume as agents of change and active participants in the South African democracy.

The general apathy that exists among young people today is not about a lack of caring. My
experience with students at APS is that when they are challenged, when they are willing to
believe in their potential, they understand that dreaming and imagining possibilities is the first
step in a journey to reach their goals. When they discover that achievement of excellence
and self-actualization does not depend on privilege, and that they have the capacity to be an
agent of change and make an important contribution in their own lives as well as in their
communities, that is when so much more becomes possible.
76
CHAPTER THREE: CREATING AWARENESS ? COUNTERING
DENIAL: THE NATIONAL PAPER PRAYERS HIV/AIDS AWARENESS
AND ACTION CAMPAIGN 1996-2008

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the
world. Indeed, that is about all that ever has. Just imagine the potential if we were to
all join hands (Margaret Mead (date unknown)).1

Introduction
Paper Prayers is a national HIV/AIDS awareness and action campaign that spreads its
message through printmaking and craft. Established in 1998 with a grant from the
Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology as an arts and culture strategy to
address the AIDS pandemic, it began as a national outreach campaign by Artist Proof Studio
(APS) in partnership with NAPWA (The National Association of People Living with HIV and
AIDS), CARE (Community AIDS Response) and AIDSLINK. In its first year the project
reached over 1 200 people through printmaking workshops in which each participant
produced a small ?paper prayer? artwork. Prints produced through the outreach campaign
were exhibited and sold on World AIDS Day, 1 December, raising funds for the above local
AIDS activist groups. Paper Prayers has continued as an outreach program of APS, and has
employed three different coordinators over ten years. Self-funded through commissions and
sales of craft products such as embroidered cloths, quilts and soft toys, Paper Prayers
currently generates livelihoods for about 40 women infected or affected by HIV.

This chapter will discuss the three phases of this project in order to investigate the ways in
which a programme like Paper Prayers can serve as a model of adaptability for organizations
attempting to combat enormous social challenges. From an intensive awareness campaign,
to income generation through the sales of embroidered or sewn products, to an accredited
skills training and activist program, Paper Prayers was one of the first South African visual
arts-based HIV/AIDS initiatives. It quickly expanded to include international and local
exhibitions and fundraisers, the creation of the first AIDS remembrance wall outside APS,
and training workbooks for schools.2

1 This is Margaret Mead?s most cited quotation in varied ways. According to her biographer, when and where she
said those words is unknown (M Bowman-Kruhm 2003: 142).
2 The material on the early Paper Prayers Campaign is housed in the KB Archives (PPR Draw 2). However the
historical records are minimal due to all the material and reports having been destroyed in the fire at APS in
March 2003.

77
After a highly successful awareness campaign that reached over a thousand people
nationally, funding for the continuation of Paper Prayers was ended in 1999, due to the lack
of government support for creative HIV/AIDS strategies. Some commissions for quilts and
exhibitions kept five small embroidery projects economically active, but the program to teach
paper prayers in schools and the printmaking campaign had no funding. However, within
APS, Paper Prayers workshops continue as an annual event as part of the teaching program
for World AIDS Day (Figure 1).

From a printmaking project in its first year (1998), Paper Prayers expanded to include
embroidered cloths with AIDS messages. However, embroidered quilts and cloths with a
?frightening? message did not lead to sufficient income generation for the women on the rural
collectives (Figures 2a and b). A small grant from the Canada Fund led to the involvement of
a former Technikon Witwatersrand postgraduate student, Shannin Antonopolou, to develop
new products for craft production. Paper Prayers projects currently surviving from sales
include Ikageng and CARE that produce felt toys, and the Chivurika, Mapula and Kopenang
embroidery collectives that produce pillow covers and wall hangings (Figures 3a-d).

Paper Prayers workshops continue at Artist Proof Studio, with its predominantly male student
population; these young men consistently reveal ignorance about AIDS, despite the fact that
some of them have participated in HIV/AIDS awareness workshops. In order to address the
gendered nature of the disease, partnerships have been established with Engender Health
and its subsidiaries, Men As Partners (MAP), Sonke Justice (One man can) and with CARE,
in order to integrate HIV/AIDS education and activism into the APS curriculum. Over the past
decade, the trajectory of Paper Prayers has been from awareness to advocacy, and from
female-based to male- and female-based education. (The expansion of the program into an
activist program for Phumani Paper will be discussed in Chapter Six.)

Paper Prayers began as a nationwide programme with the dual purpose of creating
awareness of the disease and helping to overcome the negative emotions of fear and denial
resulting from loss due to HIV/AIDS. Applying art as a tool for learning has a demonstrated
history of effectiveness in South Africa: during the apartheid years, it promoted the healing
and growth, self-confidence and imagination needed to sustain the struggle. In the post-
apartheid era art continues to contribute substantially to confronting and surmounting the
HIV/AIDS pandemic, but, as with Resistance Art of the 1980s, it can only be one part of a
78
larger political effort.3 The central question explored here is: what is the special capacity of
the visual arts that has succeeded in breaking the silence about HIV/AIDS? Through the
extensive arts initiatives in many media from billboards and posters to art exhibitions and
documentary photographs and films, the HIV/AIDS crisis has been made visible throughout
South Africa. However, the impact of this increased visibility is difficult to gauge.4
When the Paper Prayers campaign was launched in 1998, HIV was largely an invisible
disease. The decade of the 1990s was one of government inaction, denial, and poor delivery
that saw the numbers of infections and deaths increase uncontrollably, causing enormous
frustration and anger among activists, NGOs, heath professionals and civic society in
general. This thesis cannot provide more than the briefest summary of the history of the
HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa; extensive information can be found in the numerous
publications and websites on the topic.

3 Some authors who address the issue of arts and AIDS in South Africa are Allara and Martin (2003),
Schmahmann (2006, 2007), Wells et al. (2003), Arnold and Schmahmann (2005).
4 Some active visual arts projects implementing AIDS awareness include Arts for Humanity, Artists for Human
Rights, Siyazama, Voices of Women (See Durban XIII International AIDS Conference, 9-14 July 2000 cultural
programme, (KB Archives PPR Draw 2: File 14).
5 See for instance Kauffman, Kyle D. and David L. Lindauer, eds., (2004). (Relevant websites include:
http://www.avert.org/aidssouthafrica.htm; United Nations 2008 Report on the Global epidemic:
(http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/GlobalReport/2008/).
However, a skeletal outline of the devastating social
consequences of the disease is necessary in order to contextualize my discussion of the
denialism that Paper Prayers was designed to confront.

In her authoritative history of the pandemic, Virginia van der Vliet argues that:
AIDS is doing to ?Mbeki?s African Century? what the slave trade did to the
continent in centuries past. It is snatching away the young and able-bodied,
and it will take generations to recoup the losses. Faced with such a painful
reality, denial, or grasping at the prospect of some alternative explanation, is
understandable. However, both can lead to ?genocide by omission? (van der
Vliet 2004: 86).

The most rapid increase in South Africa?s HIV prevalence took place between 1993 and
2000, during which time the country was distracted by major political changes. While the
attention of the South African people and the world?s media was focused on the inspiring
political and social transformation occurring in the country, HIV was insidiously establishing
itself. Although the results of these political changes were favourable, the spread of the virus
was not given the attention that it deserved, and most people did not realise the extent of the
epidemic in South Africa until the prevalence rates had started to soar. It is likely that the
severity of the epidemic could have been lessened by prompt action at this time had
President Mandela given AIDS action and prevention a high priority.

79
However, to his credit, Mandela did establish the Inter-ministerial Committee on AIDS in
1997, which recognized that AIDS is not just a health problem, but one affecting all sectors of
society. Each ministry received funding to formulate AIDS programs that were specific to
their mandates. This was the arena that Paper Prayers (along with many other grass-roots
projects) entered through small funding grants designed to devise strategies to address
issues of prevention and awareness. Artist Proof Studio was awarded R350 000 to
implement a nationwide campaign using the visual arts. Paper Prayers has since become an
active outreach program of APS and operates as a self-supporting unit of the studio.6
Such public criticism only made the President more committed to his dissident position. In
April 2001 Mbeki said on television that he would not be prepared to take a public HIV test

Before South Africa?s second democratic election in June 1999, Nelson Mandela stepped
down, after which Thabo Mbeki was elected President. He appointed Dr Manto Tshabalala-
Msimang as Minister of Health. There was dismay in the community of AIDS activists in that
year, when President Mbeki?s ?internet research? revealed that the anti-retroviral drug, AZT
was toxic. Shortly thereafter, Tshabalala-Msimang announced her findings that AZT
weakened the immune system and could lead to ?disabling mutations in babies? (van der
Vliet 2004: 59). Early in 2000 Mbeki set up the Presidential International Panel of Scientists
on HIV/AIDS in Africa in order ?to establish the facts?. His sceptical questioning led him into
the camp of the so-called AIDS dissidents, who believe that HIV is simply a harmless
?passenger? virus, that AIDS is a ?lifestyle? disease precipitated by recreational drugs, and that
?the increased morbidity and mortality in Africa are simply the result of poverty aggravating
old disease patterns? (van der Vliet 2004: 59).

In his now-notorious speech at the HIV/AIDS 2000 conference in Durban, President Mbeki
declared that there was no connection between HIV and AIDS, as a virus could not cause a
syndrome. Instead, he adopted the dissidents? argument that the world?s biggest killer was
extreme poverty. In his response to Mbeki at the conference, the South African High Court
Judge Edwin Cameron received an ovation when he criticized the government?s ?grievous
ineptitude? in its handling of HIV/AIDS. Quoting Dr Mamphela Ramphele, he stated that
?giving official sanction to scepticism about the cause of AIDS was irresponsibility that
bordered on criminality.? When Nelson Mandela closed the conference, he urged the country:
?rise above our differences and combine our efforts to save our people. History will judge us
harshly if we fail to do so, and right now? (quoted in van der Vliet 2004: 61).

6 See APS website (http://www.artistproofstudio.org.za/artist%20proofstudio/outreach.html).
80
?because it would send a message that he supported a particular scientific viewpoint: ?I go
and do a test ? I am confirming a particular paradigm? ? (van der Vliet: 61). Ironically, he then
urged the nation to depoliticize AIDS.

After years of arguing that anti-retroviral treatments such as AZT and Neviropine were
unsafe, Mbeki finally announced at the opening of Parliament in April 2004 that the
government would begin distributing the drugs, and that the government?s delivery goal was
to have 53 000 people on treatment by March 2005. This signalled the beginning of hope;
?the beginning of saving the lives of nearly five million South Africans who risk death from
AIDS unless they have the option of proper care and treatment? (Cameron 2005: 155).
However, delaying tactics and lack of delivery continued, so that only a fraction of people
who need such drugs have gained access to them. Conflicting messages continued to
emanate from government throughout Mbeki?s term of office, particularly through the Health
Minister Tshabalala-Msimang, who up until her redeployment in September 2008 (following
the forced resignation of President Mbeki from his position), continued to support the
dissident scientists who insist that anti-retroviral drugs are poisonous, and advocate dietary
changes instead.7 Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke for many when he said, ?We are playing
with the lives of people, with the lives of mothers who would not have died if they had had
drugs. If people want garlic and potatoes let them have them, but let?s not play games. Stop
all this discussion about garlic.? 8

7 The theory of AIDS denialism gained such currency with President Mbeki that his administration was reluctant to
expand access to anti-retroviral drugs. Despite generous allocations from the country?s Treasury and substantial
assistance from foreign donors, only a quarter of those needing anti-retrovirals receive them. This response is
poor by the standards of middle-income countries, but it is especially troublesome in South Africa, which has the
highest rate of infection of any other country. [Tshabalala-Msimang, then the health minister, described anti-
retrovirals as poisons. She was supported in these views by Roberto Giraldo, a New York hospital technologist
who asserted that AIDS is caused by deficiencies in the diet, and who served on President Mbeki?s AIDS advisory
panel in 2000. The Minister promoted nutritional alternatives like lemons, garlic and olive oil to treat HIV infection.
Several prominent South Africans have died of AIDS after opting to change their diets instead of taking anti-
retrovirals. Another American AIDS denialist, David Rasnick, absurdly claims that HIV cannot be transmitted
between heterosexuals. Rasnick works in South Africa for a multinational vitamin company, the Rath Foundation,
conducting clinical trials in which AIDS patients are encouraged to take multivitamins instead of anti-retrovirals.
This discussion is expanded in a website http://www.aidstruth.org/ that further asserts that the denial of these
?facts is not just wrong ? it's deadly?.
8 Sunday Herald (18/6/2006), ?Apartheid might be over, but the struggle goes on? (http://www.sundayherald.com).
In September 2008 Mbeki stepped down from his office as
President of South Africa. Several Ministers resigned and others were moved into different
positions. Dr Barbara Hogan was appointed as the new Minister of Health. Her appointment
has been lauded by South African and international activists as offering new hope in the
struggle against AIDS. For the first time, South Africa has the possibility of sound leadership
on the issue of HIV and AIDS. Hogan?s vocal recognition of the depth and severity of the
HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa and commitment of Government to achieving the targets of
81
the National Strategic Plan was expressed unequivocally in her opening address of the HIV
Vaccine Research Conference in Cape Town on 13 October 2008.9
Denial is an understandable response to this disease, and is virtually an epidemic in itself. In
his 2005 book Witness to AIDS, Judge Edwin Cameron provides a moving account of how
the knowledge of one?s HIV-positive status can produce overwhelming feelings of fear, self-
blame and self-loathing.

During Mbeki?s administration NGOs like the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), instead of
focusing their energy on education, support, counselling and treatment, were focused on
fighting the government for funding and for leadership to ensure an integrated partnership
between government and civil society in addressing the pandemic. As a result of government
inaction, the social costs mounted along with the illnesses and deaths. The NGOs bore the
weight of an appropriate response in the treatment and care of South Africans. A 2005 article
in The Lancet pointed to several of the costs of stigma and shame:
Social stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, tacitly perpetuated by the
Government?s reluctance to bring the crisis into the open and face it head on,
prevents many from speaking out about the causes of illness and deaths of
loved ones and leads doctors to record uncontroversial diagnoses on death
certificates.... The South African Government needs to stop being defensive
and show backbone and courage to acknowledge and seriously tackle the
HIV/AIDS crisis of its people (The Lancet 2005).

9 Minister Hogan gave a landmark speech in her opening address to the International HIV Vaccine Research
Conference (13 October 2008) in which she lauded the Cape High Court for its recent judgment against notorious
quack AIDS denialist Matthias Rath. This marked an historic turning point in the South African government?s
response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. (See full speech: http://www.tac.org.za/community/node/2421).
10 Cameron, an internationally respected human rights lawyer and judge who was actively involved in AIDS policy
issues in the 1990s, was diagnosed HIV positive in 1986. Yet it took him almost 12 years to publicly disclose his
status. His courageous account of the agony of living in silence and shame provides a cautionary note to those
who glibly claim that it is the responsibility of everyone to test for HIV and disclose their status(See Cameron
2005). Liz McGregor, in Khabzela (2005), also investigates the issue of self-destructive feelings associated with
HIV/AIDS.
His story draws attention to how fear and stigma can conspire to
produce silence and perpetuate denial about this devastating pandemic:
To deny something is to refuse to admit its truth or existence. It is a defence
mechanism involving a refusal to acknowledge an intolerable truth or emotion.
This sort of ?denial? is common. It underlies many personal and political
responses to the AIDS epidemic. At a personal level, many people believe
themselves to be immune to infection. Once infected, they convince
themselves that they are exempt from passing on the virus. Or they convince
themselves that they will never fall ill (Cameron 2005: 131).

Even the highly-educated Cameron postponed taking medication until he fell severely ill in
1997. Cameron contrasts this form of denial with ?denialism? as a systematic form of
knowledge refutation that the AIDS dissidents espouse:
82
[Denialism] is an attack against objective truth. It involves the systematic
refusal, for preconceived reasons of doctrine, to accept the evidence that HIV
exists as a virally borne, sexually transmitted fact. It sets out systematically to
refute the existence of AIDS as an epidemic manifestation of a medically
treatable condition [and] uses dubious and evasive methods to distort,
conceal and evade the truth (Cameron 2005: 132).

Denialism takes enormous effort. Things must be seen to be normal when they are not. In
effect, people must live a lie. In consequence AIDS orphans are often not told why or how
their parents died. At funerals AIDS is almost never mentioned.11
The AIDS pandemic poses a huge, unprecedented challenge to the whole nation. As Alan
Whiteside and Clem Sunter argue in AIDS: The Challenge for South Africa (2000: ii), citizens
need to acknowledge that the call to action must be answered by everyone. Without a broad
sense of ownership of the problem, most solutions are doomed to fail. If people continue to
see HIV and AIDS as issues ?out there? that ?other people? have to deal with, then existing
support programmes will never be successful. I believe that artists and educators cannot be
complicit in the collective denial of the nation. The people?s struggle that overcame apartheid
has taught us that it is not structures but rather the people who must take on the big issues. It
is therefore possible that it is each one of us who can and must tackle the problem of
Cameron finds it
understandable that nations would seek to blank out an anguish that is too hideous to bear,
yet has proved too encompassing to ignore. In South Africa a challenge to the medical
science of AIDS that may have sought to defend the humanity and dignity of Africans led
instead to a tragic delay in concerted action during which many African lives have been lost
?amidst hideous individual suffering? (Cameron 2005: 212-213).

The conclusion to his book serves to articulate the rationale for the Paper Prayers program:
AIDS has pitched our continent into a vast agony of mourning ? And many of
us, too many, have reacted mutely. We have responded to the epidemic with
silence; and our doing so has rendered it and those who suffer under it
unspeakable.? Our grief is there. It is continent-wide, pandemic. But we
cannot allow our grief and our bereavement to inflict further loss upon us: the
loss of our full humanity, our capacity to feel and respond and support. We
must incorporate our grief into our everyday living, by turning it into energy for
living, by exerting ourselves as never before. Africa seeks healing. That
healing lies within the power of our own actions (Cameron 2005: 215).

Recognition of the role of the imagination, the insistence on positive imagery, on living not
dying, on reducing the stigma, on creating safe spaces for disclosure and support, on
normalizing the disease, on living with it positively and proactively: these were the principles
on which I founded Paper Prayers.

11 These generalizations are documented by Alex De Waal (2006).
83
HIV/AIDS. The deepest challenge is to change attitudes such as despair, powerlessness and
stigma, as well as carelessness and abuse around sexual behaviour. It is not only a problem
of lack of information and delivery on the part of the state. In the end, the challenge lies also
with individual citizens in society.

It became clear that it was dangerous to depend on government for the solution to
addressing the pandemic. In a small way the Paper Prayers campaign, alongside the
hundreds of other initiatives by citizens, exemplifies the ability of participants to contribute to
change in society. These small initiatives aim to tap into the talent, ingenuity, energy and
local knowledge that South African citizens have to offer. Projects like Paper Prayers, the
Siyazama Project,12 the Break the Silence advocacy billboards and other visual arts
strategies for addressing the impact of HIV are effective in that they do not function as
bureaucratic structures that co-ordinate and direct the work of others (Figure 4).13
The Paper Prayers Campaign has functioned on the belief in the force of creativity to
empower people. I argue that participation in the workshops and campaign built people?s
confidence and enabled them see themselves as part of the solution to the crisis. On the
other hand, I also argue that like other government-funded AIDS education initiatives, the
Paper Prayers campaign was not able to go far enough in confronting the epidemic. People
are dying by the hundreds each day, and while many women have earned a living and have
shared with their neighbours their knowledge about AIDS and the means of treating it, the
Rather,
they are facilitative and assist to unlock the capacity and resources for people to experience
themselves as agents of change. According to Marie Str?m, deep down, people often doubt
the capacity of citizens to be real agents of change, and prefer to put their faith in the
government and other specialized bodies (Str?m 2005: 2). To counter this belief, NGOs like
the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) are training local government officials
who are setting up AIDS Councils to think of themselves as ?organizers not bureaucrats,? to
conceive of citizens as co-creators of community solutions to the AIDS pandemic, and to see
democracy primarily as participative and not state-run. The IDASA workbook, ?Citizens at the
Centre? written by Marie Str?m, asks the crucial question: ?What is the appropriate response
of civil society?? Perhaps this is a key challenge to all South Africans. I contend that the arts
have the potential to respond in creative and imaginative ways that can act as ?catalysts for
unlocking citizen power? (Str?m 2005).

12 Siyazama Project ?Striving to make a positive difference? is a collaborative intervention with communication and
design education to transfer HIV/Aids awareness to rural women through workshops
(http://www.siyazamaproject.co.za).
13 See Art for Humanities Website http://www.afh.org.za/ and a description of the Break the Silence project:
(See: http://www.afh.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=108&Itemid=69).
84
campaign could not reasonably expect to eliminate denial and fear in communities. The first
phase of Paper Prayers was only a small step in reducing fear and denial, a small step that
can succeed only by joining the momentum of many other initiatives. This phase of the
campaign focused on providing emotional support and visibility, rather than offering
treatment or solutions. It remains one intervention among many that are needed to address
the pandemic. However, although these goals address only one aspect of the problem, I
argue that visual art processes are fundamental to the success of the intervention.

The Implementation of the Paper Prayers Campaign
The inspiration for the Paper Prayers Campaign came from a hand papermaking workshop
that I gave at the former Technikon Witwatersrand to a community outreach group of women
from Winterveld in the Northwest Province in 1997. Significantly, a conversation I had with
one of the woman in the group became the catalyst for proposing a nationwide campaign for
using handmade paper and printmaking for AIDS awareness.

As Roselina Molefe and I were standing at the sink washing paper screens, I asked her how
she was doing. She said something like; ?This papermaking thing, where you can make
something beautiful from rubbish, has given me life. My life was rubbish.? Molefe had been
chased out of her village because her husband had died of AIDS. Subsequently her house
was burnt down. Her two children had also died. Displaced and desperate, she had arrived in
Winterveld, known as a dumping ground for people dispossessed by the apartheid
government?s policies, where she was taken in by the Sisters of Mercy. She continued; ?and
now I make something from nothing and can earn money.? Roselina Molefe is still alive and
is one of the longest standing members of what later became the Phumani Paper program
(Figure 5).14
The idea that a creative activity can give hope and prospects for the future convinced me that
art can heal in tangible and intangible ways, and I turned to the concept of Paper Prayers,
which derives from the Japanese practice of making a small artwork as a gift for healing and
well-being for those who are ill. I first encountered this practice at the Howard Yezerski Art
Gallery in Boston in 1986, where artists contributed an anonymous artwork on a narrow strip
of paper, which was then exhibited and auctioned to raise money for an AIDS Hospice. The
Paper Prayers exhibition has become an annual event at the gallery, and is held each year
on 1 December, World AIDS Day. During 1987, while living and studying in Boston, I also

14 Roselina Molefe?s story constitutes one of the narratives in Chapter Seven.
85
went to Washington DC to see the monumental AIDS quilt, which was made from thousands
of small, individual memorial panels, each serving as a testament to someone who had died
of AIDS. Rarely have I felt as moved by a creative act as the one I witnessed with the
unveiling of the quilt across a mile of lawn in front of the United States capital building on the
Washington Mall.15 The memory of that event, over twenty years ago, has remained a
powerful inspiration for me. According to Julie Rhoad from the NAMES Project Foundation,
and the custodian of the AIDS Memorial Quilt: ?The power of the quilt is the ability to
transform statistics to souls, [so] that people can learn from and teach with it? (Rhoad 2006)
(Figure 6).16
The more immediate stimulus for the Paper Prayers Campaign was an exhibition in
Johannesburg. For World AIDS Day in 1997 the Johannesburg Art Gallery hosted an
exhibition of documentary photographs by Gideon Mendel entitled ?Positive Lives, Part l?
(Figure 7). The curator at the time approached me to conduct a workshop and to curate an
accompanying exhibition of Paper Prayers similar in format to the aforementioned Yezerski
Gallery?s annual event.

17 For the initial South African exhibition, the Artist Proof Studio
conducted at least five printmaking workshops on the subject of HIV/AIDS, each teaching a
different printmaking technique. Each workshop offered education by a trained health
counsellor. The handmade recycled paper was purchased from the Winterveld papermaking
group. When the resulting artworks were exhibited at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in
December 1997, people were invited to give a donation and take a Paper Prayer. Because
the Paper Prayers exhibition and concept were such a success, I was encouraged to write a
funding proposal to the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST) for a
national campaign (Figures 8a and b).18
The project?s concept was strongly influenced by the ideas underpinning art therapy. The
making of a paper prayer as an act of emotional healing as well as support for those who are
ill was understood as being fundamentally a therapeutic act. The premises of the Paper

.15 In 1997 when the quilt was displayed on the National Mall in Washington, it had 40 000 panels containing
70 000 names memorializing those who had died from AIDS (Figure 6). The AIDS Memorial quilt, founded in
1987, is exhibited annually on World AIDS Day, and remains a poignant memorial and symbol around the world.
This annual event inspired the model that Paper Prayers adopted (http://aidsquilt.org).
16 Julie Rhoad; World AIDS Day article in USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-12-01-world-
aids_x.htm).
17 Steven Sack, the curator at the time, was familiar with the Boston project, and was aware of my involvement
during the period when I was a graduate student and living in Boston for seven years, during the 1980s. He was
keen to establish a similar initiative involving artists in World Aids Day in South Africa.
18 DACST separated into two Ministries in 2001: Science and Technology (DST) and DAC (Arts and Culture).
Steven Sack instigated this project in his capacity as curator at JAG, and then was appointed as a Director in the
Ministry of Arts and Culture (DACST) in 1998.
86
Prayers program thus had strong parallels with, as well as contributions from, art therapy
professionals.

Hayley Berman, my sister and founder of the Art Therapy Centre in Johannesburg, participated
in the conceptualization of the role of Paper Prayers as a strategy for HIV awareness and
prevention. The Art Therapy Centre?s primary function is to support care givers, so that they are
able to deal with the loss and trauma that results from HIV/AIDS. Often these caregivers have no
opportunity to look after their own needs because of the urgent requirement to attend to the
suffering of the terminally ill and the surviving orphans. As the pandemic grows in South Africa,
the Paper Prayers participants, whether facilitators or the local group members, increasingly
have experienced tremendous loss, and so the Art Therapy Centre?s program has adapted to
permit everyone involved to express their own emotions of mourning or despair.

Art Therapy can offer much insight about transformation and healing. In the workbook
designed and contributed to by the range of collaborators in the founding committee of the
Paper Prayers Campaign for use in schools, we defined art therapy as follows:
Art therapy involves the use of different art materials through which a
child/adult can express and work through pertinent issues and concerns.
The art therapist is trained to pick up sensitive communication through the
process of image making. This process involves being a witness to,
reflecting on, and containing the anxiety and uncertainty of the child/adult
struggling with their deepest difficulties (Berman et al.1999: 14).19
As its very name implies, Paper Prayers was about promoting spiritual and emotional
healing. However, the original grant proposal contained a requirement to address
?sustainability? in the form of skills training for jobs. Thus, using craft to earn a living needed
to be linked to the use of art as a means for healing the broken self. Although this

The art therapist must facilitate the visual expression of profound emotions. As Kalmanowitz
and Lloyd, the authors of Art Therapy and Political Violence, suggest, the heart of the art
therapy process lies in the ability of an individual to symbolize, imagine, and be in touch with
a wide range of emotions and coping strategies (Kalmanowitz and Lloyd 2005: 22). They
consider the physical process of art-making, the ?doing,? to be central. The making of an
image allows, among other things, for catharsis, expression and exploration. According to the
authors, art making ?connects with a further key element of coping and resilience, namely an
active problem-solving approach to difficulties and stress? (Kalmanowitz and Lloyd 2005: 23).

19 The Founding Committee of the Paper Prayers Campaign included: Peter Busse (National Association of
People living with HIV/AIDS ? NAPWA; Simon Nkoli (Township AIDS Project); Jenny Marcus and Bart Cox
(Friends for Life and Community AIDS Response ? CARE); Herman van der Watt (AIDSLINK); Carol Hofmeyr
(APS Paper Prayers Coordinator); and myself as convenor. Hayley Berman (from what later became the Art
Therapy Centre) was an advisor, and a contributor to the Workbook.
87
requirement conflicted with the tenets of art therapy, the Paper Prayers campaign recognized
that the foremost challenge for poor South Africans is income generation. And so the
program attempted to bridge this divide with the use of art for awareness and healing
coupled with training in the skills of craft production for income generation. To implement this
requirement Artist Proof Studio, with the allocated funds, set up five papermaking projects
that could make paper in a wiz-mixer from recycled waste paper. These projects would in
turn provide the Paper Prayers campaign with handmade paper for printing. Thousands of
handmade paper sheets were made and purchased for each region for the national
campaign in 1998. Making a printed artwork on paper that was handmade from recycled
materials increased the value and beauty of the Paper Prayer, as well as being
environmentally friendly and supporting job creation. The jobs that were created, however,
would later require a significant injection of further funding and development to establish
Phumani Paper.20
After the funding of R350 000 was allocated to APS, an organizing committee was set up
that included AIDS activists and counsellors from a range of organizations.

Some women?s collectives were taught textile printing, batik and embroidery, while at
community art centres the training team focused on new techniques of printmaking with
found and recycled materials. In this way the national Paper Prayers campaign of 1998 used
the art of printmaking and craft with the ambitious aim of reaching at least a thousand people
with an HIV/AIDS message, and providing training in a skill that had the potential to generate
an income.

The campaign was also seen as a means to tap into the talents and energies of the
members of APS, as the artists would be empowered to teach basic printing skills to others
using found or available materials. In general, income-generating opportunities for artists are
minimal, and the opportunity for APS artists to acquire skills to be able to teach people in
their communities art-making has provided many APS graduates with work experience and a
modest income.

20 Four of the original five groups that were set up (Winterveld, Tandanani, Bosele and Kopenang) were involved
in their subsequent establishment as Phumani Paper groups and are still functional ten years later. This is
discussed in Chapter Four.
21 The campaign further appointed regional Coordinators ? KwaZulu-Natal: BAT Centre, Western Cape: Hard
Ground Printmakers, North West: Groot Marico Tourism, Northern Cape: Moffat Mission, Free State: Free State
University, and Eastern Cape: Rhodes University. Carol Hofmeyr coordinated the provinces of Mpumalanga
(Karos Weavers and Tinswalo Hospital, Bushbuck Ridge), Limpopo Province (Jane Furse and Giyani projects),
and Gauteng (AIDSLINK and APS projects).
The funding
was awarded for a nine-month program that would reach all nine provinces. Thus APS
88
allocated R20 000 to the participating partners in each province to conduct workshops with
artists and/or members of local communities. A key objective was to be as inclusive and
broad-based as possible. In total APS conducted over twenty different workshops for the
1998 World AIDS Day exhibitions, for disparate groups that included clergy from different
religious denominations, teachers, health workers, artists, street children, school children, art
therapy trainees, NGOs, Counsellors, NAPWA groups, and artists. In addition, the Paper
Prayers Coordinator, Carol Hofmeyr, Bart Cox, the HIV Counsellor, and I, together with a
trainee teacher at APS, Stompie Selibe, travelled to many of the identified venues across the
country and offered participants and future facilitators Paper Prayers workshops (See
Figures 9a-g: The Campaign).

The organizing committee identified particular sectors that we wanted to reach, and used
existing contacts to invite appropriate representatives to participate. For example, through
one of our funding partners, Johnson and Johnson International, we made contact with the
AIDS unit at Baragwanath Hospital in 1998, and a workshop was organized for all the health
workers and nurses to provide them with support and an emotional outlet for their stress.
Another partner on the organizing committee was a representative of AIDSLINK and the
Esselen Street clinic in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. The craft group initiated at the time,
Tandanani, has since been incorporated as an in-house production unit for Phumani Paper,
and operates from the University of Johannesburg?s Doornfontein campus.22
The pleasure in overcoming the initial fear of ?I cannot draw, so I cannot do this? is key to
harnessing positive creative energy. The techniques the facilitators use are simple and

Thousands of paper prayers were made. Every workshop began with an interactive AIDS
awareness workshop with a trained counsellor and included role-playing, drawing, quizzes
and awareness sessions. Each artwork responded to the challenge of: ?What can I do as an
individual?? Examples included giving a gift of caring, offering the work to exhibit in order to
raise money to assist another person, creating awareness through discussion with
neighbours, or holding a workshop in a school. The campaign?s ideal outcome was to have
each person leave feeling that they had been empowered to make a difference. Participants
left the workshop with at least one image to keep for themselves, and one to give as a gift. At
least two prints were retained by the campaign to display in World AIDS Day exhibitions
(Figure 10).

22 Paper Prayers helped to initiate in 1998 the AIDSLINK crafters workshop called Tandanani. It comprises a
group of HIV-positive women who are contracted by Phumani Paper. Two of the original members (Selinah Pule
and Gertrude Mngadi) are still alive and working (See Chapter Four, Figure 17).
89
accessible. Found objects such as leaves and textured items are rolled up in coloured ink,
placed on a small perspex plate and printed, either using an etching press or by hand
rubbing. The impression of the leaf or object transferred onto the paper produces results that
are surprising and magical. The feelings of pride and delight in being able to achieve a
beautiful image are empowering for participants (Figures 11 and 12). To quote one of the
facilitators:
Printmaking is a fairly simple activity lending itself to the exploration of a wide
range of materials and techniques. This means anyone can be part of the
paper prayer activity ? like everyone can be part of the solution to changing
negative attitudes towards HIV/AIDS (K Reyes, Wits Teacher Training
workshop, August 2008).23
Building on the success of the first round of Paper Prayers, the workshops were introduced
into rural embroidery or sewing groups in remote villages in Mpumalanga (Bushbuck Ridge
and Tzaneen), and Limpopo (Giyani) and the North West Province (Winterveld).

24
The Mapula Embroidery Project has provided employment to women who
were born into poverty-stricken households, deprived of access to a proper
All of
these projects had originally been formed as a means of income generation through craft,
and Paper Prayers were introduced to expand the scope of the groups. In the rural
embroidery projects we worked with, (for example the Karos, Chivurika, Bushbuck Ridge and
Mapula projects), the introduction of HIV Awareness workshops in 1998 was, in most
instances, the first opportunity the women had for an open forum that permitted discussion
about the disease. In every rural community we approached, we found a reluctance to
acknowledge the impact of HIV/AIDS. Nevertheless, the Paper Prayers Campaign required
the women to respond to the information provided by the workshops with visual imagery and
metaphor, that is, to process their knowledge emotionally (Figures 13a-e).

Art historian Brenda Schmahmann has chronicled the history of one of the collectives, the
Mapula project, and has documented how the Paper Prayers Campaign influenced the
change of subject matter of the decorative embroideries:

23 Additional student journal entries, interviews and comments are available in KB Archives (PPR Draw 2: File 2b).
24 The nature of Winterveld is a direct result of apartheid. Due to the Group Areas Act, the townships surrounding
Pretoria, like Mabopane, became overcrowded. Many victims of forced removals were therefore dumped in the
Winterveld. In the post-apartheid era, people in the Winterveld continue to suffer the long-term effects of
deprivation and disadvantage. Estimates suggest that over 80% of residents are unemployed, although many of
them are engaged in a range of informal economic activities (Schmahmann 2007: 15). Poverty in Winterveld is an
ongoing problem. Initiating development projects has been complex as there is no history of co-operative working
and no cohesion in the community, as people are from a variety of ethnic origins. The Sisters of Mercy set up an
Adult Education Centre in the late 1980s. The former Technikon Witwatersrand initiated an outreach project with
the Sisters of Mercy in 1996, through an existing contact, Sister Sheila Flynn ,who was a 4th-year Fine Art student.
Teacher training and art and craft workshops for adult learners were initiated. A grant was then awarded from
Metropolitan Life to set up a papermaking project to create income opportunities for fifteen women in the centre.
Paper Prayers used the opportunity to work with the Mapula embroidery group to participate in the Paper Prayers
Campaign.
90
education, restricted by apartheid laws that limited their mobility and job
opportunities, and made subject to gender iniquities that denied them the
freedom to control and manage their own lives. It has furthermore provided
members with opportunities to speak of issues that they would not necessarily
articulate in everyday discourse, and through the awards and accolades it has
won, has acknowledged the creative capacities of its members (Schmahmann
2006: 117).

In her discussion of the attitudes she found there, Schmahmann quotes historian Catherine
Albertyn?s general observation that ?underlying disavowal is fear.? Women in impoverished
communities such as Winterveld are often constrained by patriarchal social and cultural
norms that limit their capacity to protect themselves against HIV infection. As a result,
according to Albertyn, women in South Africa are continually making trade-offs between HIV
risk and their social status, as derived from cultural norms and beliefs. Such norms not only
prevent women from having the capacity to refuse sex with their partners or insist on condom
use, but also foster an acceptance of male infidelity as an appropriate signifier of masculinity
and place value on a female?s procreative capacity as a sign of ?womanliness? (Schmahmann
2006: 83).

Schmahmann notes that the introduction of AIDS as subject matter in the embroideries
produced after the Paper Prayers workshops could have resulted from ?a need to break the
silence that normally accompanies topics considered shameful.? In her interview with Emily
Maluluke, she notes that the embroidery provided women with a mechanism to articulate
issues of concern that they would not normally feel able to express. Depicting AIDS and the
abuse of women or children ? a topic that also sometimes features in Mapula embroideries ?
could therefore serve a therapeutic function (Schmahmann 2006: 84). For example, in
Maluluke?s embroidery, ?Prevent AIDS: Use a Condom? (1999), (See Figure 14), the
message and the motifs of the manner in which HIV can be spread ? including the use of
needles ? are most likely derived from brochures dispensed by the counsellor, but the
predominant motifs of care and treatment suggest that she recognizes that hope is possible if
the community works together (Schmahmann 2006: 85).
This strategy of using women?s handiwork as a vehicle to tell their stories through their
creative expression can be seen as a growing ?methodology? in South Africa.25

25 A second example, Create Africa South (CAS) ?commits itself to exploring and expressing the relationship
between society and creativity.? It is an NGO that was established in 2000 and collects narratives by women in
KwaZulu-Natal (CAS 2007 online). Founded by Andries Botha, an artist and activist from KwaZulu-Natal, CAS
initiated a project called Amazwi Abesifazane ? Voices of Women ? which is ?a memory retrieval and archival
project,? that ?deals with the memories of the women of South Africa.? As of 2004, the archive contained nearly
2 000 cloths. While this is not specifically an AIDS intervention, it is a powerful testimony to using the creative
process for women who have been silenced (http://www.cas.org.za/projects/voices.htm).
According to
Pamela Allara, ?South African needlework thus provides a case study of cultural production
91
for social transformation. It is a true communal effort by representatives from the separate
groups within the culture, threaded together to alleviate poverty? (Allara 2003: 11). For
example, Paper Prayers itself has spawned independent programs such as Kopenang
(2000), a women?s embroidery collective that houses an AIDS orphanage,26 Keiskamma
Trust (2002) a remarkable initiative founded in the Eastern Cape by Carol Hofmeyr,27 and
Ikageng (2003), a collective of women in Johannesburg who received training from a Paper
Prayers skills program and who successfully make and sell felt toys (Figure 15).28
Anecdotal evidence from the campaign suggests that Paper Prayers workshops resulted in a
significant change in attitudes both for individuals and their communities. For example,
during a workshop held in the TshiTsonga village, Mphambo, in the area of Giyani in
Limpopo Province in 1998, the women requested that the young men present leave the
room, as it was improper to discuss sex in the company of men. The women were then able
to speak freely and asked questions that revealed the prevalence of the myths surrounding
what was referred to as ?slims disease.? Some of the questions included ?Can you get AIDS
from bathing in the same water, from toilet seats and from hugging?? Women also asked
what they can do if they are aware that the man has multiple sex partners in the city and yet
refuses to use a condom.

29
Today, some of these women are AIDS activists and home-based caregivers. For example,
the Mphambo AIDS project was established in 2001 as an offshoot from Chivurika
embroidery in Giyani. Some of the members of the group had been volunteering in home-
How could they protect themselves? How could they organize
other women to be aware of the problem and to support each other? One woman shared a
story of being beaten up by her husband for asking about condom use. To counter these
fears, the HIV facilitator engaged the group in role-playing, and humour, laughter, singing
and fun became key strategies for participation. The trainer demonstrated the use of male
and female condoms amid great amusement, and offered examples of women blowing a
whistle to gather a group of supporters when threatened with violence. At the end of the
workshop the women requested Paper Prayers T-shirts and started wearing the red ribbons
to identify themselves as members of the group who have the knowledge to help and support
others (Figure 16).

26This was started by Sister Sheila Flynn, contracted as a coordinator for Phumani Paper from 2000-2005. See
Kopenang Women?s Project website (http://www.kopanang.org/aboutus.html).
27 Carol Hofmeyr was the coordinator of the Paper Prayers Campaign in 1998/99; see Keiskamma Trust website
(http://www.keiskamma.org).
28 Ikageng is an outreach project of Artist Proof Studio:
(http://www.artistproofstudio.org.za/artist%20proofstudio/outreach.html).
29 This is a common practice of migrant workers from the villages in South Africa that results from past apartheid
policies.
92
based care, and wished to expand their skills. With the proceeds from a Boston-based
auction of their embroidery work, they sent six other members of the group to receive training
in home-based care from the Red Cross. Today, ten women from Mphambo Village receive a
small grant annually to distribute food parcels, to care for the sick, to assist the orphans of
the village, and to receive support and training from the local clinic.30
The project in the very remote region of the Northern Cape, with few resources and little
access to support, revived an old printing press in the small Karoo town of Kuruman. The
project was coordinated by Rowan Higgins. The Kuruman Mission had been established in
1816 at Maruping, where the Batswana group lived. Robert Moffat, a missionary in Kuruman,
was responsible for translating and hand-printing the very first Bible in an African language,
Setswana.
They identify
themselves as having the creativity, skills and sense of self to make a difference, and in turn
their efforts have had a positive impact on their entire village.

Five of these embroidery collectives that received support from the Paper Prayers campaign
in 1998 are still active, ten years later. The National Paper Prayers HIV/AIDS Awareness
Campaign varied according to province. Each region had its own particular emphasis: for
example, the Western Cape coordinator, Jonathan Comerford of Hard Ground Press, chose
to invite twelve established artists to participate in a limited-edition portfolio that travelled to
school libraries, and that included commentary about the artists? images as well as HIV
education materials. The portfolios were for sale and raised money to support a local AIDS
Hospice. The Durban Campaign was housed in the BAT Centre, a community arts
organization which offered workshops and opportunities for local artists to obtain exposure at
the Centre?s newly-established printmaking facility. As Durban was hosting the World AIDS
conference, the Paper Prayers organizing Committee in Durban used the opportunity to
create significant local publicity. Initiatives such as Artists for Human Rights, Create Africa
South, and Siyazama were projects that became active over the following years, making the
region one of the most active and visible in using the visual arts to create awareness about
the pandemic.

30 The South Africa Development Fund provides an annual grant, see a report of SADF grantees KB Archives
(APS Draw1: File 7).
31 The Moffat Mission has been written about by John and Jean Comaroff (1997).
The available funding for Paper Prayers was used to hire a technician to repair
the original letterpress. We drove across country with a team of artists from APS and
conducted workshops with local crafts people. The result was a three-day print marathon,
during which we printed a thousand paper prayers in the eleven indigenous languages to
create messages of hope, care, and protection. We used the original block letters to make
93
prints on handmade paper that were subsequently circulated to each region for inclusion in
their exhibitions. This press is still being used by the local community.

A different expression of the National Campaign emerged from the North West Province.
New alliances were fostered between Afrikaners in Groot Marico, a conservative and the
villagers in nearby Lehurutse. For the first time (according to locals that participated) the
white and black communities came together to participate in finding common ground through
music and art in a festival and concert organized by Jolene Geldenhuys, Louis Muir and
Santa Van Bart.32
With no established cultural centres, the Mpumalanga and Limpopo Province Paper prayers
activities were linked to embroidery collectives or to rural health facilities such as Tinswalo
Hospital and Jane Furse hospital in Mpumalanga, and Elim Hospital in Limpopo. As
described above, Paper Prayers workshops influenced the future direction of the local craft
and embroidery collectives by encouraging them to narrate stories and create educational
messages (Figures 17 and 18).
In 1998 the local Mmbana Art Centre initiated papermaking to supply the
campaign, which was coordinated by Louis Muir, a ceramics teacher at the Centre. This
project became known as the Bosele Papermaking group, and is a thriving Phumani
enterprise today. The group leader, Jacobeth Lepedi, was awarded a community builder of
the year award from the local North West government in 2006, and the group as a whole has
gone on to win additional awards for its contribution the community. Bosele has been self-
sustaining for the past decade.

The Eastern Cape Paper Prayers campaign was a collaboration between the historically
white Rhodes University printmaking department, managed by Dominic Thorburn, and the
community-based Dakawa Art Centre, coordinated by Samkele Buno. This proved to be a
very productive alliance of workshops and exhibitions and subsequently led to numerous
joint projects at the annual National Arts Festival, Grahamstown.

33
The Gauteng regional campaign was housed at APS, and aside from coordinating the
national program, gave numerous workshops, etched memorial plaques of names for a
memorial wall, held Paper Prayers exhibitions, and staged a festival for street children, with

32 Santa Van Bart manages the Groot Marico Information Centre (http://www.grootmarico.co.za/) and relates the
anecdote of Stompie Selibe teaching the local Afrikaans women to play African percussion instruments. She
recalls that moment of Stompie holding one Afrikaans tannie (aunty) by the waist, to demonstrate Africa rhythm as
being ?transformative?.
33 For example the introduction of HIV content in existing embroidery collectives such as Mapula, Chivurika, Karos
Weavers, Bushbuck Ridge Collective and others.
94
drumming and percussion workshops and AIDS awareness activities. In August 1998 the
Deputy Minister Brigitte Mabandla (up until September 2008, the Minister of Justice) came to
APS to launch the campaign amid media coverage.34 In her speech the Minister
acknowledged the project?s contribution in ?uniting people in the fight against HIV/AIDS and
its allies ? intolerance and fear.? She saluted the National Campaign?s aim to ?find a more
interactive and creative way of dealing with the AIDS issue.? Mabandla concluded by
referring to one of the messages expressed by a participant that, ?The Prayers express our
hope for both a medical and a social cure for the disease that is eating away the fabric of our
society? (Mabandla 1998) (See Figure 19).35
On World AIDS Day, 1 December 1998, Paper Prayers exhibitions were launched across the
country in schools, cultural centres, libraries, and churches. The Mayor of Johannesburg
unveiled the AIDS Memorial Wall outside APS that same day. The building of the wall was
sponsored in part by NAPWA, the AIDS Consortium, Friends for Life, DACST and APS.
Etched brass plates, each bearing the name of a loved one, were affixed to the curved,
concrete structure. The wall was built with the idea of arms that were stretched out to
embrace the garden of remembrance. The idea of the wall came from the Vietnam and
Holocaust memorial walls, and was conceived as a tribute to honour those who have died
(Figure 20). An HIV-positive homeless man from Bushbuck Ridge known as Chris, who slept
in an abandoned building nearby, earned R50 per week for tending the memorial garden and
polishing the plaques. He died a few years later from a drug-related stabbing. About 60 brass
plaques had names engraved or etched and were permanently attached to the wall. The idea
was that each year more names would be written and the side walls extended to
accommodate growing numbers, in a manner similar to the Washington AIDS Memorial
quilt.

36
On 9 October 1998, shortly after the Paper Prayers Campaign received funding from
government, President Mbeki addressed the nation and called for all segments of society to
pledge themselves to the Partnership Against AIDS. Various sectors (business and labour,
youth and women, churches and faith communities, sport and entertainment) immediately
stepped forward to articulate their commitment. Since then events such as World AIDS Day

34 See the photograph printed in The Star 2 December 1998: Remembering at the Paper Prayer Memorial wall,
and Minister Mabandla at APS (Figure 19).
35 Mabandla Speech 1998 KB Archives (PPR Draw 2: File 14).
36 Unfortunately a lack of continued funding for the campaign prevented this from being realized and the wall has
since been pulled down (2007) in the space earmarked for new development outside the Artist Proof Studio?s
former location. To my knowledge there is not another monument in South Africa that serves as a public tribute
for those who have died from AIDS.

95
(1 December),16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women (25 November to 10
December), National Women?s Day (9 August) and Condom Week (12 to 18 February)
became focal points for awareness activities. I remember at the time feeling an enormous
surge of encouragement from Mbeki?s speech, as I assumed that if there were indeed a joint
partnership between civil society and government, it would be possible to reach people with
a message of hope and action, and together the sectors could begin to turn the tide.

APS and the co-ordinating committee?s experience with implementing the Paper Prayers
campaign, which included networking with cultural centres around the country, was an
experience that expressed optimism and hope, and the response by all of the communities
we reached was overwhelming in its vibrancy and energy. The facilitators were often
appalled at the lack of access to basic knowledge about HIV and AIDS, especially in the rural
communities, where in some cases this was the very first exposure to an AIDS-education
intervention. However, the participants felt, and wanted to believe, that finally government
was supporting grass-roots initiatives engaged in addressing the pandemic through
partnerships. All of the branches of the campaign were encouraged to submit funding
proposals to their local governments in each province to take this campaign into schools for
the following years. The pilot year of 1998 yielded such positive results that each group was
energized by the prospects of implementing the program on a larger scale. However, this
was not to be. The Paper Prayers teams? hopes were dashed when the Ministry of Arts and
Culture announced that there was no longer funding earmarked for AIDS programming in the
government ministries. An official in the Arts and Culture Ministry told me in conversation:
?We have met our commitment in the partnership against AIDS.?

The commissioning of AIDS Pledge Cloths for each government ministry is a further telling
example of government?s lack of commitment to the battle against the disease. In 2000 the
Inter-ministerial Committee on AIDS awarded APS a grant of R60 000 to commission 36
Pledge cloths. The idea was that each government Ministry would write a pledge stating its
commitment to the Partnership Against AIDS. The coordinator, Nico Knigge, wanted a visible
expression of each department?s pledge, and so APS commissioned artists to design cloths
reflecting the initiatives of each ministry. Ten senior artists from APS and University of
Johannesburg students were chosen to participate in this commission and were given
approximately three pledges from different ministries and asked to collect images and
symbols to link to themes. The students researched and contributed to the designs of the
cloths, and received R500 per drawing. The drawn cloths were then sent to five of the Paper
Prayers embroidery collectives around the country. About fifty women were paid for each
beaded, embroidered and embellished cloth (Figure 21). The 36 cloths, each emblazoned
96
with the pledges by government, were completed in time to participate in a scheduled
exhibition at the Museum Africa. However, the Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang,
perhaps recognizing that none of the ministries had honoured their pledges, cancelled the
exhibition. The cloths were delivered to the committee assigned to frame them for display in
the foyer of each ministry, but very few of these magnificent cloths are exhibited today. Their
very invisibility is a telling instance of denial.

With the termination of government funding in 1999 APS had to devise ways of maintaining
the Paper Prayers program?s momentum. The two most important initiatives were the
National Paper Prayers exhibit in Durban and the publication of a teachers? workbook
(Berman et al. 1999). At the Xlll World AIDS Conference in Durban, July 2000, the National
Paper Prayers exhibit was held at the Bartel Arts Trust (BAT) Centre on the waterfront. It was
officially opened by the Minister of DACST, Ben Ngubane, and included workshops in
papermaking, printmaking, embroidery, quilting and Paper Prayers that were conducted by
the various local arts organizations. As the international world was focused on the South
African position on HIV and AIDS, the campaign?s exhibition received significant exposure
(Figures 22 and 23). This led to a number of positive outcomes, such as sales, commissions,
and invitations for international exhibitions, as described below.

In conjunction with the National Exhibition, the Paper Prayers organizing committee
published a workbook that was designed as a tool for teachers to introduce the campaign
into schools (Berman et al. 1999). It provided instructions for Paper Prayers workshops,
suggested exercises for the classroom, and included descriptions of a number of printmaking
methods with found and accessible materials from a manual I had written in the late 1980s
(Berman 1990). The workbook included input from all Paper Prayers? partner organizations
such as CARE, AIDSLINK, NAPWA, APS, and the Art Therapy Centre (Figure 24).

Each section was clear and concise, and listed major points. For instance, the workshop was
introduced with the following question: ?How does your participation in this workshop help
HIV and AIDS Awareness?? The manual then provides a number of opportunities and
objectives of the process such as:
You empower yourself by learning a new skill; you use your own creativity to express
awareness of HIV/AIDS; you make an artwork that will be used to promote
awareness to others; the sale of your Paper Prayer will generate funds to support
AIDS organizations and destitute people living with HIV/AIDS; participating in the
process counters prejudices and provides hope; your participation contributes to
healing and transformation? (Berman et al. 1999: 17).

97
To implement the proposed educational plan, I requested that the corporations MTN and
Bristol Meyers Squibb fund an intervention into 100 schools during 1999/2000, with the idea
that this number would grow each year. Corporate partnerships were encouraged between
business, government and civil society as part of the government?s short-lived Partnership
Against AIDS.

Further, the Gauteng Department of Education agreed to include Paper Prayers in the draft
curriculum for Gauteng Grade 7 learners. The concept was that the program could be
implemented by contracting artists to work in schools together with the local health
counsellor and educators, thereby introducing both AIDS awareness and an art activity to
learners, where there were no art teachers. The idea was that each school would exhibit
Paper Prayers on or close to World AIDS Day (towards the end of the school year) and sell
them to parents to raise funds for an AIDS project in their community. Ultimately, however,
the corporations did not fund the ?100 schools? project proposal, and this Paper Prayers
initiative came to a halt, as APS did not have the financial or personnel resources to pursue
this vision without funding.37
The networks that APS and the Paper Prayers National co-ordinating committee established
with the Campaign to address the AIDS pandemic included not only regional partners but
international ones too. The international partnerships were able to compensate in part for the
intermittent and inadequate government and corporate funding that occurred after 1999.
Examples include auctions held at the Howard Yezerski Gallery in Boston (1999), and a
display at the United Nations during an international meeting on AIDS (2001). Another
opportunity arose through visiting art historian from Germany Dr Irene Below, and an artist
from the South African German Cultural society Liz Crossley, who together secured funding
from the German government?s Ministry for Women to bring an exhibition of Paper Prayers to
the Women?s Museum in Bonn in 2000.

38 A solo exhibition of my own work was included.
The high profile exhibitions included discussions and fundraisers, and published a catalogue
in German and English (Figures 25a-c).39

37 As recent curriculum revisions in the educational system have provided an opening for the Paper Prayers
workshops, APS has since found ways to revise and re-print the workbook: the Ford Foundation has funded the
Cultural Action program discussed in Chapter Six, and Paper Prayers has reintroduced workshops in schools.
The workbook has been modified into a training manual (unpublished) with specific worksheets for schools. See
KB Archives (PPR Draw 2: Files 11,12).
38 See Catalogue (Frauen Museum ed. Below 2000), Frauen Museum, Krausfeld, Bonn funding from Ministerin fur
Frauen, Jugen, Familie und Gesundheit des Landes NRW, (KB Archives PPR Draw 2: File 2).
39 Frauen Museum, Bonn 2000. Paper Prayers/Papergebete. Kim Berman, Landscapes of the Truth Commission.
Essays by Dr Irene Below, Kim Berman, Gcina Mhlophe, Joyce Sithole, Ruth Weiss and others. See catalogue in
KB Archives (PPR Draw 2: File 7).
This opportunity generated further significant
support, which included a Paper Prayers educational program in German schools. Funds
98
were raised from exhibitions of Paper Prayers held in at least ten schools, and in 2002
German volunteers arrived in South Africa to deliver a donation that purchased bicycles for
the care workers from the Tumelong Hospice in Winterveld. The making of this initial
donation has developed into a relationship that has been an ongoing resource for the AIDS
volunteers in Winterveld (Figure 26).

The Paper Prayers Campaign generated many beautiful quilts and narrative cloths that were
exhibited at AIDS Conferences and events internationally, as well as at venues such as
museums and the United Nations (Figures 27 and 28). The United Nations exhibition, at
which most of the quilts were sold, was organized by a long-time colleague from World
Education, Gill Garb, in 2002. On World AIDS Day 2001, the Howard Yerzerski Gallery held
an exhibition of the South African branch of Paper Prayers. Over US$15 000 was raised from
the sale and auction of the embroideries. As the women had already been paid for the cost of
the cloths, the idea was that the funds would benefit an AIDS program in each of the
communities in which the collectives operated. For example, the Chivurika collective in
Giyani used their funds to support their members to receive home-based care training from
the Red Cross. The Mapula group from Winterveld had pledged to give money raised from
their sale to the Tumelong Hospice servicing their community.40
In 2002/3 the Canada Fund awarded a small grant to Paper Prayers to develop embroidered
products that could be more saleable than the ?AIDS lappies? (small cloths) with their
sometimes gloomy AIDS messages, and that would generate a more consistent income for
the embroidery collectives. APS was able to contract a graduate student from the Technikon
Witwatersrand, Shannin Antonopolou, to conduct drawing workshops with the embroidery
collectives. New designs were developed and products made for sale at the UBUNTU craft
fair at World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. The products included bags,
upholstered chairs, cushion covers, and lampshades. The opportunity to exhibit at the fair
provided valuable information about the range of products which had a potential market and
that could enhance the income of the collectives (Figures 29 and 30).
The Bushbuck Ridge
collective received training and start-up kits for poultry farming, to enhance the feeding plans
for orphans. And the Johannesburg inner city group through the Creative Inner City Initiative
(CICI) supported a group of HIV-positive women to receive skills training at CARE, a support
group for HIV-positive women in Yeoville, Johannesburg.

40 Conflict was caused by some of the members of the group wanting to keep the money for themselves. The
Paper Prayers coordinator at the time, Margaret Epstein, went to Winterveld with Stompie Selibe who used a
musical workshop to address the conflict and discuss the initial agreement. It turned out that there was a split in
the leadership after one member died and the group had divided into two factions. The matter was resolved with
one splinter group agreeing to participate fully in the handover of the grant to Tumelong Hospice.
99

After the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Shannin Antonopolou accepted the
position of coordinator for the Paper Prayers outreach program at APS. Working with a
trainer from the Craft Council of South Africa, Frieda Le Grange, Antonopolou designed a
Paper Prayers skills training course for a poverty alleviation project at the CICI for
unemployed women in the inner city. The women were drawn from CARE in Hillbrow and
other HIV-positive support groups. Their na?ve drawings of animals were transformed into
three-dimensional felt toys. This new group was so successful in their sales that they
continued meeting to fill orders, even after the training had ended. APS subsequently offered
to house them temporarily in one of its classrooms. They called themselves the Ikageng
Group, and continue to meet weekly, still operating out of the same classroom space. The
project currently supports not only its nine project members, but extends its outreach to up to
30 women through its sales (Figure 31).

The CICI training was so successful that it subsequently received funding support to develop
an accredited skills program and learnership funded by the MAPPP SETA and the
Department of Labour to train people for job creation. APS enrolled twenty new learners
each year from 2005-2007 to learn product development, textile printing, embroidery and
sewing skills. Of the original group, six of the women have been trained as facilitators, and
are contracted as trainers for new learners. (Funding for 2008 was suspended due to the
financial collapse of the MAPPP SETA).41
In order to keep alive the spark of art as activism, APS conducts at least one Paper Prayers
AIDS Awareness workshop per year for every class as part of its required program of study.
Apart from increasing awareness, the workshops help to recruit volunteers in the APS
outreach program, which supports the design and production of crafts in the Ikageng and
other Paper Prayers outreach projects. In addition, the Paper Prayers workshop has
developed into an experiential workplace learning placement for APS third-year learners. For
example, in 2006 the Paper Prayers unit at APS organized a one-week workshop for
teenagers heading AIDS-orphan households. Strong bonds were formed between the
teenagers and the young artists, who assumed a ?big brother/sister? mentoring role. The aim
was both to provide support for the teenagers through providing positive role models, and for

41 The MAPPP-SETA (Media and Publishing Print and Paper-Sector Training Authority) houses a chamber for
skills and learnerships in the crafts. Paper Prayers, APS and Phumani Paper have all developed learning
programs for accredited training. SETA subsidies received from the Department of Labour became the primary
source of income for many craft training providers. When SETA funding closed at the end of 2007 due to
corruption in its management, many craft NGO?s collapsed as almost no funding was available from the SETA for
training in 2008.
100
the youth at APS to receive a very difficult message about the consequences of AIDS. The
message conveyed in these ongoing workshops is for young people to find creative ways to
be accountable to themselves and each other ? and, specifically, to keep safe and to get
tested. The pilot project with teens proved to be a highly successful model that achieves a
social service outcome as well as a deep personal learning experience that can be life-
changing for the participants (Figures 32a and b).

Initiated with funding from the Ackerman Foundation in 2006, this pilot project is poised to
expand. Funding proposals have been submitted to a range of corporate social investment
programmes. The plan is to eventually place every senior learner at APS in a community
engagement /or service learning programme with a range of partner organisations. The
proposal requested support so that the senior APS students will each teach art classes for
two hours per week at an after-school program for orphans and vulnerable children; the
partners identified are Ma Afrika Tikkun and Noah?s Arks (Nurturing Orphans of AIDS for
Humanity).42
Paper Prayers: from Awareness to Action, some conclusions
The Paper Prayers Campaign began as a campaign to create awareness about AIDS in the
form of offering basic factual knowledge, and providing emotional support for traumatized
individuals and communities. The campaign team sought to make the pandemic visible
through visual and creative expression. For many of the participants, information on
transmission and infection had not been previously available. Through Paper Prayers, art
and skills training became an accessible methodology to convey and retain information, and
to internalise the information conveyed by the AIDS counsellors and trainers.

In 2008, available funding facilitated the establishment of art programs in five
Noahs Ark-after-school centres that involved five APS teachers and five third-year interns
(Figure 33). The program concluded at the end of 2008 with an exhibition and presentation of
art materials to each of the 110 participating children (Figure 34). The program will expand
into five additional centres in 2009 with funds received from the Ford Foundation as part of a
more extensive project, Cultural Action for Change, discussed in Chapter Six.

Looking back on the outcomes a decade later, Paper Prayers arguably played a significant
role in breaking the silence and addressing denial for the many participants. As an
awareness intervention, the National Paper Prayers Campaign and its subsequent programs

42 See the websites for Noah (http://www.noahorphans.org.za). Noah has the focus of building the capacity of
communities to care for their orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC). Placing APS artists who live in those
communities assists to build local resources and support. Also see: Ma Afrika Tikkun
(http://www.maafrikatikkun.org.za).
101
met their limited objectives. The participants? statements and actions, as documented above
and in the figures, demonstrate a significant increase in participants? awareness, ability to
absorb new knowledge, and confidence in their ability to seek treatment or to support others
to do so. In addition to these anecdotal, un-measurable emotional benefits, more quantifiable
outcomes such as skills training and income generation have led to improved livelihoods that
have made it possible to put knowledge into action. The process of making as well as the
method of learning contributed to the ownership and application of new knowledge.
Testimonies such as ?now I can buy medicine for my sick child? document the positive impact
of the craft development program.43 They show that the therapeutic approach had great
value for individuals and communities enduring great suffering and in denial about the cause
of the disease.44
Activism and Action: Paper Prayers, 2006-8: The Reclaiming Lives case study
Having provided that initial base of support for change, however, it became clear that
something more was needed. The concept of agency ? the ability to make purposeful
choices, to find the conviction to act with conviction on newfound knowledge ? this was the
challenge to any further expansion of the program. A major stumbling block to instilling
agency was the structure of the first phase, which primarily targeted women. Except for the
APS workshops with students and street children, men were rarely full participants during the
first two phases. As van der Vliet notes:
By breaking the silence, stigma could begin to be addressed and divided
communities could begin to heal. Paper Prayers began a process of emotional and
intellectual change that had the potential to transform lives. It supports Harry Boyte?s
assertion that:
Research over the last generation has shown that organizing cultures which bring
forth a strong sense of people?s co-creative agency can generate profound changes
in the sense of oneself, skills, behaviours, values, what the organizer and public
intellectual Ernesto Cortes calls ?metanoia,? a theological concept meaning
transformation in being (Boyte 2007: 20).

Rather like its parent initiative Artist Proof Studio, a significant contributor to the Paper
Prayers Campaigns success was its ability to transform itself. The importance of resilience
and ability to transform in relation to changing environments is a recurring theme in this
thesis. The Paper Prayers program required ingenuity and imagination to keep it going after
funding ended in 1999. The networks created through the expansion of the program not only
permitted it to survive, but to evolve. The government funded a one-off program for one year;
but a decade later Paper Prayers is still confronting the AIDS epidemic.

43 Transcripts of interviews: Ripple in the Water, Eileen Foti and Patti Piroh: KB Archives (PPR Draw 2: File 2b).
44 Testimonies from CARE: KB Archives (PPR Draw 2: Files 2a and b).
102
It is one of the ironies of South Africa that a country with one of the most
gender-sensitive constitutions ? should also experience very high levels of
violence against women ? The inability to negotiate safer sex because of
gender inequality is a major driving force in the HIV/AIDS epidemic
(van der Vliet 2004: 68).

The service-learning project discussed earlier that partners a young artist with AIDS orphans
and vulnerable children in a mutually giving relationship aims to achieve a level of growth
that has been described by the coordinator of the program, Shannin Antonopolou, as a
?transformation in being.? In the pilot project with teenagers, the evaluations of some of the
participants do express profound changes in aspects of self and personal values (Figure 35).
For example in interviews with some of the APS senior learners who participated as interns
or ?big brothers? there was recognition of personal transformation:
It wasn?t my choice, but by the time I got there I thought this is where I belong.
This is where I learned that art does not belong to me but I have to transfer
the skills to other people (Senzo Shabangu, third-year APS intern. Interviewed
by Shannin Antonopolou 24 November 2008).45
At Sonke, we are convinced that arts-based approaches can break through
the monotony of many conventional educational and communications
strategies. We have developed partnerships with Artist Proof Studio,
Siyanqoba Theatre Group and Hope Worldwide?s Ubuntu Bamadoda
isicathemiya initiative to use murals, forum and ambush theatre and traditional
men?s choirs to inspire people to take action (Sonke Justice Annual Report
2006/7: 28) (Figure 35).

In the South African context, faced with the magnitude of the AIDS pandemic, Artist Proof
Studio, through the Paper Prayers program, challenges the role of art to reach beyond
awareness, and beyond a connection to communities that focused primarily on women. APS
has partnered with the organizations such as Men as Partners, that are specifically directed
to educational development with men. The compelling issue here, it seems to me, is about
life and death, not merely education, and emotional and skills support. My question always
remains: can art do more? Can it confront the patriarchy and begin to change behaviour?
Initiated in 2004 Artist Proof Studio?s partnerships with Engender Health?s outreach
programs, namely Men as Partners and Sonke Justice and their ?One Man Can? campaign,
are convinced of the value of visually-based arts methodologies to achieve change. Their
websites, reports and training materials are filled with images that are generated by the
collaborative workshops with APS:
46

45 See APS Report to the Ackerman Foundation, Dec 2008. The full interviews of five third-year interns are
available in KB Archives (PPR Draw 2: File 2c).
46Sonke Annual Report: (http://www.genderjustice.org.za/docman/organisational-documents/sonke-gender-
justice-annual-report-2006-2007/download-2.html).

103
Describing the role of arts in the AIDS action program, Nhlanhla Mabizela from Men as
Partners:
It gives life to the words that are not said in other forms. It builds team
cohesion. It?s more fun and gives the participants the latitude of sharing what
they already know and have experienced in a non-threatening way that is not
condescending (Nhlanhla Mabizela, Men as Partners November 2007: partner
stakeholder questionnaire).47
In April 2006 I was one of five finalists awarded R20 000 each by the Sasol Wax Corporation
to produce a body of artwork for an annual South African art exhibition and prize. As one of
the Sasol Corporation?s products is wax, the finalists were required to use wax as a theme or
medium. I chose to use the significant publicity that this competition generated to highlight
artists? roles in the fight against AIDS. Although the award was for individual artists, I decided
to use the funds to initiate a new AIDS awareness project (Figure 37).

Despite the success of these new initiatives, the AIDS Action programmes at APS inevitably
experienced setbacks. In November 2005, I became all too aware of the limitations of the
Paper Prayers Campaign in addressing the pandemic: faced with the death from AIDS of a
young, vibrant APS artist and educator, Jones Mathebula, I experienced anger and
frustration and a sense of failure. One of our most talented graduates and teachers had
failed to absorb the lessons he himself had taught. The question that I kept asking was, ?Why
did Jones not seek counselling or treatment?? The strategy we had used in the Paper
Prayers campaign was not effective enough to counter the overwhelming effects of denial
and stigma he must have felt. In memory of Jones I set about designing another intervention
with APS artists that would go beyond the therapy-based approach (Figure 36).

The new intervention asked the question: if art is to contribute to saving lives, are different
approaches needed when the audience is primarily young men rather than rural women?
APS has a population of 75% young men as students. Many gender-based issues that have
surfaced over the years can be traced to the urban and township culture from which the
majority come. The machismo of township youth has many negative manifestations: among
them gangsterism and violence against women. Therefore, APS began to focus gender
training on men, and shifted the emphasis from AIDS awareness to the gender-based issues
surrounding this disease.

47 KB Archives (FF Draw 5: File 1a).
48 Sasol Wax Award website 2006 finalists. See website for more information:
(http://www.sasol.com/sasol_internet/downloads/Sasol_Wax_Art_Award_KPM_1156424176565.pdf).
See Sasol Wax documentation, cuttings and reviews: KB Archives (PPR Draw 2: File 1b).
104
The project that I called ?Reclaiming Lives,? for the Sasol Wax finalists exhibition, was a
collaboration with the 100 artists active at APS at the time. What we, as a collective,
discovered in this corporate-supported project was that the process of designing and making
the work for the installation, included the multi-dimensions of research, discussion, attending
awareness workshops, reflecting on the process, and of course art-making. I wanted to
question why young people who are directly exposed to knowledge about HIV and AIDS are
not changing their behaviour. Many of the young men in the early HIV/AIDS workshops
openly admitted to having unprotected sex, and believing that AIDS would not affect them.
Some quoted the myths that abound to justify their choices such as: ?it has not been proven
that HIV causes AIDS?; ?condoms are a carry-over of colonial oppression for curbing the
black population?; ?sleeping with a virgin cures AIDS?; ?Africans from outside the borders of
South Africa are responsible for the spread of AIDS (not us)? and others. These beliefs are
prevalent both in the older artists and the new students that join APS every year, evidence of
the tenacity of the mythology surrounding AIDS. The political leaders and role models in
South Africa, whether they be Thabo Mbeki or Jacob Zuma, do not help reverse these myths
? quite the opposite. Zuma?s example suggests to young people that it is acceptable to have
unprotected sex with an HIV-positive person, and that having multiple sexual partners is a
?cultural? privilege for men (such as polygamy).49
Art alone cannot change this sort of mindset, but the Reclaiming Lives project set out to
show that the attributes of visual art can contribute meaningfully as a component of a
campaign. During the first phase of the project, each artist was asked to create a symbolic
portrait, an etching that would pay homage to someone who had died of AIDS. Each
participant?s choice of honouring someone in relationship to oneself ? whether a relative,
friend, or neighbour ? normalizes and personalizes the pandemic. The process of reflecting
on the life that has been lost honours the qualities of that person?s contribution to one?s life;
and the making of an art-image consolidates the acknowledgement of connectedness into an
experiential action. The artistic products emerging from APS participants were small portrait
etchings; these were also compiled into an artists? book, where each participant was able to
honour someone who had died, as well as to honour themselves by making an informed
choice about being tested.

49 Although the expansion of VCT schemes in recent years has been encouraging, a regional study carried out in
2005 suggested that men are much less likely to access VCT services than women in South Africa. Researchers
believe that this is due to fears among men that their HIV positive status will be disclosed through testing, and that
stigmatization will follow. The survey also suggested that some men see no value in knowing their HIV status,
viewing such knowledge as a burden. IRIN Plus News (2005), ?South Africa: men falling through the cracks?, 25
July. See website (http://www.aegis.com/news/irin/2005/IR050766.html).
The process of researching and imaging a life lost is an action
50 A Portfolio of 100 etchings by 97 artists in an edition of two. Printed by Molefe Thwala, Legohlonolo Mashaba
and Motsamai Thabane, The interviews and photographs of the artists were compiled by University of

105
that actively makes visible the invisible and acts to achieve change. The change can be a
renewed engagement with the impact of HIV/AIDS; the medium of that deeper awareness is
art-making. The goal was to catalyse each participant?s choice, reflecting on their own lives in
relationship to the pandemic (Figures 38a and b).

As with the Paper Prayers Campaign, the process required that each participant attended
pre-counselling workshops and focus groups to discuss the process of choosing to undergo
an HIV test. The extensive discussions were facilitated by professional counsellors as well as
by art therapists. This became a process to convert fear and silence into the aspiration and
dreaming for a better future. The project preparing for the Sasol Wax exhibition evolved over
four months (May to August 2006). After spending time over a two month period of
researching, drawing and etching the portraits, the next step was to attend pre-counselling
workshops, and participate in focus groups discussing the prospect of each participant
undergoing an HIV test. The extensive discussions were broken down into groups; each
breakaway group was asked to interrogate facts, discuss fears and myths, argue for the
value of future, and to imagine a changed social culture. Their conclusions were shared with
the group as a whole, and their questions answered and clarified by professional counsellors.
An introduction to art therapy was provided, some interactive groups using music and a
process devised by teacher and facilitator Stompie Selibe, which he refers to as the ?talking
drum?.51
After eight weeks of personal research, discussion, image making, workshops and
counselling, 50 out of 100 participants got tested. This is significantly higher than every other
testing program recorded by the mobile testing organization New Start, which indicated
(anecdotally), in response to working with APS, that on average the response to VCT
(voluntary counselling and testing) at most venues is not often more than 10% of the target
People were given the option of participating in the testing on site the following week
or going more anonymously to the centre offsite (a few blocks? walk from APS). New Start, a
mobile testing unit came to APS for three consecutive days in order to include all the studio
programs. The Artist Proof Studio?s administration offices closed for the few days of the
testing period. Each office was used for a counselling room and the computer laboratory was
set up to do the thumb prick test.

Johannesburg students Johannes Nyokong and transcribed by Kgomotso Maloka. Binding, design and layout by
Bronwyn Marshall, Printed at Artist Proof Studio on handmade sisal and cotton paper, made by the Phumani
Archive Mill, Newtown, 2006.
51 A popular practice of creating a drumming circle for team building that is adapted from a West African tradition
when talking drum players sent messages by drumming the recipient's name, followed by the sender's name and
the message.
106
group.52
In August 2006, shortly before the exhibition opened in the garage gallery at Sasol Wax
headquarters, Leah Nchabeleng interviewed three of the 100 artists involved in the
Reclaiming Lives project. All felt strongly about the importance of having an HIV test, not
Some participants indicated that they were not ready to be tested, but asked for
another opportunity later. Over the course of three months at APS we countered denial and
broke the silence. Studio members were talking to each other, and many felt safe enough to
have a test, while the mature artists who had disclosed their HIV-positive status offered
support groups and peer counselling. Each person had to grapple with their decision about
testing by making a second personal artwork that explored their feelings or personal choices
to test or not. These anonymous monoprints were then dipped in wax (to protect/preserve),
and then laid over, and hinged to the etched portrait tribute plates. The portraits were partly
concealed by the overlays, which can be partially lifted up off the plates. These plates were
in turn mounted as a 5m long Tribute Wall (Figures 39a and b).

My own etchings for the Sasol Wax exhibition were images of ?mourning sunflowers?, hung in
a series of five panels. Mounted on the back of my prints were the tribute portraits that faced
the wall of disclosure, or Tribute Wall. Thematically, the three-part installation moved from
?Mourning our Future? (my sunflower prints) to ?Honouring Lives? (the tribute portraits) to
?Reclaiming Lives? (the etching plates with the waxed print overlay): a process that visualized
the progress from the expression of loss to action and change (Figures 40 and 41). The
fourth part of the installation was the embroidered and beaded panels that expanded the
project?s reach into the Paper Prayers women?s collectives (Figures 42a and b).

The techniques used in the project were symbolic. Etching is a contemplative, slow process
that eats away at a drawing to reveal the image. It is visible only after a corrosive destructive
chemical reaction to the steel surface of the etching plate. Steel is a permanent virtually non-
destructible material. The etching and printing process ?brings the image to life?, and gives
the image expression. It is labour-intensive and requires the pushing in of the ink into the
etched lines and careful wiping away at the surface before printing through a hand press: the
more care and sensitivity given to the application and wiping, the more effective/expressive
the impression. All of these processes can be seen as relevant metaphors for living one?s
life. In contrast to the quick, simple method of making a monotype impression of a Paper
Prayer artwork, etching requires extended rumination, in parallel with taking the time to
gather the courage to be tested.

52 See website for more information (http://www.newstart.co.za).
107
simply for the sake of knowing one?s status, but as a journey to understanding and accepting
themselves. Quotes from each interview follow:
This has been a long and emotional process. Before testing, I had to go home
and fix some things that go way back ? I had to unravel some issues and
challenge some ignorance. Testing is what we do for people who are still
living so that they can make life changes and think through what?s next for
them. We need to find ways of creating mutual support ? of making people
feel like people, not HIV-positive or HIV-negative people.

Until when are we going to run away from this thing? We always have
excuses [for not getting tested] ?. [With this project] we didn?t have any
excuses ? you just had to deal with yourself and with what you want from life. I
proved that I love myself by going through with the testing. You learn about
yourself, your friends, your family, your support system ? not just what your
status is. You also learn who you really care about and who you really know ?
and you discover your own strength. It was a healing experience.

I have a healthier relationship with myself [after the testing process]. I value
myself; I still want to live and share myself with people. I made one choice that
enables other choices.

In the statement that accompanied the exhibition, Nchabeleng concluded:
Through the journey presented by participating in the Sasol Wax Award,
artists were able to consider their own lives and act in ways to prolong them.
They were able to find meaning and peace with the untimely and often
unacknowledged deaths of loved ones, and to create a catalyst for families
and friends to begin to re-examine their own lives, fears, biases and actions.
Artists participating in this project have been presented with ? and have
grasped ? the opportunity to save their own, and other lives. They have been
afforded the opportunity to act in ways that make a difference (Nchabaleng
2006).53
The point has been made earlier that art alone cannot change an individual?s mindset;
change happens in concert with other kinds of interventions. The Reclaiming Lives project
demonstrates the value of participation, deep engagement with the various processes of
creating the images and the skills required in learning new ways of making, all of which can
contribute meaningfully as catalysts for change. The opportunity to make a work to pay
homage to someone who has died was key to the success of the project. The premise of the
Reclaiming Lives project, was that the testimonies and AIDS activism, translated into creative
participation, generates renewal and healing, and even in some cases, may save lives. The
project demonstrated that art has the capacity to create conditions to foster new, positive
habits that can extend and enhance lives. The recurring theme in this thesis is that the
?capacity to aspire? framed by Appadurai (2004) is a key to freedom. In the context of this
project, aspiration, hope and imagination as explored in the various stages of researching

53 Reclaiming Lives project: KB Archives (PPR Draw 2: File 1a).
108
and making the artwork to honour another and one?s own life provide the evidence for the
claim that the visual arts can play a role in educating and facilitating the experience of voice
and empowerment (Figures 43 and 44).

Conclusions: Can art save lives?
HIV/AIDS is a human tragedy on a terrifying scale and there is no end in sight. The social
and political response has been denial. As Susan Sontag writes: ?That even an apocalypse
can be made to seem part of the ordinary horizon of expectation constitutes an unparalleled
violence that is being done to our sense of reality, to our humanity? (Sontag 1998: 134). As
an educator one faces a generation of students, at least a quarter of whom are statistically
HIV-positive. Denial can no longer be the modus operandi. I look back to the impact of the
Paper Prayers campaign and intuitively know it has made a difference to the lives of some of
the participants. There is no statistical data as a measurement tool to prove this, but there
are anecdotal accounts of the empowerment of individual men and women. The artwork
produced can also be seen as evidence of empowerment. The team of Paper Prayers
facilitators has found that most of the groups in which they have worked have lost members,
and many of them have died in silence. Though workshop discussions, the team has found
that the reason often given for the refusal to name the disease is seen as a sign of ?respect?:
?It?s G-d?s will,? and life goes on for the living.54
Artistic forms of expression such as the Paper Prayers program and other visual arts and
crafts intervention projects offer a rich and intense form of inquiry, and are effective in
facilitating the expression of voices that have not been heard. The challenge, however,
becomes even greater than this. It is for such projects to offer a strategy for implementing
Amartya Sen?s notion that leadership is a crucial aspect of ?development as freedom.? The
first two phases of Paper Prayers focused primarily on fostering awareness in rural women?s
collectives; the third phase (in the Reclaiming Lives project at APS), concentrated on
changing attitudes in urban men. The bifurcated nature of the phased interventions reveals a
recognition of the degree to which gender inequality fosters the spread of the disease. I
came to realise that the intervention that is needed should be not only focusing on the
This silence perpetuates denial. Perhaps
when options for treatment are widely available and AIDS is no longer a death sentence, the
tide will turn. But the Paper Prayers slogan we adopted from Margaret Mead, ?Just imagine
the potential if we all hold hands,? suggests that when citizens communicate, much more
becomes possible.

54 Workshop reports and evaluations: KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 2 and PPR Draw 2: File 2).
109
?changing agency of women in improving their economic and social conditions? (Sen 1999b:
202-203), but also providing the information and confidence to assist HIV-positive women
and men to take up the option of choosing treatment and counselling. Although we were able
to move from awareness into action over the course of the decade, future interventions will
more specifically address dialogue across the gender divide (see Chapter Six). In the end,
the interventions shared the same premises of therapeutic art-making combined with
counselling; we did not have to completely reconceive Paper Prayers in order to work with
men, only to shift the focus to more direct action.

The fact that over the decade both women and men, in their different communities, were
empowered to ?make purposive choices? points to one of the important lessons learned.
Substantive change can only come from within individuals first, and then communities, and
cannot be imposed from above. Further, the process of change takes time, as it requires the
development of community leaders and networks of support. Although thousands of people
have received messages of healing and hope through Paper Prayers, it is not the numbers of
participants that matter, but the slow, incremental development of leadership that empowers
people to change their own lives. For the period of activity during the Reclaiming Lives
project, the individuals (85% of whom were young men) experienced change, both in
themselves and as a collective at APS. The comments recorded in the artists? handmade
book of portraits and statements testify to change (See Figure 44). For example, this is what
some of the artists and students wrote in their responses to the project:
? Motsamai Thabane: I feel relieved and healed because this project helped
me deal with my feelings about the loss of my brother and to use this
knowledge to empower other people with the understanding of the
pandemic.
? Jabu Tshuma: It will make more people aware of the pandemic and create
more activists.
? Flora More: It will help people to speak about HIV/AIDS.
? Nomfozeka Ella: It was great for me to deal with issues within my family
and to talk about my uncle openly.
? Lehlogonolo Mashaba: Reminded me that I still have a chance to live,
faced with this challenge of HIV/AIDS.
? Elton Mponoshe: It will inform the community to come together and to get
tested; to make a choice in order to take care of themselves and the
children.
110
? Tsepho Makanatlela: It helped me to remember him. I feel great about
making an artwork about someone I loved.55

On World AIDS Day, 1 December 2008, I introduced a sequel to the project called
Reclaiming Lives II. While this two-day workshop did not have the advantage of evolving the
project over a period of time, it revealed a maturity within the students who had participated
as first-year students in 2006. This project was an overwhelming success in that the majority
of the students indicated a willingness to participate in the on-site VCT program. Their full
participation indicated that by the time they graduate as third-year students from APS in
2008, they will have found a way to transform a visual art process into activism that initiates
personal and social change (See text boxes and Figures 45a-d).

It is useful to draw a comparison between HIV/AIDS Awareness and HIV/AIDS Activism. The
example referred to earlier in the women of the Mapula embroidery group is different to the
Chivurika Group, who formed themselves as an action group administering home-based care
to their village as an outcome of their Paper Prayers engagement. Part of the difference in
the initial degree of empowerment is suggested by the contrast in the visual output. For
example, Emily Makulele?s ?Prevent AIDS? cloth (Figure 14) is highly dependent on received
information, whereas each artist?s ?Reclaiming Lives? portrait of the relation who is being
honoured testifies to a process of growth and change that reflects a record of discussion and
reflection with family and peers, and that leads to the direct action of honouring their own
lives through the choices of behaviour change or VCT. The figures of images and the artists?
own narrative responses provide further evidence of degrees of empowerment within the
artwork, indicating that visual methods can be a valuable source of research, action and
change. This idea is expanded on in Chapter Six. (Figures 44 and 45).

The question of a citizen?s agency is addressed by current scholarship about activist
approaches to public engagement and scholarship. For instance Harry Boyte suggests that:

Concepts of persons as a ?co-creator? of their environments, as a ?public
agent? of environmental change and self-change, and one might say simply as
an active citizen, are more adequate to the democratic task ? they suggest a
shift from person ?in herself? to a democratic citizen ?for herself.? Such
conceptual language is intimated by recent experimental psychology that
emphasizes humans as unique, relational agents of their own development
who create ideas, drawing from diverse sources as they learn to negotiate and
shape their environments. This science points toward a political, open, and

55 See Figures and KB Archives: 97 artists? statements: Interviews conducted by Johannes Nyokong and
transcribed Kgomotso Maloka: KB Archives (PPR Draw 2: File 1a).
111
dynamic concept of contexts and the humans who make them (Boyte
2007: 20).56

As described above, many of the women in the rural and embroidery groups have become
activists in their communities as caregivers. The Reclaiming Lives project was a first step in
demanding that the APS students who had information about HIV/AIDS as Paper Prayers
trainers, address the seriousness of life and death in their own lives. The learning process for
the student-artist became a journey of discovery to find a balance between reflection and
introspection on the one hand, and an understanding that they have the power to act to save
their own or another?s life through the choices they make, on the other.

As far as the Paper Prayers program is concerned, the transformation from awareness into
action was one that responded to given circumstances and the growing awareness of those
facilitating the program of the needs that had not yet been addressed. Like any such project,
Paper Prayers needed to be able to reflect and respond to these different needs in order to
be sustainable and continue to revisit its initial objectives. No community-based art project
can afford to lack such adaptability if it hopes to have the time needed for the communities it
serves to gain agency. The once-off intervention of a three-hour Paper Prayers workshop
can only introduce a new language for and way of integrating painful and complex issues.
But for meaningful change to be sustainable, the value of time and an ongoing engaged and
participatory process using a phased approach is necessary for inculcating agency. The
Paper Prayers program has evolved from an expression of awareness to countering denial
though action.

Julie Ellison expresses the complexity of creative responses to trauma in her seminal article
on the Humanities and the Public Soul:
The arts and humanities have been spoken of as offering ?solace? in a time of
personal and collective trauma. But solace is complicated, not simple. The
public soul needs the expression of grief, witness, and testimony, yes. But it
also needs action, including educational action (Ellison 2002a).

56 Boyte quotes Esther Thelen who pioneered this science, which was based on a relational, interactive, emergent
understanding of complex systems and how to theorize them. Thelen?s science suggests a conception of a
person not simply as a problem solver, but more broadly as a co-creator of the contexts in which problem solving
takes place (Boyte 2007: 23).
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CHAPTER FOUR: PHUMANI PAPER: FROM A GOVERNMENT
POVERTY ALLEVIATION PROGRAM TO SUSTAINABLE
ENTERPRISES

Introduction
The founding of Phumani Paper paralleled the creative process of making an artwork in its
conception and evolution. My idealistic vision was to create a new industry that could draw
on local resources available to the marginalized poor in poverty nodes, both in rural
communities and in urban informal settlements where there are no jobs or industries. The
idea of creating craft from waste materials, a process that is both labour intensive and
requires skills training from artists, emerged out of a personal desire to help art practitioners
to become social change agents. While this was a somewhat utopian idea, the process of
designing a program that was collaborative and drew on skills, resources, institutions and
communities from a range of partners resulted in a very dynamic and complex method of
addressing poverty alleviation.

In this chapter I assess a program that has gone through many iterations and cycles of
change, that at some moments has been robust and explosive, and at others fragile and
tenuous. The program is complex, and none of the Phumani Paper sites are alike. In spite of
attempts to seek a formula for sustainability in the development of craft groups, one was
never found. However, one basic fact is clear: the Phumani Paper program has a high
survival rate in comparison to South African cultural projects in general.1
Amartya Sen?s concept of ?development as freedom,? that is, development as the fostering of
individual and community agency in any program of economic aid, will frame this chapter. His
From its inception in
late1999, fifteen out of twenty-one small enterprises are still operating at the end of 2008.
The following analysis will reveal some of the primary reasons for the poor levels of
sustainability in cultural industries set up by government, and will explore various strategies
that could provide an insight into a concept of development that supports the qualities of
democracy, aspiration, creativity and agency.

1 There is inconclusive information on the statistics of the survival rate of craft enterprises. See Steven Sack
interview (du Toit May 2008d), Research paper by Joslyn Walker (formerly Walters) (2002) (KB Archives FF Draw
6: File 1a). The Arts and Culture Sub-sector Skills Update 2005/2006 provides an overview of the arts and culture
sector which is described as having ?chronic skills shortages?, ?low annual turnover?, and is characterized by ?a
growth trap and struggle for survival.? The document states further that there are no published sources of data on
the total South African Visual arts industry (2005: 6,7) and reports on the scarce skills in the industry; also refer to
Gerard Hagg?s research report (2004) and David Bunn (2008: 7) who describes the ?sorry state of funding affairs?
in a paper entitled ?Ends of the Rainbow?.
113
insights on gender also offer important implications for this analysis. The great majority
(85%) of participants in the Phumani Paper projects are women. Sen argues that female
education, reproductive agency and economic empowerment enhance not only women?s
position, but society as a whole. He argues that ?(t)he changing agency of women is one of
the major mediators of economic and social change, and its determination as well as
consequences closely relate to many of the central features of the development process?
(Sen 1999b: 203-204). In sum, women?s leadership is a crucial aspect of ?development as
freedom.?

In addition, I will use systems theory and complexity theory, introduced in Chapter One, to
analyse both the complex structure of the program, and the many blockages and subsequent
rerouting of the flows that have become characteristic of the Phumani Paper program.
Government?s role has facilitated the development of Phumani Paper through funding and
initial vision, as well as obstructed its growth and caused significant damage through broken
promises and inadequate short-term funding. Here I offer various case studies as a way to
understand and develop alternative and regenerative responses to the recurring
disappointments resulting from poorly conceived government policies implemented by high-
handed officials. These policies and their implementation have tended to prevent rather than
encourage an enabling environment for sustainable development.

This chapter assesses some development projects that have failed as a result of a top-down
approach required by government. However, in addition to analysing the impediments to
successful change, this chapter will also document the remarkable resilience that has
resisted the ?burn-out? characteristic of so many government-funded cultural organizations in
South Africa. My argument addresses a theme common throughout the thesis: the question
of whether, in the erratic environment of government funding, creativity and imagination can
catalyse hope and aspiration, and can sustain the participants? continued dedication to their
groups and alleviate poverty. I further investigate the role of the artist in facilitating this
process.

Hand-papermaking for economic development began as a research and outreach activity at
the former Technikon Witwatersrand (TWR), now the University of Johannesburg, in 1996.
Research activity at the time was supported by the former Centre for Science Development
(CSD).2

2 The former Centre for Science Development (CSD) and Foundation for Research Development (FRD) were
merged in 1998 to form the National Research Foundation (NRF).
Three years later, after establishing a pilot community outreach project in
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Winterveld, the papermaking poverty alleviation program, (which subsequently was named
Phumani Paper) was initiated in September 1999. As part of the post-1994 government?s
policy of using tertiary institutions and Research Councils to develop appropriate technology
for development, the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST)
awarded funding to my Papermaking Research and Development Unit (hereafter PRDU) to
initiate a pilot project for developing craft packaging from sugarcane leaf fibre in KwaZulu-
Natal (Figure 1).3
In 2000, as a result of the success of the pilot project, I was approached by an official in the
division of Science and Technology to develop a proposal for a national poverty relief
program that would address poverty alleviation through appropriate use of technology in
each of the provinces in South Africa. Weeks later, due to an urgency to allocate unspent
budgets, the Technikon?s PRDU was allocated a grant of R3 million. In return for the grant
my research unit was charged with establishing 21 projects in seven provinces for the
purpose of creating 460 jobs. Initially called the Papermaking Poverty Relief program
(PPRP), its name changed to Phumani Paper in 2002.

4 Five masters? student research
projects have been essential to establishing sustainable enterprises within Phumani Paper.
These research projects included the development of cotton rag and sisal plant fibre for use
in making archival acid-free conservation papers (Marshall 2003), the investigation of the
suitability of invasive plant species for making handmade papers (Coppes 2003), the
application of paper-based craft technologies such as paper clay (Ladeira 2004) and cast
paper pulp for the making of three-dimensional craft products (Tshabalala 2005), and
expressive possibilities for paper as art-making (Warren 2006). An additional master?s
student investigated the sustainability of Phumani Papers craft development sites (Cohn
2004) (Figures 2a-d). Registered as a Section 21 Company in 2005,5 the national office at
Phumani Paper now serves as a sales and resource centre, accessing markets to support up
to twenty producer units in seven provinces.6 Phumani Paper currently contracts 27 staff
members nationally.7

3 DACST split in August 2002 into two separate Ministries: the Department of Science and Technology (DST)
(under which Phumani Paper was situated) and the Department of Arts Culture and Heritage (DAC).
4 See the initial concept document and proposals and funding reports to DACST 1999-2002: KB Archives (PP
Draw 3B: File 1a).
5 Company registration no. 2005/017397/08. See KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 3).
6 This number was reduced to fifteen producer units by January 2008, due to the closure of five groups between
2005 and 2008. See Human Resources lists KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 3b).
7 Phumani Paper contracted 35 staff members from 2000 to 2005. This outreach and staffing was reduced to
seventeen full-time contract staff and ten station managers. My role in Phumani Paper is currently Director and
Research Leader, the latter articulates with my position as Senior Lecturer in the Fine Art Department at the
University of Johannesburg. See list of staff and positions KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 3b).

115
As a result of the poverty relief program requirements imposed by government, Phumani
Paper was forced to start large, and severe damage was caused by lack of long-term
planning and setting of attainable goals. For example, during its first year, the provision of
standard community wages to over 450 participants was a requirement, yet no policy existed
for sustained support, and the government reduced the funding for wages over each of the
following two years. All staff and facilitators received one-year contracts renewable annually
for the three- to four-year program; there was no certainty of continuity, as funding was
applied for yearly and was often disbursed months late. As papermaking had no tradition or
history behind it within South Africa, the government had little understanding of the needs of
the program or the challenges of establishing a new cultural industry for the country. The
government rationalized the decrease in funding for wages as an incentive for the projects to
become independent businesses, even though no funding for marketing research was
provided in the grant. As problems of sustainability emerged at each site, it became
increasingly evident that one cannot impose a concept of entrepreneurship on rural areas if it
has no integration within the local community culture.8
In response to consistently reduced and unreliable funding, the organizational structure of
Phumani Paper national office at the University of Johannesburg was forced to mutate into a
sales and distribution centre that identifies markets and sources orders for producer units. In
2004, at the end of the DST funding cycle, the University?s Phumani Paper Management
Committee projected that out of twenty units only five would survive without continued
funding support.
The government?s increasing
emphasis on entrepreneurship as the central tenet of its poverty relief initiatives will be
critiqued in this chapter.

I argue here that sustainability depends on building participants? agency along with business
skills. It is my contention that Phumani Paper projects continued to survive despite
considerable external constraints due to the power of imagination, aspiration and dreaming,
which generated agency. Participants came to work even when there were few orders and
little or no income, motivated by a sense of pride, the discovery of their own creativity, and
the empowerment gained through new craft and management skills.

8 This is corroborated by Berman and Walker (formerly Walters) (2002 and 2004). KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File
2).
9 See Board minutes by Chair Prof Thomas Auf der Heyde 2004. KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 4).
This projection provided the rationale for the University?s decision to
withdraw its administrative and financial support of the Phumani Paper program in 2005. For
the first five years of the different phases of the program, the DST government grant and
supporting independent grants were awarded to the former Technikon Witwatersrand, and all
116
administrative and financial transactions were processed through the institution?s systems.
The subsequent registration of Phumani Paper Section 21 Company required that the Board
of Directors become responsible for the organization?s good governance.10
As part of the process of development towards a business model, the management team
contracted marketing consultants that assisted Phumani Paper staff in designing diverse
strategies in order to secure a long-term future for the new cultural industry of making
handmade paper in South Africa. The strategy included the establishment of new funding
sources, such as UNESCO?s Artist in Development Programme (AiD), which trains key
Phumani Paper regional managers to develop their own products and access new markets
(Figures 3a and b). The UNESCO pilot projects in Africa examine the phenomenon of the
high failure rate of craft projects and their dismal record of profit.

11 The more positive impact
assessment report commissioned by UNESCO, of five of the Phumani Paper enterprises,
has provided a valuable analysis that will be discussed in this chapter. Some of the report
findings provide insights that can be applied to aspects of the challenge of achieving
sustainability within the South African craft sector in general.12 Other donor partners for
Phumani Paper programs included the National Research Foundation (for research and
development), the Ford Foundation, the National Heritage Foundation and the Kellogg
Foundation, amongst others.13
Another strategy that the management team has employed to promote sustainability has
been the establishment of international linkages to secure expert advice in the research
activity area. (Figures 4a-c). For instance, the Photovoice/PAR program with University of
Michigan (June-July 2005) involved the pairing of the University of Michigan and the
University of Johannesburg students who were assigned field placements to assess the
viability of markets in six Phumani sites. The findings were reported at a two-day conference
held at the University of Johannesburg.

14 Subsequently, the Ford Foundation funded a two-
year grant for a targeted HIV/AIDS support and product development intervention from 2006-
2008. A further extensive impact assessment was completed in May 2008, for the Ford
Foundation-funded AIDS Action program.15

10 According to the King II Report (http://www.iodsa.co.za/king.asp).
11 See UNESCO publication AiD 2008 KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 17).
12 Melanie Hagen (2007) Final Evaluation Report, UNESCO-NORAD Artists in Development Programme Phase,
with CFDR School of Design ? Northumbria University, United Kingdom, July, and Lilo du Toit 2008b FF Report
KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File13, 18).
13 See PP List of donors and amounts awarded, PP Annual Reports 2006/7 KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 12).
14 Findings and Conference recommendations of 2006/7 and 8 in KB Archive (FF Draw 5: File 12).
15 Du Toit and Korth, Base-Line Study (2007), Impact Report (2008b) KB Archives (FF Draw 5: File 2d).
This multi-year Participatory Action Research
(PAR) program will be discussed in detail in Chapter Six.
117

The third sustainability strategy was achieved when the MAPPP SETA (funded through the
skills levy of the Department of Labour) approved a series of pilot accredited learnerships to
teach a basic qualification in making handmade paper to regional site members (NQF2), and
an advanced qualification in archival paper production in 2007 (NQF4) at the central office.16
Despite the challenge of finding consistent outlets for Phumani Paper products, certain
markets do exist for South African handmade paper products, such as the conference and
craft markets, and corporate gifts. The most promising market for Phumani Paper at present
is in acid-free archival paper for the conservation and art industries (Berman and Marshall
2008).

17 When the units transitioned into independent enterprises, it became clear that
Phumani Paper national office required a business-focused director to implement a directed
marketing strategy. I managed to secure dedicated funds for 2006 to hand over the
organization to an Executive Director, Frikkie Meintjes, who was tasked with securing future
markets and programs. The change from a faculty-led research and development project to a
commercial enterprise functioning from the University of Johannesburg met with further
challenges and obstacles. Nevertheless, until his departure in 2008, Meintjes managed to
maintain the operational running of the Section 21 organization and it has seen gradual
growth in sales and market access ever since (Figures 5 and 6). However, the suspension of
the government?s pledge to fund the development of the Archival paper unit in 2007 has
reduced the organization?s projected growth and financial viability significantly. This will be
discussed as a case study later in this chapter.18
Further complicating Phumani Paper?s desired goals were the 2004/5 negotiations over the
merger between the Technikon Witwatersrand and Rand Afrikaans University, which
revealed the latter?s extreme resistance to hosting Phumani Paper on campus. The
University of Johannesburg management?s decision to discontinue the project in its current
form posed challenges that threatened Phumani Paper?s very survival. As a result, since then
Phumani Paper has embarked on a new direction that focuses on market-driven approaches,
although its continued growth is steady, its existence is still quite tenuous, as its sales base

16 See unpublished training manuals and accreditation documentation, KB Archives (PP Draw 3A 12,13,14 and
Draw 3B: File 14a).The MAPPP SETA was placed under administration in 2008 due to mismanagement and all
funding suspended.
17 This is according to Alexio Motsi, the Director of the South African National Archives, B. Marshall (2003: 72),
and Berman and Marshall (2008): KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 1a, 1b).
18 The Minister Pallo Jordan announced in his Budget speech for 2006/7, 2 June 2006; that ?Millions of rands are
to be allocated for job creation in arts and culture sectors such as visual arts (R4 million), crafts (R10 million).
However, a total of R9 million will be invested in creating jobs in archival papermaking?. Cobus van Bosch (July
2006: 2), South African Art Times, Editorial.
118
remains insufficient to support all its enterprises and operations.19
Papermaking as Research: Setting up the Papermaking Research and Development
Unit (PRDU)
An account and analysis of
the history summarized in this introduction follows.

Hand-papermaking started as a small research project linked to the printmaking department
at the former Technikon Witwatersrand. At that point all rag papers for fine art prints in South
Africa were imported, and were therefore very costly. One of the rationales for my founding
the Artist Proof Studio (APS) in 1991 was to make printmaking an affordable and accessible
medium for artists. When I studied for my master?s at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts
in Boston, papermaking was offered as part of the Fine Art curriculum. Because this was not
the case in South Africa, and because imported papers remained prohibitively expensive,
hand-papermaking presented an opportunity for new research and development within the
former Technikon?s Fine Art Department. I therefore involved all my senior printmaking
students in experimenting with papermaking. From 1996 on I was able to support their further
studies through the research funding I had raised. Part of the research was to investigate the
design and manufacture of locally made equipment and tools. In 1997 the Papermaking
Research and Development Unit received funding from the Metropolitan Life inter-university
competition to establish a small papermaking project in Winterveld, and my students became
teachers in this outreach program and those that followed. Ten years later the Winterveld
project, Tswaraganang, is still functioning well and is supporting nine women (Figures 7a and
b).20
The following year, in 1998, I received a research fellowship from the Technikon
Witwatersrand to travel on a research visit to a papermaking project in Ecuador, where I saw
a small village whose livelihood was dependent on the farming of cabuya, or sisal fibre.
Native to the Andes, it had been cultivated for centuries for the weaving of coffee and coco
sacks. Due to industrialization and the evolution of the petrochemical industry, market
demand replaced sisal bags with plastics, and the local sisal industry was negatively
affected. CARE Ecuador recognized the potential of papermaking as a replacement industry
for the cabuya farming communities, and they responded to this problem by establishing a
partnership with Sustainable Uses for Biological Resources (SUBIR) in collaboration with
Rutgers University and Dieu Donn?, a papermaking studio in New York, funded by the

19 Sales figures and growth rates are listed in the published Phumani Paper Annual Reports of 2004 to 2008: KB
Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 1b, c and d).
20 See Phumani Paper website for a profile on Tswaraganang (www.phumanipaper.org.za).
119
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) (Deery and Takahashi 1999:
21). The partnerships ensured that the cabuya fibre that was manually harvested and
decorticated was processed into pulp and paper and exported to the United States (Figures
8a-d). Although the purpose of my journey had been to research handmade papers for
artists, this experience served as the inspiration to propose Phumani Paper as an
appropriate rural industry for processing agri-waste in South Africa. In 1999, through my
research unit, the former Technikon Witwatersrand received its first grant for the technology
transfer for appropriate rural development from the Ford Foundation, and the research
project?s focus then shifted from primarily investigating the production of artists? papers to
craft production.21
Setting up Phumani Paper as a nationwide poverty alleviation program required collaboration
and partnerships between government, higher education, local communities, and the NGO
sector that in the end promoted multi-disciplinary approaches to the creation and
dissemination of knowledge. However, the government was the weak link from the start. In
1999/2000 the National Treasury allocated poverty alleviation funds to most of the Ministries,
but Departments such as Science and Technology had no experience or personnel to
manage these funds. Their primary function had previously been to promote scientific
research and innovation. I was fortunate that the financial officer, George Kgarume, who was
deployed to manage poverty alleviation in the division of Science and Technology, had some
NGO and development experience, and was very supportive of the vision and mission of the
Reconstruction and Development Programme?s philosophy. For the first two years, from
1999/2000 to 2001/2002 he facilitated the installments of payments and assisted with the
Archival paper research became the research project focus of one of my
master?s students, Bronwyn Marshall, from 2002 to 2005 (Figure 9).

I was fortunate to initiate this project when I did. During South Africa?s transitional phase to
democracy post-1994, South African educational policy, through the White Paper of 1997,
directed tertiary institutions to engage with community outreach as part of its Reconstruction
and Development programme. Partially as a legacy of this period, still today, many higher
education institutions list three tenets for academic excellence: learning, research and
community outreach (Perolda and Omar 1997: 88). However, the third element, which I
argue is crucial, is often in practice dismissed or ignored as irrelevant to the primary
objectives of teaching and research. This point is discussed further in Chapter Five.

21 A grant called the Technology Transfer and Training Unit, was awarded in 1999 by the Ford Foundation to
enhance greater community access to Higher Education. See grant proposal in KB Archive (UJ Draw 5: File 11).
120
rigorous reporting requirements. It also helped that this program had the support of Arts
Culture Science and Technology?s Minister at the time, Ben Ngubane (Figure 10).22
The Papermaking Poverty Relief Project (PPRP) built upon the networks created by the
Paper Prayers program (see Chapter Three). The most productive link with government was
Steven Sack, who had supported the Paper Prayers campaign in his capacity as National
Director in the Department of Arts and Culture in 1998 and knew of its extensive community
connections. In 1999 he lobbied the Science Division of DACST to support the PPRP, as it
bridged the divides between technology and craft, science and technology, and had the
potential to form a valuable link between the Science and Art divisions within government.
This was seen as a strength in the first year, however, this became a liability when Arts and
Culture separated acrimoniously from Science and Technology in 2002, and the support links
to the program in the Department of Arts and Culture were severed.

After the four-month pilot in Eshowe from November 1999 to March 2000, R3 million was
granted for a national program. The vision of the Chief Director in the division of Science and
Technology, Marjorie Pyoos, who assisted me in conceptualizing the proposal for the
Papermaking Poverty Relief Project, was that each of the papermaking projects could be
linked to existing industries in each region. She proposed that we target all nine provinces in
South Africa, but subsequently accepted the fact that our existing networks extended to only
seven (Figures 11 organogram and 12 maps).

23
The Division of Science and Technology had close ties to the Higher Education sector, and
the PPRP of the former Technikon Witwatersrand was grouped with the other two Science
Councils: the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Agricultural
Research Council (ARC) as the initiating programs in Poverty Alleviation. The expectation

Some of the challenges that this situation presented were: how could a proposal to establish
hand-papermaking as a new cultural industry be accommodated by a government division
that had science and scientific methodologies as its specialization?; and how could the two
different paradigms of science and technology and arts and culture come together in a
project that was innovative and untested? I argued that the common link was through
research at a higher institute of technology.

22 See J Walker interview with G Kgarume in Berman and Walker (2002: 7). Ngubane found himself in the
Sarafina II scandal in which he gave a significant allocation of the HIV/AIDS budget to Mbongeni Ngema for the
production of Sarafina II and was subsequently deployed as ambassador to Japan in 2001/2.
23 DACST Annual Report 2000/1 KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 1a).
121
was for application and delivery of appropriate technologies, with less focus on the ?softer?
attributes of Arts and Culture. The craft focus of Phumani was often compared to the
perceived more scientific focus of the bull-breeding and beekeeping of the ARC projects and
the agricultural beneficiation projects such as silk, sisal, and hemp projects of the CSIR.

When the papermaking poverty alleviation program was started, it built on the network
established as a result of the Arts and Culture grant received for the Paper Prayers
campaign in 1998. Paper Prayers had initiated five small papermaking facilities to service the
AIDS Awareness Campaign; these included Winterveld, Mmabana Art Centre in the North
West Province, Bushbuck Ridge Youth Centre in Mpumalanga, AidsLink in Hillbrow, and
Artist Proof Studio. These Paper Prayers papermaking stations became the first point of
contact for identifying suitable sites and partnerships around the country; others depended
on existing networks in the cultural and environmental activist sectors.24
Each one of the subsequently established papermaking units has an interesting and
individual story. The opportunity offered to groups to start a new, government-supported
project in an area affected by extreme poverty was exciting. In order to outline some of the
differences between the 21 projects, as well as the challenges of setting up a nationwide
project of this sort, I now briefly discuss the establishment of some of the sites, as well as
their subsequent trajectories. What became evident is that the challenge of finding a one-
size-fits-all roll-out model was totally unrealistic. The government wanted uniformity on
budget expenditure and organizational structure in each province, and could not
accommodate the fact that each group was unique, and even designed their own
constitutions after they received training in the options available to them. The requirements
by government officials also fluctuated annually with the frequent changes in representatives
assigned to the programs. For example, at a particular point one official in the Department of
Science and Technology required that groups register as co-operatives; then two years later
another official recommended close corporations as a more appropriate profit-generating
model.

24 My own networks were through the cultural centres in the nine provinces of the Paper Prayers Campaign and
the environmental networks through colleagues Liz Linsel and Thomas Auf der Heyde.
25 See memos and letters written to Director in DST, Richard Holden arguing for the autonomy of the enterprises.
Mr Holden refused to award Phumani Paper continuance funding because the business plan did not demonstrate
a profit result. To quote from his letter: "If they lend you the money on the strength of this business plan it will be
against 100% collateral of your private assets, which means that if it fails you will lose everything." I responded to
his letter arguing that poverty alleviation funding was not equivalent to corporate business practice. See
correspondence: KB Archive (PP Draw 3B: File 5).
Such interference on the issue of type of legal registration by government officials,
caused confusion in Phumani Paper, but the training that each group received empowered
them to make their own choices about their enterprise structure. In this particular situation
122
Phumani Paper groups were able to reject the attempts by DST to impose their particular
whims, but this was not always the case.

Phumani Paper Projects: A Brief Introduction to the Sites
What follows is a brief introduction to most of the sites that have been operating for at least
six to eight years, and which have managed to sustain themselves for at least four years
after government funding officially ended.26
The Pilot project: Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal
The site at Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal was set up as the pilot project made possible by funding
awarded to the Papermaking Research and Development Unit at the former Technikon
Witwatersrand. In September 1999 the Division of Science and Technology contacted the
Technikon Witwatersrand Research Office regarding a proposal I had submitted to set up a
Technology Transfer and Training program for rural development using papermaking. I had
been able to conceptualize the technology transfer program through a small grant from the
Ford Foundation for improving community access and engagement in Higher Education. The
then Minister of the Department of Art, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST), Ben
Ngubane, required evidence of job creation prospects to present in his report on new cultural
industries growth strategies at the opening of Parliament in February 2000. In October 1999,
my papermaking research unit was awarded a grant of R250 000 from available poverty
alleviation funds in DACST to set up a craft and paper packaging unit in KwaZulu-Natal.
Eshowe was chosen due to personal networks of a colleague from Artist Proof Studio, Cara
Walters, who had family ties within the Eshowe Teacher Training College. The area also met
the directive of investigating the possibility of using local vegetation ? the plentiful sugarcane
leaves in the region ? and of supporting the rural potters whose livelihoods were threatened
by the re-routing of roads in the Gingindlovu and Tugela Valley region (Figures 13a and b).

The purpose of providing a brief profile of each
group is to try to understand the lessons they offer in terms of surviving government-funded
development, as well as the creative solutions evolved by the groups in their ability to survive
the inconsistencies and disappointments of funding and organizational support. The biggest
challenge of development is considered to be economic sustainability. I am proposing
instead, that in the case of Phumani Paper, it is the resilience to survive.

26Others listed in the organogram of 2002 (Fig 10), such as the Flower Valley Trust and Morning Star, were taken
over by local trusts and were not managed by Phumani Paper. Other product and paper groups in KwaZulu-Natal,
the Western Cape and Gauteng merged into one group. When the additional five CSIR groups joined Phumani
Paper, the number of groups that Phumani reported on to government remained approximately twenty. See
Phumani Paper Annual Reports 2000-2008. KB Archive (PP Draw 3B: File 1a-e).
123
The brief required packaging for the small ukamba pots to be produced as Zulu cultural
artifacts for the tourist industry .27
Papermaking sites for the regional provinces: Gauteng
As will be described in Chapter Five, my senior students in
1999 were all involved with the design and development of these items, and in 2002 a
master?s student, Jeannot Ladeira, investigated this project for his thesis research. He
subsequently improved the design of the packaging through silk-screened images on the
sugarcane paper and board boxes, and researched the addition of paper clay, adding paper
pulp to the clay body of the pots to make them lighter and more durable (Figures 14 and 15).

In nearby Endlovini, ceramic artist Mary Anne Orr, was supporting an HIV/AIDS home-based
care clinic and doing craft product development from the old mission hospital in this poor and
rural village. Phumani Paper partnered with her project in order to link the papermaking with
the pottery groups. Fundi Biyela, who was assisting in the Endlovini project at the time,
subsequently took over the cluster of paper, pottery and craft projects, which originally
supported 33 women and five men. From 2003 to the present, Biyela has been the KwaZulu-
Natal regional coordinator for Phumani Paper. She still supports the six potters in Endlovini
and the six women papermakers at KZN Paper and Craft, now housed at the Fort Nongqayi
Museum Village in Eshowe (Figures 16 and 17).

This initial project has proved to be an extraordinary example of resilience. The group has
lost over ten members to disease in the past seven years. Only two of the original founding
women remain, and the turnover of new group members is high. Biyela, who has witnessed
the devastating consequences of silence and denial of AIDS in her community, has refused
to let the KwaZulu-Natal papermaking group collapse. Through her own remarkable creativity
and determination in surviving a series of disasters such a floods and burglaries, as well as
numerous losses, she keeps the dream of the group alive by tirelessly training new members
and maintaining her relationships with the KwaZulu-Natal crafters association that keeps a
steady flow of tourist markets (See portrait of Biyela, Women on Purpose: Figure 22 Chapter
Six).

In Gauteng the initial concept for setting up papermaking poverty alleviation projects was to
approach informal settlements and to establish sites using shipping containers, which are
often deployed as mobile, pre-fabricated offices. These container-sites were to function as
waste paper recycling depots. People could bring their waste paper and board to the unit,

27 The ukamba pot is a traditional Zulu beer container produced in the Tugela Valley region. The women potters
developed non-functional miniatures suitable for the tourist industry.
124
which would then pulp the paper using their recycle beaters or their hands to mulch the wet
paper soaking in buckets. The idea was that the units could produce products such as paper
plates, egg cartons, and paper goods for local use.

However, what subsequently transpired differed from the proposal. The three units
established in Gauteng each adapted to their particular situations. For example, AIDSLINK
was a centre for treatment and support for HIV-positive people, many of whom had been
thrown out of their homes as a result of their illness. They needed a form of income
generation that was not too strenuous. Having produced paper sheets for the Paper Prayers
campaign, they were trained by two members of my team of students from APS and TWR to
dye their paper in a range of colours and to make stationery and cards. The occupational
therapy unit in the clinic assisted the group in packaging and selling the packets of cards and
envelopes. Now called Thandanani, the group are still in business as a production unit for
Phumani Paper, and situated in a workshop on the University of Johannesburg campus. Of
the original members who started ten years ago on the original Paper Prayers project, two
women are still alive and productive (Figures 18 and 19). In an interview in July 2008
Gertrude Mngadi and Selina Pule, the two founding members of the AIDSLINK group from
1998, testified that they are still alive because of the pride of work they experience in being
skilled at papermaking and craft.28
Continuing with Gauteng Province, the group Kopenang, in Tsakane, Ekurhuleni
municipality, was initiated as an embroidery project for the Paper Prayers campaign and
managed by Sister Sheila Flynn. As Sister Sheila had recently graduated with her BTech in
Fine Art and was part of the paper research team, she was hired by the Papermaking
Research and Development Unit and then Phumani Paper for an additional six years as a
training coordinator for the four projects in the Gauteng region. In her role as a training
facilitator for art teachers at the former Technikon Fine Art Department, (the Teacher

Another Gauteng Province site, Twanano, was set up through the environmental activist
networks of Liz Linsell, who subsequently became the Phumani Paper Manager and then
Deputy Director. She established a link with the Eco-Cities project, which was working in the
informal settlement of Ivory Park in Midrand, to set up a recycling centre and co-operative.
The case study of establishing Twanano papermaking will be discussed in greater detail later
in the chapter (Figures 20a-c).

28 See transcripts of interviews by Jane Hassinger and Kim Berman, July 2008, Women on Purpose KB Archive
(UJ Draw 5: File 5).
125
Training course is expanded on in Chapter Five), she further mentored the training team of
Artist Proof Studio graduates and the former Technikon Fine Arts graduates as qualified
trainers.29 She expanded the Kopenang embroidery collective into a Paper Project that was
attached to an HIV/AIDS support centre for orphans and vulnerable children, called
Sithand?izingane Care Project, and managed by the Dominican Sisters in Tsakane (Figures
21a and b).30
North West Province Sites
In 2006 a group of four empowered women of Kopenang papermaking broke
away from what they experienced as the restrictive Catholic mission climate. The Dominican
sisters wanted to merge the women?s collective into a larger Community Trust, an action that
would have resulted in the paper project office bearers losing their positions as Directors of
their own enterprise. The four women then regrouped and registered as an independent
close corporation called Thutukani (Figure 22a). Phumani Paper subsequently received a
small grant from the Department of Agriculture to set up the group on municipal ground in the
township of Tsakane. A container was purchased, and today they embroider cloth covers for
handmade notebooks and make eco-fuel bricks from recycled waste fibre and paper (Figure
22b).

What this case reveals is that in spite of a supportive environment in which the Dominican
sisters provided stability for the group, the breakaway group of women, who had experienced
their own empowerment through their range of business and craft skills, were not permitted
to exercise agency. Guaranteed sustainability proved to be less important to the group than
the freedom to chart the course of their own enterprise.

The North West Province also enjoyed strong connections established by the Paper Prayers
Campaign. Louis Muir, the art instructor at Mmabana Community Centre in Lehurutse,
offered to house the small wiz-mixer, vat and screens acquired from the Paper Prayers
campaign in his classroom. Through Paper Prayers we had also developed a partnership
with Joyce Sithole, who had accompanied me on my trip to the Women?s Museum in Bonn
for the Paper Prayers exhibition (See Chapter Three).31
Sithole and the Paper Prayers organizing committee in Lehurutse agreed to coordinate the
papermaking project in the North West, and to provide a group that was informally meeting

29 Some of the original APS graduates of the teacher training course are still working as trainers. For example
Grace Tshikuvhe graduated from APS in 1999 and has been contracted by Phumani Paper as a lead paper-
trainer from the program?s inception to the present. See interview KB Archive (UJ Draw 5: File 5).
30 See website for further information (http://www.kopenang.org).
31 Frauen Museum, Bonn, Germany Paper Prayers Exhibition from 8 March to 8 April 2000. See catalogue and
publicity materials KB Archive (PPR Draw 2: File 7).
126
with a venue in a prefabricated classroom attached to the Mmabana Cultural Centre. The
group, called Bosele, has subsequently received numerous awards for community building,
and has been allocated funds from the local municipality to move into an industrial venue.
The women worked in very poor conditions for many years and have overcome enormous
adversity. They make paper and packaging from the plentiful river reed plant fibre in the
area. Perhaps the fact that they are from the same community and are a self-formed group of
participants, (and five of the original participants are still part of the original group today),
accounts for their remarkable resilience and strong local leadership. Letta Mbuli, a graduate
of APS, lived in the area, and we appointed her to assist with the training of the group for the
first year. She went on to receive an independent grant to set up a small project in her
neighbouring community, but maintains links to Bosele in her current position with the local
government division of Arts Culture and Heritage (Figures 23a-c). For many of the women
who left their papermaking groups in order to take up other jobs, their choices can be
regarded as expressions of mobility rather than a failure of the enterprises to hold onto
members.

In addition to Bosele, there were two other North West groups. Tswaraganang in Winterveld
was the original outreach project of the Papermaking Research and Development Unit, which
had then expanded through the Papermaking Poverty Relief Program (PPRP) funds (Figures
24a-c).32

The second group, Amogolang, primarily elderly women from the village of
Mmakau, was also linked to the Sisters of Mercy adult basic education and training program.
The members were also trained by Sister Sheila Flynn and students. Amogolang finally
closed down in 2007 after many years of struggling to survive with no access to markets and
no subsidized funding. Yet the resilience of one surviving member of the group, Hermina
Sephati, (as described in Chapter Six), has found a way to continue the legacy of the group
through volunteering as a member at the Tswaranagang group in Winterveld (Figures 25a
and b).

Madikwe Sisal is the fourth Northwest Province group. It is one of the projects that in 2003/4
the government required Phumani Paper to take over from the Council for Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR). Situated on a sisal farm managed by the Department of
Agriculture, the group produces sisal pulp sheets for the archival paper research mill. It still
receives financial support from the CSIR and government, and is not dependent on sales to
sustain its operations (Figures 26a-c).

32 The Winterveld area has since been incorporated into Gauteng after a regional border dispute.
127
The Free State site
To establish projects in the Free State, Chief Director of the Department of Science and
Technology proposed linking to the Mine Workers Development Agency, which was setting
up income-generation projects for thousands of retrenched mineworkers. The mining
corporations had committed to setting up small jewellery-making initiatives, and the Director
suggested that the papermaking projects attached to these could provide jewellery boxes.
Meetings with Anglo Gold and other mining houses in and around the town of Welkom
resulted in impressive promises, but absolutely no follow-through on delivery. The former
Technikon Jewellery Department assisted Phumani Paper in developing innovative products
and packaging. The initial link was with a large mining company in 2001 which sponsored a
series of workshops for designers to work with my papermaking students. From this my
Master?s student Mandy Coppes developed a sophisticated range of high fibre ?African-feel?
products (Figures 28a and b). The promise from the promotions director of the mining
company was that the paper projects in the North West and the Free State would get the
orders of thousands of boxes per month to showcase this new range.33

However, this did not
materialize, because the company used Coppes?s designs to manufacture the boxes
commercially.

The Kutloano Paper Project, set up initially in an old mining warehouse provided by the
Mineworkers Development Agency on an abandoned mine outside Welkom, sustained fifteen
dedicated women who had to walk approximately one to two hours to come to work each day
(Figure 28a). Despite years of promises from the viable jewellery industry, no consistent
market has yet been established for this group. Five members of the original group have
since relocated to a small business centre closer to the township of Thabong. Welkom is
approximately three hours from Johannesburg, and so the student training team was able to
make monthly visits to the group to maintain enthusiasm and commitment. For the first four
years PPRP/Phumani Paper was able to provide sufficient orders for this small, dedicated
group of women to sustain their monthly income. Some of the women in the group have
since achieved further qualifications by completing two levels of accredited training and have
plans to convert their mill to produce archival paper. However, in spite of funding
commitments from government, delays and lack of follow-through have suspended that
vision of expansion (Figure 28b).

33 See correspondence with the Faculty Dean regarding the jewellery project. Mandy Copes and the PRDU
developed designs for the ?Richie Man? and related products which were used in the mining companies
subsequent commercial branding, but Phumani was never acknowledged or paid. KB Archive (PP Draw 3B: 5 and
UJ Draw 5: 4).
128
Sites in the Eastern Cape
For the Eastern Cape, Pyoos proposed linking to Working for Water, an invasive vegetation-
clearing program in the Western and Eastern Cape provinces. The pilot project in Eshowe,
KwaZulu-Natal had hired a young environmental conservationist, Jessica Wigley, who was
training local villagers in KwaZulu-Natal to replant nxema grass. Her family had set up an
organic farm outside Mdantsane township, East London, and offered a rent-free venue on
the farm to assist job creation for the unemployed workers. The active Working for Water
program in the region, as well as the plentiful agri-waste from local farms, offered an
opportunity to manufacture paper packaging for organic vegetable produce. A venue had to
be built onto an available farm shed that would be suitable for a mill. The farm workers linked
to the local public works program and assisted with the construction of the building. The
group called themselves Rising Sun, and manufactured paper from recycled waste and
black-wattle fibre. Their primary market turned out to be the neighbouring camp for the
international backpacking tourists. The group makes stationery with African flora and fauna
motifs stamped onto their environmentally friendly black-wattle paper. Because of the
distances from Mdantsane township to the farm and to the markets, the co-op has recently
restructured and moved into an urban venue in East London attached to a craft gallery outlet
(Figures 29 and 30).

A second project, Lilo Papermaking in Bathurst, is part of the pineapple farming industry
where masses of pineapple fibre was being decorticated by the CSIR textile-processing
plant. Pineapple leaf fibre has excellent potential for archival paper manufacture and was
introduced to Phumani Paper by Asao Shimura, master paper and shifu artist from the
Philippines. I had received a research grant from the National Research Foundation to bring
Shimura, a world expert in pineapple fibre for applications in papermaking, to work with the
papermaking research unit to build knowledge and capacity in archival plant fibres34

34 Shifu is a textile woven from pineapple fibre paper sheets that are carefully cut into strips and spun. This
ancient Japanese art was investigated as a viable industry for the Eastern Cape to convert agri-waste into paper
and textiles.
(Figures
31a-c). The CSIR?s failed attempt at setting up papermaking was passed onto Phumani
Paper in 2004, and Phumani hired the Zimbabwean hand-papermaking entrepreneur Walter
Ruprecht to train the group to process the pineapple leaf fibre into paper. This group
collapsed in 2005 as a result of the complex dynamics of the pineapple farming industry and
lack of group cohesiveness.

129
The Limpopo Province sites
Limpopo Province in the far north of South Africa is an area known to support a vibrant
community of Venda and TshiTsonga wood carving and ceramic artists and crafters. Paper
Prayers has a long history in the Giyani, Elim and Venda regions through contacts I have
established there with artists and youth activists. A youth centre was being developed as part
of an adult literacy centre by an Elim-based activist and tour guide with Ribola Tourism,
Aldrin Ndaleni, who was pleased to be hired as the project manager of the group that
became Komenani Paper Arts and Crafts. As Elim was within a government-identified
poverty node, and the initiative was focused on providing skills for unemployed youth, we
formed a partnership with the Pfuxanani Youth Centre, which identified twenty young women
who were eager to become part of the project. The Papermaking Poverty Relief Program
was able to construct a building suitable for hand-papermaking and craft production through
the active public works program building houses in the area. The resulting plumbing and
electricity that was installed at the Pfuxanani Youth Centre contributed essential
infrastructure that improved youth access and increased activity through the establishment of
a computer training centre.35
The other Limpopo sites, Chloe Sisal, now called Dikopaneng (Figures 34a and b), and
Lebone Papermaking (Figures 35a and b) were also trained to hand process agri-waste
linked to agricultural co-operatives. Walter Ruprecht, Zimbabwe-based paper entrepreneur
and trainer, and director of a successful papermaking company called Mapepa in Zimbabwe,
was contracted by Phumani Paper over three years (2003-2006) to include Phumani Paper
sites in his extensive international market. He trained producers to manufacture his style of
?handmade paper of Africa?.
After three years, twelve out of the original twenty young
women, very empowered with their own business elected to leave the Youth Centre and
sourced an independent venue at another tourist site at Akanani. They elected their own unit
manager, Felicia Vukeya, who subsequently became the regional coordinator. Komenani
retains strong ties with Ribola Tourism, which enables the group, (now comprising seven
members) to sustain their business. Komenani uses banana-stem fibre to produce
indigenous paper, folders and other products that primarily service the conference and tourist
industry (Figures 32 and 33).

35 Dr Gillian Crawford, Director of Educate Develop Learn (EDL) Foundation, a partner of APS, was introduced to
this site in 2002 and subsequently sourced funding from Johnson and Johnson International to install twenty
computers and learning programs into the Centre. Pfuxanani has now expanded to a vibrant community centre for
youth and still supported by Johnson and Johnson International.
This market however, did not materialize as the Phumani
groups could not produce paper for the same low prices as the Zimbabwean producers.
36 See website for further information (www.africanhandmadepaper.com).
130
Chloe Sisal is a supplier of sisal paper and pulp sheets for the university-based Archival
Mill.37
The Western Cape Paper sites
Lebone Papermaking in Makopane closed in 2007 due to poor markets, lack of
cohesiveness, and inadequate business practice. The range of successes and failures of the
different groups reflected the regional dynamics. For example Lebone papermaking relied on
the sympathies of the conservative white Afrikaans town formerly known as Potgietersrus to
sell their products. A deeply racist and repressive relationship between the black and white
communities made the capacities of trust and empowerment in the group challenging, and
their continued dependence on Phumani Paper prevented them from achieving their own
agency to develop effective leadership (Figures 35a and b).

Siyazama Papermaking in the Western Cape consists of a group of ten participants who are
part of the Kwa-no Themba Centre for the mentally and physically challenged in Khayelitsha.
Part of the government?s poverty alleviation strategy was aimed at reaching at least 10%
disabled participants. Phumani has managed to sustain that quota through its partnership
with the Kwa-no Themba Centre. This has been one of the most consistent and stable
groups, due to the fact that each member receives a monthly disability grant. Eight of the
original founding members are still active in the group. This phenomenon emerges in the
impact assessment conducted for the Ford Foundation. They are a highly skilled group in
spite of their disabilities, and make brightly coloured recycled papers (Figures 36a-d).38

An experienced papermaker, Cathy Stanley, who served as the first papermaking trainer of
my University of Johannesburg students in 1998/9, moved to Cape Town in 2000 and
became the trainer for both Siyazama and the second Western Cape project, Kuyasa. She
later handed the training over to Joseph Diliza, a papermaking entrepreneur who managed
the Siyazama group for over three years, and now serves on the Kwa-no Themba Board of
Trustees. The group continues to makes stationery products and has a small local market,
but because of their disabilities they are dependent on outside agencies to expose their
products to market (Figure 36a-d). The station manager, Nomnquweniso Skundla (who has
managed to develop a method of making paper with one arm) ensures her group?s visibility
and has represented Phumani Paper at three different sittings of Parliament (See figures with
Minister Ngubane, Figure 10, and Deputy Minister Hanekom, Figure 36d).

37 Pulp sheets, also known as linters, are pre-processed fibre that are re-processed into finer pulp with additives
such as magnesium and calcium carbonate to neutralise the acidic content to be pH-neutral.
38 In the impact assessment tables Siyazama show the most stable numbers, in that 90% of the members are still
part of the original group that started in 2000.
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The Case-study of Kuyasa Papermaking in the Western Cape
Having outlined some success stories of survival, I now present a case study of one of
Phumani Paper?s casualties, Kuyasa Papermaking in the Western Cape, in greater depth, as
it demonstrates the crucial role that culture plays in sustainability. Often it is the failures and
weaknesses within a program that offer the most valuable lessons for the designing of future,
more successful development interventions. Initially, Kuyasa, situated in Kommetjie, Cape
Town, was one of the most economically viable Phumani Paper enterprises. The plant fibre
used was extracted from the plentiful invasive Port Jackson willow. The clearance program
managed by the government public works program Working for Water, created many
informal jobs; for instance, street vendors sold bales of wood cut from the strands of
vegetation.39
The group of twelve members (originally fifteen), had market links with the wineries in
Stellenbosch, which ordered wine cylinders for gift packaging in order to demonstrate their
corporate support for environmental management (clearing of invasive plants) and poverty
alleviation through job creation.
Kuyasa recycled the inner bark of this invasive tree to create craft products.
The outer bark of the plant was boiled to use the tannin in the plant to produce a rich walnut-
coloured dye. The papers and products were stained with the dye, and simple geometrical
patterns were stamped or stencilled with household bleach to form elegant African-style
patterning of the products (Figures 37a-d).

40 The project supported twelve members through the income
from their monthly sales to the robust tourist industry in Cape Town. The group?s income
averaged R15 000-R20 000 per month, an impressive sum that provided a healthy monthly
allowance for each member.41

39 Flower Valley Trust set up a papermaking project on an indigenous flower farm in 2001. Working for Water had
an invasive vegetation clearing program and contracted Phumani Paper to assist the group make paper from the
invasive Port Jackson willow plant (See Figures 38a and b).
40 The group?s numbers dropped to nine members in 2006.
41 See PP Annual reports 2000-2006 (income graphs of each project). KB Archives (PP Draw 3A: Files 1a-f).

The common challenge for all Phumani Paper groups has been access to markets, as many
of them are situated in or near identified poverty nodes. This challenge of ?economic
participation? was not a problem for Kuyasa, however, which had more orders than the
members could keep up with. So why did this group fail? I would propose that this situation
arose as a result of a particularly South African racial and cultural issue that should have
been addressed from the start.

132
The participants in the Kuyasa group, in line with government?s commitment to cultural
diversity, were drawn from two communities: Ocean View, a mixed-race or ?Cape-coloured?
community as they describe themselves, and Masiphumelele township, a primarily Xhosa-
speaking group. Papermaking participants were drawn from an adult basic literacy centre
that operated in the townships, as well as unemployed workers from public works projects.
From twenty members in the first year of the project, a group of twelve remained with the
enterprise for five years. During that time, they moved to an industrial site for small
businesses in between the two communities. The group participated in a mentorship
program, with Serving Emerging Enterprises (SEE), led by the University of Cape Town
Graduate School of Business. The opportunities for success were in place and yet the
questions as to why the project did not succeed remain.

From the start there was conflict between the two groups of Afrikaans-speakers and black,
Xhosa-speakers and it seemed to be insoluble. The mixed-race group members wanted to
clock in and out each day and wanted to earn a basic wage. This mode of work is a common
phenomenon among the historic fishing industry in the Cape from which this group came.
They were unhappy that their income fluctuated according to sales, and were highly
suspicious of their black colleagues. The Xhosa-speaking group members were more willing
to be entrepreneurial, but were reluctant to mix with their Afrikaans-speaking colleagues.
Because of the complete lack of trust between the groups, they elected two leaders to
represent the interests of each clique and divided themselves into two groups separating the
papermakers, the Xhosa-speaking members, from the crafters. Phumani facilitated
numerous group discussions, and even hired consultants to facilitate conflict-resolution
interventions. These seemed to be able to maintain equilibrium for months at a time, but the
group?s problems were never resolved. An outside supervisor was just able to manage
production, while trying to keep tensions at a minimum. What kept the group going for so
long was a shared passion for paper and product making, and a commitment and pride in
their attractive products that were well received.42

42 Records of the outcomes and managers? reports are well documented. The Annual Report of 2006 quotes
Kuyasa members describing their successes and conflicts. See KB Archives (PP Draw 3a: File 1f).
However, when the group registered as an
independent co-operative in 2005, and the members became co-owners of the business,
group cohesion plummeted even further. A high drop-out rate led to mistrust and anger, and
the members began stealing money from each other. The elected leaders of the group fired
each other, and the project imploded. The enterprise was closed down and the assets were
eventually passed on to Siyazama. The lesson here is clear: development projects that do
not build on the existing cultural context, and acknowledge conflicts from the outset, are likely
133
to fail. Cooperation amidst diversity cannot be imposed; it must be fostered as a desirable
goal by the community involved. Open dialogue, contestation and accommodation needed to
accompany the training from the start.

The lessons of the Phumani Paper case studies support the necessity for organizations and
NGOs involved in community development to define what participants can do together to
address the particular aspirations, needs or problems of a given community. Appadurai calls
this approach ?deep democracy,? whereby specific forms of ?self governance, self-
mobilization and self-articulation are vital to changing the conditions under which activists
among the poor are changing the terms of recognition, globally and locally for the poor?
(Appadurai 2002:21). The following section aims to provide the social context for and
analysis of approaches to poverty alleviation that are essential for achieving deep
democracy.

Poverty Alleviation: Linking Practice with Theory

Phumani Paper: Poverty alleviation project or small business?43
Phumani Paper was set up according to a social welfare or poverty relief project model that
reflected Government?s commitment through the RDP to a social protection framework that
would provide for people?s livelihoods. Each member of the projects received a wage of
R450 per month for approximately two years. This ensured that the numbers of participants,
or reporting requirements for ?jobs created,? reached the ministry's minimum of 460 jobs
created from a new cultural industry in one year. However, after a two-year period of
subsidized wages, government came up with a new requirement that the project become
entrepreneurial. In other words the projects should become profitable businesses and sell
enough to sustain the fledgling micro-enterprises by the following year. The need for the
groups to become entrepreneurial was not stated by government at the beginning, it reflects

43 CARE Framework ( McCaston and Rewald 2004) provides a range of useful definitions and distinctions:
Poverty Alleviation: is a term associated with anti-poverty campaigns that are welfare focused. The term
alleviation means to make something less severe or more tolerable. The approach addresses the symptoms of
poverty and not the underlying causes.
Poverty Reduction: is a term associated with the ?needs-based? international development era. Reduce means
to make something smaller. As with poverty alleviation, the focus is on reducing poverty and not on eliminating
poverty.
Poverty Eradication: is an approach to international development that focuses on addressing the structural
causes of poverty (not merely the symptoms). It aims to empower the poor to the extent that they help to
determine and shape the poverty eradication agenda (also refer to www.careinternational.org.uk/146/urban-
poverty/urban-poverty.html).
134
a change in approach from the framework of Reconstruction and Development (RDP) to the
neoliberal policies of the Mbeki administration.44
This entrepreneurial model, however, assumes a market-orientation. The division of Science
and Technology in government had made a significant capital investment in the form of
equipment infrastructure and training, and Phumani Paper as the implementing agent had to
try to retro-fit the project to a market model. A project that was initially created to support
skills training and capacity building suddenly had to create markets for the products
produced. Unfortunately, the handmade paper craft products Phumani Paper had designed
were directed at a tourist market that was not competitive with comparable Chinese and
Taiwanese imports.

45 To make matters worse, there was no budget allocation for marketing
during the first three years of poverty alleviation funding. The expectation of economic
sustainability after the second year of funding support was thus completely unrealistic.46
This analysis implies that eradicating poverty would depend on supporting conditions to
achieve a just and equitable society. According to the holistic framework devised by CARE

This example illustrates the fundamental contradiction between social and economic
development. Hein Marais has identified this contradiction in his analysis of the ANC?s neo-
liberal poverty alleviation policies. He argues:
ANC?s doomed strategy led the party to dispense with an emphasis on state-led
growth and social expenditure that was at the core of the Reconstruction and
Development Program (RDP). The promise of the RDP was rejected in favour of the
pro-business Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) program, betraying the
ANC's core constituency, the working class poor. In this view, because the ANC had
failed to build a sufficiently strong and disciplined popular movement, it was unable to
wrest control of the economy from white capital. Instead, the ANC was forced to focus
its efforts on control of the state and to appease capital. This balance of forces led the
ANC to reject its initial strategy of ?growth through redistribution? as outlined in the
early versions of the RDP. Instead, the ANC bent over backwards to accommodate
the demands of national and global capital (Marais 1998: 284).

44 The observation of the excessively top-down approach by government is supported in a paper on ?Institutional
Impacts of a Livelihood Approach on Development Interventions? by Goldman, Marumo and Toner (2002):
? following the democratic dispensation in 1994 there was a need from government to include citizens
in the conception and implementation of policies and programmes that would help alleviate poverty.
Nevertheless, a shift from a paternalistic to a participatory development approach has not been easy for
government systems and implementing authorities. Many officials in all three tiers of government
recognise the importance of active participation of communities in development interventions, but the
main challenge has always been the means to that end. At national level many interventions and
programmes are conceived exclusively by policy makers and top government officials, and filtered down
to provinces for implementation. This is perhaps caused by an emerging trend of the central government
assuming a think-tank and supervisory role to provinces (Goldman et al. 2002: 23-24).
45 A market analysis was conducted by consultant Nicole Shaw in 2004. See document in KB Archives (PP Draw
3B: File 10).
46 An unpublished paper ?Papermaking as a Tool for Poverty Relief? Joslyn Walker (Berman and Walker 2005)
explains this further. KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 1b).
135
International, this would entail: improving social positions; expanding the opportunities and
options available to the poor to ensure that livelihoods are secure; improving human and
material conditions; and promoting just and equitable social and government institutions that
can promote and protect the rights of citizens and create a sound enabling environment
(McCaston and Rewald 2004: 7).

The concept of developmental social welfare was first outlined in South Africa in the
Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) in 1994 and is embedded in the White
Paper on Social Welfare, gazetted in February 1996 and adopted in 1997. This approach
described a welfare system ?which facilitates the development of human capacity and self-
reliance within a caring and enabling socio-economic environment? (Department of Social
Welfare 1996). In arguing for ?the equitable allocation and distribution of resources,? the
White Paper concluded that ?social development and economic development are therefore
interdependent and mutually reinforcing.? The guiding philosophy and ethos of the RDP and
the White Paper invoke the cultural concept of ubuntu, which signals the importance of
cultural norms and values, particularly the principle of caring and mutual interdependence, to
the process of development. Elsewhere, in its ?Agenda for Action,? the policy emphasizes the
need for government programs to ensure the realization of citizens? ?dignity, safety and
creativity.?

This framework, formulated under the Mandela government, is in direct contrast to the ANC?s
neo-liberal Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy, and, for that matter, to most
people?s experience of the government?s delivery of services. As Hein Marais points out, the
ANC government stopped subscribing to the RDP approach, which in many ways accounts
for the reductive definitions of sustainable development in the government?s poverty
alleviation programs. The government?s requirements for the evaluation of these programs is
measurable solely in terms of economic indicators and not in terms of social gains. Its
reporting formats are indicative of this focus that is entirely on economic delivery. For
example, programs are required to report quantitatively on assets, (building, infrastructure,
equipment), the number of small micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs) supported, income
received by beneficiaries, numbers of training days, and demographics.47
An interesting systems analysis can be applied to this government?s formulation of poverty
alleviation, which reveals a notable absence of any substantive concern with sustainable
The emphasis is
on statistics, not people.

47 See DST report format on their website: http://www.dst.gov.za/ and KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: Files 1 a-d).
136
development, or with the principles of the Reconstructive Development Programme approach
outlined in the White Paper. In a systems theory approach, as defined by system theorists
such as Fritjof Capra (1996), Immanuel Wallerstein (1991) and Ilya Prigogine (1984), the
government reporting systems would be classified as ?Newtonian,? in that they are
rationalistic, mechanistic, and are comprised of finite parts that are intended to fit together to
form a whole. In this paradigm, the government?s approach would aim towards a place of
equilibrium. Yet, according to open systems theory, equilibrium is the place where things die.
They are no longer in dynamic imbalance. Equilibrium maintains the status quo and looks for
a formula to achieve replication of its parts (Capra 1996: 48). Phumani Paper?s development
program in many ways fought against this rationalistic approach. Rather, Phumani Paper
resembled a ?chaotic model?,48
The White Paper on Social Welfare (1996) was developed in a context of general optimism
about the ability of the state to lead a process of transformation, and faith in the democratic
process. Indeed, the notion of ?partnership? between state and civil society runs through the
entire policy. ?Partnerships? also signalled the start of a process of ?outsourcing? some
aspects of the delivery of key services (Hassim 2006: 11). I would argue with Hassim (2006)
that in spite of this ideology, the increasing centralization of macroeconomic decision-making
undermined the assumptions of consultative, participatory decision-making assumed by the
White Paper. In the case of Phumani, this manifested as micro-management directives from
government that required the implementing agencies to bypass the consultative participatory
decision-making with community groups. Examples include the requirement imposed by DST
to register community units as legal enterprises, and the requirement to take over the failed
CSIR projects and convert them into papermaking enterprises, in order to qualify for
continued funding. In the following section I examine the government directive forcing a
that was dynamic, innovative, creative, and unpredictable.
This was the necessary result of meaningful response to the challenge in the various White
Papers that call for social justice, human rights, transparency, and accountability.

If one accepts the description of communities as open, complex and fluid systems, then they
are dynamic, continually contested and always in a process of mutual accommodation. The
concept of open systems arguably is contrary to the traditional mode of development, which
is top-down; instead, development is understood as a process of self-understanding, ?the
way the community explains itself to itself.? The result of self-understanding is that ?the
culture of apathy is heavily disabled? (Douglas 2004: 88).

48 This reference to chaos theory pertains particularly to the underlying notion that small occurrences significantly
affect the outcomes of seemingly unrelated events.

137
merger of the CSIR projects with Phumani Paper as a case study in order to illustrate my
analysis.

CSIR Case study
Managing Phumani Paper at times required responding to one crisis after another, and most
often, creativity and improvisation became the only processes available for problem solving.
One of the more significant problems was Phumani Paper?s forced partnership with the
CSIR. This was fraught with, mistrust, competitiveness, and at times and harmful
relationships. I analyse this case study here in order to reveal how government, in some
instances, has overlooked the needs of the community stakeholders who should be regarded
as the primary beneficiaries, and therefore, in my opinion has failed to achieve its stated goal
of poverty alleviation.

The Science and Technology Division of DACST awarded three research institutions poverty
relief funding in 2000: The CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) R25 million,
ARC (Agricultural Research Council) R7 million, and the Technikon Witwatersrand (now
University of Johannesburg) R3 million. The Research Councils, both parastatal
organizations, were in the process of institutional transformation required by the new political
dispensation. All three were previously Afrikaans National Party-allied institutions that had
undertaken research allied to the interests of upholding the apartheid government. The
fundamentally conservative researchers in the scientific and engineering fields in these
institutions had, it appeared, no prior experience with community development. Delivery was
therefore extremely poor. For example, while the PPRP delivered 460 jobs and 21 projects in
its first year in order to qualify for continued funding, the CSIR and ARC established fewer
than ten projects with a larger budget.

Furthermore, inexperienced young black project managers were hired and were encouraged
to collaborate with Phumani Paper. Three years into the program Phumani Paper discovered
that, as the agricultural and textile beneficiation projects had been unsuccessful, the CSIR
had bought a paper beater from Phumani Paper?s engineer, Antonio Moreno, and had used
their allocation of equipment funding to pay their in-house engineers to replicate nine more
machines at four times the scale (Figure 36). They then tried to replicate Phumani Paper?s
papermaking equipment such as presses, vats and blankets, and subsequently delivered this
equipment, which had not been requested, to the nine national sites where the Department
of Agriculture was funding agri-processing projects. However, the CSIR?s over-enlarged
equipment did not function, and some of the sites had no electricity, making the beaters
138
redundant. I perceived other aspects of their reporting on financial management as similarly
misguided. For example, rental for workshop space was, in some cases, paid for three years
in advance. Community salaries were also paid upfront to members, but there was
insufficient training for the groups to operate (Figures 39-41).

Furthermore, members from the agricultural co-operatives at Madikwe in the North West
Province, Richards Bay in KwaZulu-Natal, Chloe Sisal in Limpopo and Sodwana Bay crafters
in KwaZulu-Natal, were flown to the Eastern Cape and accommodated in a hotel for two
weeks to attend training at the CSIR headquarters in East London. In this way, the annual
budget was spent on training and travel. The groups were then flown back to the sites and
required to start their own projects. However, they not only had insufficient experience, but
also lacked some critical equipment such as papermaking moulds and screens. The trainers
employed by the CSIR to set up papermaking at their headquarters were two assistants
trained by Durant Sihlali at Amakondo Paper Studio in Johannesburg (Figure 42). They were
offered lucrative full-time salaries and accommodation, and they and their families were
relocated to the Eastern Cape. Because the Moreno Hollander Beater had been patented,
we requested that the royalties of the CSIR copied design be acknowledged and paid for.
Ultimately Phumani Paper did receive a provision for some compensation which was
included in the subsequent mediation process and the agreements that followed.49
My letter of complaint about the misappropriation of the papermaking technology that the
CSIR had used to produce evidence of job creation finally resulted in the suspension of all
the CSIR paper projects. Phumani Paper was then directed to take over the nine projects
and turn them into sustainable businesses. This directive was the condition for any continued
funding for Phumani Paper from the DST. We agreed to undertake a feasibility study, and
consultant researcher Joslyn Walker (formally Walters) was contracted to write an
assessment of the nine groups.

50 Her report concluded that five groups had potential; the
remaining four she described as liabilities.51

49 See correspondence and letters submitted to the CSIR and DST. KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 5).
Documents include: Non Disclosure Agreement between DACT and the CSIR and the TWR Relating to Future
Collaboration between the Parties: For example Clause 1.5 states: ?Without derogating from the generality of
paragraph 4 above, it is the intention of the Parties that a collaboration agreement be entered into and concluded
by the parties in order to establish and develop sustainable, hand paper making poverty relief programs utilising
the funding provided by DACST, resources, know-how and expertise of the CSIR and proprietary information and
technology of TWR?.
50 See this feasibility study report, KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: Files 11 and 2b).
51 The compromise recommended by the due diligence report for taking over five projects out of nine was
negotiated by the Dean of Research at the University of Johannesburg and agreed to by the chief directorate at
DST.
Inexplicably, Phumani Paper?s annual budget
from DST was reduced the following year by 30%, despite the additional burden of five new
139
projects on the already overstretched staff members. For their part, the CSIR groups
expected to receive the substantial monthly salaries they had enjoyed previously. The
CSIR/Phumani Paper handover due diligence agreement failed to address the concerns of
the members of CSIR projects, and enormous energy was expended by Phumani Paper staff
in winning the trust of these communities. Three of the five groups are still operating as
supply units for the Archive Mill and Phumani Paper. I argue that it should not be the role of
development projects to compensate for government?s lack of delivery. Rather, government
should be made accountable to the constituencies it serves. The irony in this case is that the
government continues to fund the CSIR for poverty alleviation programming. During the first
three years of funding for the poverty alleviation programs, government officials failed to do
site visits, other than media launches. However in the third year of review, I personally
accompanied the Deputy Minister Hanekom on two site visits in KwaZulu-Natal to two CSIR
projects. The delegation found expensive unused equipment at one bakery and two
employees who were paid a salary by the CSIR to run the project. Another site in Richards
Bay had equipment but no electricity and no active members (Figure 45). The Phumani site
by contrast, was fully functional and had thirteen participants (Figure 15a). Another possible
reason for the continued funding is the close relationship between the DST and the CSIR:
the CSIR currently houses the Ministry of Science and Technology on their campus and the
reporting lines and agendas of the two agencies remain indistinct.

What conclusions or lessons can be drawn from this case study? According to Meintjies and
Pieterse, ?Transgression is the practice of creativity among restraints, and development
practice is the art of creative transgression? (Meintjies and Pieterse 2004: 11). Both the CSIR
and Phumani Paper found different and perhaps creative ways to spend and deliver on
government funding. For some of the CSIR?s projects, I argue that the delivery looks
impressive on paper, yet there is little evidence on the ground of sustainable livelihoods.

How is it possible to resist the technocratic and managerial approach of government to
sustainable development and instead focus efforts on building values and relationships?
Government reporting standards are inconsistent and confusing. Firstly, the information
requested does not in any way assess delivery. A primary concern of government, in my
experience, is quantitative reporting on numbers of jobs, assets, training, and funds spent in
that category. Second, government officials rarely check delivery during the project. They
conduct very few site visits or round table discussions on shared lessons or exchanging
140
useful practice.52
There appears to be an absence of sustained monitoring, evaluation and
public reporting on projects ? there appear to be no published statistics
available on the outputs of the funding programme against its stated
goals/objectives. Sometimes there are anecdotal references to projects in
budget speeches, but it is very unclear where this data comes from and how it
has been obtained ? there is no basis for verification (Authors interview, 1
November 2008).
This is counter to the participatory and consultative practice core to the
methodology of Phumani Paper. Third, government administration of this program is top-
down and non-dialogical. The Ministry must report to the National Treasury on a spent
budget, whether or not that budget was properly or adequately spent. The reporting
standards in my view facilitate corruption. The many times that resources are wasted are
unacceptable, particularly as so many requests for increased development funding for
poverty alleviation are ignored by powerful bureaucratic officials.

In order to reverse the entrenching of power imbalances that measure sustainable
development by quantitative profit margins, I would argue for participative and consultative
processes that share best practice among stakeholders. Perhaps greater exchange of
lessons learnt would initiate a process to introduce project assessment and monitoring that
promote ethical values and serve the public good. According to a policy advisor to the
Department of Arts and Culture, Joseph Gaylard:
53

52 In the period of four years, there was one round table discussion that consulted all service providers held at a
conference venue, and two briefings on reporting requirements. Minutes of DST workshop KB Archives (PP Draw
3B: File 15).
53 See email interview with Joseph Gaylard, KB Archive (FF Draw 6: File 1a).

The experience of Phumani Paper can share a model of participatory practice as a
methodology for service providers of poverty alleviation programs. Opportunities for
collaboration and partnerships could counter some of the corrupt and destructive values that
ocasionally are exhibited by government officials. In a report on the Evaluation of
Government?s Poverty Reduction Programme (October 2007) published by the Public
Service Commission, the findings of the income-generating projects (IGPs) state:
Income generating projects have acquired a bad name in South Africa. This is
evident for example in the attitudes of senior government officials, as well as
the shift away from conventional project support. Awkwardly, there is no clear
blueprint for what constitutes a good IGP, or formulae that government can
follow when trying to create or support them. There are, however, elements of
best and worst practice that could be more effectively shared. The likelihood is
that IGPs still have a valuable role to play, perhaps preferably as elements of
pro-poor LED [Local Economic Development] strategies rather than stand-
alone initiatives (October 2007: 55).

141
These observations by the Public Service Commission support my own experience of the
Department of Science and Technology officials? willingness to write off income-generating
projects as failures and not entertain shared best-practice or feedback by implementing
agents.

Delivery: A question of poverty alleviation or reporting?

In 2004 I submitted a report to the DST summarizing the ?deliverables? provided by Phumani
Paper.54
Phumani Paper is proud of its success rate in sustaining the development of
90% of its projects originally initiated, as well as the significant expansion of
the handmade paper as an industry. All of the Phumani Paper units are
finding a market for survival. The challenge is to expand the market base to
enable units to have a profitable monthly turnover. The total income from
sales for the year 2003/4 exceeds R1 million
The report stressed the positive achievements, using the bureaucratic language
required by the government, but was also clear about the challenges facing the program:
55
The report listed both the research and the poverty alleviation outcomes. Research
outcomes included: six NRF fellowship awards for MTechs and another six NRF fellowship
awards for BTech students; the establishment of the Papermaking Research and
Development unit at the Technikon Witwatersrand; a technology patent for the Moreno
Hollander Duplex beater; and the international exchanges described in Chapter Five.
. This is a remarkable
achievement in the light of the fact that there has been a minimal budget
allocated to a dedicated marketing function (Berman and Walker 2004: phase
report: 1).

56
Building onto these research outcomes, my master?s student graduates ? Coppes (2003),
Tshabalala (2005) and Marshall (2003) ? developed the first South African qualification in
hand-papermaking in 2003. Phumani Paper was accepted as a pilot training provider for
CREATE SA, and a Training Provider under the MAPPP Seta to offer SAQA-accredited skills
training for Level NQF2.57 This subsequently developed into an NQFLevel 4 Master
papermaking qualification in archival paper in 2007. Over 120 papermakers have received
accredited training to date.58

54 See Berman and Walker (2004) KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 1c). The phase report to DST of deliverables
from 2000-2004 indicated a range of outcomes. This report is available in KB Archives (Draw 3B: File 2b).
55 This is due to the WSSD and subsidised orders from groups to replace community wages, and not profit from
sales
56 See KB PP Archives Reports, registration of patent KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File:7).
57 CREATE SA was the agent for the Sector A Qualifications Authority for the Cultural Industries. It was
subsequently absorbed into the MAPPP SETA: Media, Advertising, Print and Paper Sector Training Authority.
The qualifications are Skills Level NQF2 and NQF4. KB Archives (PP Draw 3A: File 12, 13, 14).
58 KBPP Archives SAQA Learnership documents and accredited training manual and curriculum.

142
Poverty relief achievements in the field included: the creation of 460 jobs in the first two
years, R450 per month was paid to each project participant in the form of what government
described as ?community wages?; the sustaining of 22 units and over 280 jobs after three
years, (the numbers of project participants dropped in the third year with the ending of the
subsidized wages, as income was determined by production output); and technology transfer
and training programs in papermaking nationally for over 1 000 people through pre-project
outreach workshops. It was from this broad training outreach that 460-500 people were
selected to become project members. The resources Phumani Paper developed included a
business and skills training manual disseminated to projects to further their own abilities; the
creation and market testing of over 30 products; the establishment of a national management
team for Phumani Paper, providing support in administration, training, product development
and management; the establishment of a variety of strategic government, industry, education
and community partnerships to further link the projects to a more global industry; the
procurement of some significant, if short-term, market clients;59 and training in bookkeeping,
record keeping, quality control, stocktaking, costing and pricing, production planning,
marketing and sales over the first two years that prepared participants to understand issues
of ownership and accountability.60
The challenges outlined in the 2004 Phase Report included the requirement imposed by DST
for the TWR to ?take over? all non-functioning CSIR papermaking projects, with little or no
consultation with the respective groups. Further, the 25% reduced budget for the fourth year
was to be spent on training, equipment and infrastructure for the five new projects, with
reduced support to the original units, who badly needed funding for their required transition to
profitable enterprises. Another significant challenge included the months-long delays in
receiving funding allocations: because the projects had to manage for long periods of time
without receiving community wages and operational support, Phumani Paper experienced an

Finally the 2004 Phase Report summarized the creation of infrastructure. This included the
construction of three new papermaking workshops at Elim, in far northern Limpopo,
Mdantsane in the Eastern Cape, and Ivory Park in Gauteng, as well as structural
adjustments to existing buildings, such as upgrading business premises and making working
areas suitable for papermaking in Phumani Paper sites in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, North
West Province, Free State and the Western Cape.

59 For example UNICEF, WSSD, Woolworths, and Body Shop (see Sales Strategy 2002-4 which also explains the
nature and challenges of the short-term contracts) KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 10).
60 The following documents are available in the KB Archives ref. Business Training Manual, training product
development templates, sales catalogues, national project records. (PP Draw 3A: Files 1-2, 10, 11).
143
additional 20% dropout rate of members in the isolated rural units. Finally, the sites located in
extreme poverty nodes had no means of taking their products to market.

The biggest challenge, however, was the requirement for each unit to register as a legal
entity, and to transform from a poverty relief project to a business enterprise. My conclusion
to the Phase Report attempted to challenge this bottom-line approach to ?sustainable
development?:
DST has used the bottom line monthly income of participants as a measure of
economic sustainability. While this is an important criterion it has been found
that the lifestyle and social circumstances of poverty reduction has occurred
equally in groups earning R400 per month in rural poverty nodes in the Free
State and North West as the participants earning R1 200 per month in the
urban centres (Western Cape and Gauteng). This has led to the
understanding that it would not be appropriate to reduce support to the
weaker units and only pump resources into the units with exposure to
marketing and sales resources (Berman and Walker 2004).

Following this report, the DST allocated one additional year of funding support. A small
marketing budget was finally included that permitted the printing of brochures, signage, and
the development of a website. However, the government?s program requirements were
extremely cumbersome and not conducive to facilitating a sustainable livelihoods approach.
With no full-time program manager due to reduced funding, the modus operandi was
reduced to crisis management. However, the relationship of Phumani Paper to the University
of Johannesburg made it possible for me to be seconded to the position of Director of
Phumani Paper, as I received a salary in my capacity as a full-time lecturer. In this way the
organization incurred no financial liability for my leadership. However, as little adjustment
was made to my workload at the former TWR, this arrangement proved to be unsustainable.
The units with access to tourist markets managed to sustain a monthly income for their
members, but the poorer rural groups relied on orders from the Phumani national office,
which unfortunately was unable to secure sufficient sales for project members to maintain a
basic income.

The case of Twanano in Ivory Park will clarify the general observations in the Phase Report,
and serve to exemplify the attributes of what I consider to be a sustainable enterprise.
Twanano is situated in Ivory Park, an informal settlement situated near Midrand, about sixty
kilometres north of Johannesburg. Phumani Paper identified Ivory Park as a suitable site, as
the project would be able to partner with Eco-Cities, an environmental program dedicated to
conservation and recycling, by linking with the Twanano Recycling Co-operative. Because
the participants came from an informal settlement, the group was not culturally cohesive.
However, the link with Eco-Cities provided the unemployed with options of working on
144
recycling, construction or papermaking. Therefore, each sub-group was self-selected
according to interest, and this enabling of choice provided an important foundation for future
sustainability. This deepened the agency of the group and by comparison to other projects,
they were less dependent on Phumani Paper Head Office (Figures 43-45).

There were many challenges. For example, when it was initiated in 2000, the site provided
by the municipality for building a papermaking workshop lacked electricity, and water was
available only from a shared tap some distance away. Funding from the local public works
program enabled the people who chose construction to lay the foundations and dig the
drains for the water pipes for the workshop and office. A year after the building was
complete, it was connected to water and electricity, and the group members met with the
local municipality to obtain the lease and water agreements. In addition, the twenty-member
project developed a constitution, elected office bearers, and opened a bank account with
accountable signatories. The Twanano group members were trained in basic computer skills
and report writing, and acquired a second-hand computer and office supplies. After the
second year, in 2002, they were connected to a phone and fax. The unit installed equipment,
designed a working space, and attended training courses in business skills. As they had no
electricity for the first year, they were initially trained in making paper using the eastern
method of hand-beating plant fibre to mix with recycled paper waste (Figure 43b). Caroline
Mashiane?s story, described in her own statements and narratives reflects this growth from
project member to leader to Phumani Paper?s national production coordinator over eight
years (See Chapter Six, Figure 3, Photovoice story).

At that time, Master?s student Mandy Coppes was conducting her research into papermaking
with invasive vegetation in partnership with the Working for Water campaign. At Ivory Park
she discovered a proliferation of milkweed around many of the informal settlements, and
designed a means for processing the fibre into exquisite Japanese-style lace papers. The
method of stripping the weed was highly labour-intensive, and the group was able to employ
a number of youth and elderly people to assist with the task. After completing their paper and
product- making training, the members produced attractive papers, boxes and journals which
were showcased at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 (Figure 20c). It is
important not to underestimate the pride the group took in its creative abilities, and the
significance their new sense of self-worth had in maintaining cohesiveness and productivity.
As Pieterse comments:
Why do concerns about pleasure, beauty, risk and aesthetics feature so low
on our list of concerns, if at all? Why do we prefer to operate at the level of
abstracted generalization about poverty, unemployment, inequality, violence
and not at the pain-filled emotional landscapes of denial, fear, rejection,
145
degradation and so on? .... I fear that in the development universe it is still too
tied to the mechanical application of wooden methodological tools. Instead, a
radical confrontation with the complex richness of the ?everyday? is imperative.
Artists and cultural agents can play a major role in instigating a respect and
appropriate appreciation for the agency and complexity of lifeworlds of the
?poor? or marginalized (Pieterse 2004: 342-3).

As the group gained more confidence in their skills and knowledge, they selected members
to receive further training in managing the pricing and orders. They visited shopping centres
in urban areas, attended trade fairs and markets, and identified local clients. They wrote
monthly reports, kept attendance registers and learnt to grade their products in terms of
quality, and package them for delivery. They also hosted tourists, offered workshops for
schoolchildren, improved the presentation of their venue, developed signage, and travelled to
other Phumani projects to exchange training skills.

At Twanano the goals of capacity building and empowerment were achieved. The
participants were able to meet the basic needs of the project after the withdrawal of
government support. The income from sales paid for their monthly allowance, utilities (water,
electricity), and also enabled secondary jobs to be created, including day care for the
children, bark strippers, cooks, recycled waste-collectors and other suppliers of support
services.

Group members were able to train others in the use of machinery ? the Hollander beaters
and hydraulic presses, as well as manufacturing papers with hand methods such as pestle
and mortar or batons to grind and beat cooked plant fibre. Their skills in building and
expanding the infrastructure as well as their increased income also led to their improving
their home living environments as well. Finally, their acquisition of cell phones was seen as a
symbol of their improved standing in their community.

For all of the above reasons, this group has survived as a craft-based enterprise. As the
business expanded, the original coordinator of the project, David Tshabalala, developed new
products from cast paper, ?Phumani Pets,? which have enjoyed a broad and consistent
market61

61 See Phumani website: http://www.phumanipaper.org.za/ for profile and images of Twanano.
(Figure 45). Naresh Singh, principal advisor of the Poverty and Sustainable
Livelihoods Bureau for Development Policy, United Nations Development Program (UNDP),
argues that sustainability is a key indicator of success in development projects. In
Sustainable Livelihoods, he sets out the conditions that must be met for sustainability; among
146
them economic efficiency, social equity, ecological integrity, and resilience (Helmore and
Singh 2001: 89). After eight years, Twanano supports fourteen people, and each is able to
earn a basic monthly salary and generate savings for their business.

Sustainability or Dependency: the Challenge of Phumani Paper
The descriptions of the projects provided above demonstrate that Phumani Paper has
experienced both remarkable successes and discouraging failures in achieving its
developmental goals. Some of the disequilibrium and incongruities of its complex cycle offer
lessons for a more sustainable approach to community engagement. This section
summarizes the innovative practices that were introduced, and asks a number of questions
that result from a cultural and artistic approach to a development intervention.

To reiterate, the conditions for sustainability as identified by Singh are: ?economic efficiency,
social equity, ecological integrity, and resilience.? In addition, Singh argues that: ?sustainable
development must be intersectoral, interlevel and participatory.? And finally, that
?governments should be encouraged to deal with people and communities rather than with
numbers, aggregates and abstractions? (Helmore and Singh 2001: 71). This definition
supports the argument presented here that sustainability depends upon a recognition of the
interdependence between economic, social and environmental measures, and I argue that
an effective mode of achieving this involves creativity. The ability to innovate, as well as the
pride and sense of accomplishment associated with the transformation of weeds and waste
paper into attractive products became the mode of achieving this recognition of establishing
a sustainable enterprise.

A key question in relation to Phumani Paper?s poverty alleviation goal is the question of
dependency, a subject of debate within the government and the development community.62
South Africa has a large number of social protection policies, such as pension welfare grants,
disability grants, child grants, social security, and free health care for women and children.
The discourse of the state is that ?we will provide,? but it is unable to fulfil its promises to the
poor. Recently sectors of government have argued that social welfare for the poor may have
the tendency to encourage lazy dependent people.63

62 The issue of dependency is discussed by (Habib (2008) Swilling (2008) Ballard et al.(2006).among others.
This is a Thatcherite, neo-liberal
63 Fraser-Moleketi herself accused poor people of not doing enough: ?communities had to change the thinking of
those who held out their hands for help but kept their sleeves down, a sign that they were not willing to work.?
(quoted by Hassim (2006: 17); Andre Koopman, ?Poor urged to roll up their sleeves? (Cape Times, 25 May 1999).
Up to 60% of the poor ? mainly those between the ages of fourteen and sixty ? are not getting any social security
at all. Lund estimates that 11.8 million of the poorest 23.8 million South Africans live in households that receive no
social assistance (Francie Lund 2004).
147
argument. Nevertheless, even some ANC women MPs took a conservative view of welfare
as reinforcing a ?culture of entitlement,? with welfare grants seen as handouts that reinforced
dependency on the state. As one Member of Parliament argued, ?women should look at
developing themselves.? 64
In contrast, the experiences in Phumani Paper suggest that people, especially women, who
do receive social grants have the necessary stability and mobility to enable other positive
choices. Participants who have remained in the Phumani Paper projects for up to seven or
eight years often receive grants that allow them the security to invest time in other activities.
This increased mobility as a result of access to social grants emerged as an outcome of the
impact assessment conducted by Lilo du Toit, which will be referred to in Chapter Six (du
Toit 2008b: 12). The debate over the value of social grants is being vigorously argued.
For example there are perceptions among some, especially in the
South African National Treasury Department, that social grants creates a dependency
syndrome that inhibits innovation and entrepreneurship (Habib 2008: 38). Mandla Seleoane
(2008) demonstrates clearly in his case studies of resource flows in poor communities that
social grants are absolutely crucial for the survival of poor and marginalized communities
especially in rural areas (Seleoane 2008: 154).
65
Poverty is many things, all of them bad. It is material deprivation and
desperation. It is lack of security and dignity. It is exposure to risk and high
costs for thin comforts. It is inequality materialized. It diminishes its victims. It
is also the situation of far too many people in the world ?.They [the poor] are
survivors. And what they often seek strategically (even without a theory to

However, as Hassim suggests, although the transition to democracy has led to the
elaboration of a wide-ranging set of civil, political and social rights, the gendered patterns of
poverty and inequality have not been significantly reduced:
Unless the basis of entitlements changes in ways that recognize women?s
entitlements as citizenship rights, poor women will continue to be excluded
from the system of social entitlements. Equally importantly, unless the
increased representation includes debate and activism about the meanings of
gender equality in the South African context, the likelihood is that parity in
representation will increase the access of women elites rather than have the
outcome of increased gender equality (Hassim 2006: 25).

Poverty alleviation is central to development, but considering the negative attitudes towards
social welfare emerging within government, it becomes necessary to return to a fundamental
definition of poverty. Appadurai links poverty to inequality and deprivation:

64 Member of Parliament, referenced above.
65 Cape Town Book Fair event, 14 June, Panel Discussion ? ''Are social grants creating a culture of dependency
in South Africa?? F Lund: Changing Social Policy: The child support grant in South Africa (HSRC Press).
Noble, Ntshongwana and Surender (2008) in their paper: ?Attitudes to work and social security in South Africa?
probe the importance of work and the relationship between social grants and employment. The findings
demonstrate a strong attachment to the labour market among the unemployed, support for more financial
assistance for poor people including those who are unable to find work, and no evidence that social grants in
South Africa foster a 'dependency culture'.
148
dress it up) is to optimize the terms of trade between recognition and
redistribution in their immediate, local lives (Appadurai 2004: 64-65).

Redistribution is arguably the job of government. In his recent book, Giving and Solidarity,
Adam Habib argues that:
The state is without a doubt the primary agency through which poverty
alleviation and development can be enabled ?. Its exclusive control over the
legislative and policy arenas and its command over significant fiscal
resources, ensure that it can either make or break a human-centered
development agenda (Habib and Maharaj 2008: 18).

However, Habib?s research also finds that despite the rising levels of state expenditure on
social and economic services, coupled to ambitious institutional projects to mobilize
resources for development, poverty has increased between 1995 and 2002 (Swilling et al.
2008: 282). Arguably, the problem lies with government inefficiency and, not infrequently,
incompetence:
It follows, therefore, that spending more via dysfunctional institutions could
result in qualitatively poorer outcomes than spending less via more functional
institutions. The ideal is spending more via institutions that are staffed by
people who understand the meaning of ?deep development? and are allowed
to operate according to procedures that are functional and effective (Swilling
et al. 2008: 284).

According to political analysts such as Habib (2006, 2008) Swilling (2008) and Ballard et al.
(2006) a socially responsible state and political regime is a fundamental necessity in
addressing poverty and underdevelopment. Failure in the struggle to transform the
philosophical parameters of governance and development ?would lead to a society spiralling
towards human disaster? (Habib 2006: s.p.). If government is to become accountable,
marginalized citizens must have voice and leverage so that political elites are conditioned to
become responsive to their interests (Ballard et al. 2006).

According to the committee of inquiry into a comprehensive system of social security for
South Africa (RSA 2002), between 20 and 28 million South Africans live in poverty. With the
exception of Gauteng and Western Cape, over half the population in all provinces live in
poverty. In Eastern Cape and Limpopo an average of three out of four people live in poverty,
that is, 70% of people in rural areas compared to about 30% in urban areas. The statistics
referred to as a measurement of the scale of poverty derive from an income-based definition
of poverty. According to Swilling:
The traditional approach to development interventions such as simply
spending money to provide for ?basic needs? does tend to obscure the
complex and largely unquantifiable relationship between poverty and the
capacity of individuals and communities to actively understand, access and
use resources aimed at extracting them from the poverty trap. Unless
149
spending is coupled to processes that gradually build the intellectual,
psychological, cultural, organizational and technical capacity of the
?beneficiaries?, development in general and poverty reduction in particular will
be an unlikely outcome.(Swilling et al in Habib (ed) 2008: 288).

In contrast to the ?basic needs? approach, Swilling endorses the ?empowerment? approach
that NGOs have been promulgating for decades and to which this thesis subscribes.
Phumani Paper adopted the empowerment approach, using creativity and aspiration as
means to achieve poverty alleviation, and considering training and capacity building as a
major objective. The longer-term aim was for rural groups to establish viable markets for their
products. Ultimately, training and the transfer of technology and skills have proved to be
more significant than income generation in sustaining the projects overall.

Amartya Sen claims that any theory of poverty should be rooted in a theory of society and
culture, and he emphasizes the importance of freedom of choice: more choice is richer and
less choice is poorer. Hence the enabling environment is the crucial factor in the individual?s
escape from poverty (Sen 1999). As described above, Phumani Paper?s training and
capacity development did foster an enabling environment, as the case study of Twanano
demonstrates. Unfortunately, the government reporting systems do not allow for the
evaluation of the ?softer? factors of empowerment, such as ?choice? or ?enabling
environments.? Its single bottom line is income-generation.

When Development as Freedom was published in 1999, Sen?s definition of poverty caused
major shifts in development thinking, and set the stage for the development of the ?household
livelihood security framework? by Sen. According to this framework, poverty is viewed as a
matter of capability deprivation. ?Poverty must be seen as the deprivation of basic
capabilities [and freedoms], rather than merely as lowness of income, which is the standard
criterion of identification of poverty? (Sen 1999). These deprivations involve disadvantages
resulting from handicap, gender, age, race or caste/class, or any other means of
marginalization. Sen identifies the five ?freedoms? that are the prerequisites for addressing
these deprivations: 1) political freedoms, 2) economic opportunities, 3) social opportunities,
4) transparency guarantees, and 5) protective security. His analysis rejects the previous
development focus on monetary income as the predominant measure of poverty and well-
being.

150
Sen?s unifying framework has been adopted by CARE International, a development
organization working extensively in South Africa.66
? focuses on the importance of human capabilities for expanding opportunities for
access, wealth and asset accumulation, and ultimately livelihood security
It promotes a holistic understanding of the
multidimensional processes of impoverishment and disempowerment, and entails the
following key features that have provided the framework for Phumani Paper?s projects.
CARE?s framework is defined in the following ways:
? views poverty as not only an economic process, but also as social and political
process that involves power relations
? views poverty not just as material deprivation but also as social marginalization
? highlights inequality as a critical factor contributing to impoverishment, and the
interactions between various forms of inequality: gender, caste, class, ethnicity, race.
? highlights the importance of institutions and institutional processes and their role in
positive and equitable social change
? links micro to macro factors, and highlights interactions among these levels
? highlights the importance of the private sector social accountability
? highlights the importance of the international arena as a critical component of poverty
production and eradication
? highlights the importance of civic action and social mobilization for social change
(CARE 2004: 22).

In sum, putting people at the centre of development is what this understanding of poverty
alleviation emphasizes. Further, this understanding of empowerment leading to agency
formed the basis of proposing a further intervention on HIV/AIDS action to the Ford
Foundation that will be discussed in Chapter Six.

Nonetheless, the bottom line remains significant. With very disappointing margins of income
generation from the majority of the Phumani Paper groups, I must ask a basic question: Is
making paper a viable activity in South Africa? The establishment of a new product or
industry should be a response to market needs. Although handmade paper has no
indigenous history in South Africa, it is closely tied to the cultural industries? goal of using
waste products to produce labour-intensive aesthetic objects for a tourist market (DACST
1998: 2). Making handmade paper also met the challenge of establishing a new technology

66 See website for further information (http://www.care-international.org/).

151
appropriate to rural development. However, we did not at the outset determine how broad the
market for handmade paper is, and how many small businesses it could sustain.

The role that government takes as a donor agency, when there is no intermediary, is
oftentimes fraught with unequal power relations and poor consultation processes, as the role
of donor and current ideology becomes conflictual.67 The record of government?s cultural
industries strategy is poor.68 The most recent policy paper on the DAC website is a 1998
document that has a similar ideology and recommendations as the White Paper on the
Cultural Industries Growth Strategy. There is no current policy articulated in the public
domain. The Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST) launched the
first study into the creative industries in South Africa in 1997. A year later, a report ?
?Creative South Africa: a strategy for realizing the potential of the Cultural Industries? ? was
produced, aimed mainly at national government in order to ?make the case that a flourishing
cultural industry sector in South Africa will become a powerful means of defining South
Africa?s distinctiveness and growth within the emerging global economy? (DACST 1998: 1).69
The Cultural Industries Growth Strategy (CIGS) to which the report gave rise, focused on
?those sectors that [the compilers of the strategy] believe are already sufficiently organized or
have the ?critical mass? to potentially grow, export and create employment? (DACST 1998: 1).
A subsequent paper, ?Creative Industry Analysis Framework: The Creative Industries in
South Africa: Status and Potential,? commissioned by DTI in 2004, expands on these
findings.

67 According to Sabina Alkire (2004) unequal power relationships between donor organizations and their clients
can result in policies that reflect the donor?s domination of the interaction, with policies that reflect the careless
application of current ideological fads rather than negotiations under equal terms of engagement.
68 Documents available: Creative South Africa: A strategy for realising the potential of the Cultural Industries
(DACST, 1998, DAC website, Cultural Industries Growth Strategy Report (DACST, 1998), Craft 2001: A strategy
to develop the South African Craft Industry, (DACST, 2001) Draft; never formally adopted (email) Sector
Development Strategy and Plan, 2004-2008, Workshop Report ( DTI 2004), CSP Local & Global Industry Analysis
(DTI December 2004). Draft; email. Minutes of meetings of portfolio committees that represent very interesting (if
not worrying) policy statements on the state of Arts and Crafts can be viewed on the Parliamentary minutes
websites: http://www.pmg.org.za Examples include National Arts Council; Freedom Parks Trust: Annual Reports
<http://www.pmg.org.za/viewminute.php?id=6591> as at 25 October 2005.
69Cultural Industries Growth Strategy Report, DACST, 1998. KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 9; DACST Report; File
15).
The authors (unknown) identify key challenges facing the sector that I would argue
have not been addressed by DAC, although they are incorporated in the Department of
Trade and Industry?s Sector Development Strategy published in 2004 (DTI 2004: 17).

70 Sent to me by email from Erica Elk, Cape Craft Design Institute, 2005: KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 9).
For challenges facing the development of the creative industries which are listed in the document ?Creative
Industry Analysis Framework: The Creative Industries in South Africa: Status and Potential,? (2004: 19) reference
as above (UJ Draw 5: File 9).
152
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) strategy identifies seven substantive problems.
Amongst these are: lack of coordination, information dissemination and a common vision in
the sector; lack of reliable national sector profile data and up-to-date market intelligence;
weak skills base on the manufacturing enterprise side impacting on product supply to
markets; high and uncompetitive product price due to high input costs and production
inefficiencies; and lack of a common marketing strategy and poor co-ordination along the
value chain (2004: 24).

The DTI defines an ?enabling environment,? quite differently from Sen or Swilling. It consists
of the coordination and alignment of all spheres of government ? to ensure consolidation of
strategic frameworks and programs, research and information gathering to inform strategic
decision making, and policy, legislation, tariffs and incentives ? to unlock blockages along the
value chain (2004: 17).71 This administrative approach is clearly top-down and does not
recognize the value of empowerment, but at least the guidelines are clear, and they may
have aided in the implementation of Phumani Paper and other creative industry programs
had they been adopted. These documents were submitted to DAC in May 2005, but there is
no indication that the Department has adopted the strategy the documents put forward.72
For example, in setting up Phumani Paper, the Ministry (DACST at that time), identified key
niche markets, such as wine, jewellery and craft packaging, but did not follow through to

There are a number of possible explanations for government actions that place undue
pressure on the programs it initiates. First, government employees and civil servants are in
stable and guaranteed employment. They do not understand personal risk, or the internal
contradictions that define ?self-creation? in community development. Consequences are not
tracked, and the emphasis is on a clean and well laid-out distribution model that appears fair
and equitable on an organogram projected into a boardroom full of policymakers. Yet, this
cannot be a holistic or realistic view. Government intends their role to build ?a seamless path
for enterprise development? and ?operational and support services to improve efficiencies,
and to create and service the demand for South African products,? according to the DTI
document (DTI 2004: 17). Yet the experience of Phumani Paper is that the failure to provide
the primary markets for environmentally sustainable, poverty alleviation products, meant that
the promise of a new ?cultural industry? was never fulfilled.

71 The DTI has approved this Sector Development Strategy, which was published for general information.
Foreword by the Minister Trade and Industry Mandisi Mpahlwa, MP (2004).
72 This is confirmed by Joseph Gaylard October 2008: (Interview 1 November 2008) KB Archives (FF Draw 6:
File 1a).
153
ensure that these markets were effectively accessed. In addition, it indicated an interest in
acquiring hand-crafted paper products for gifts and for use in its own conferences, in order to
showcase their investment in uplifting poverty. However, the value of government?s
purchases from the small enterprises from 1999 to 2008 was less than 5% of total sales. In
order to ascertain the complex nature of government?s failure an in-depth case study follows.

Archival Paper Production: A case of failed promises by government
The case of the Archival Paper Mill at the University of Johannesburg provides a more
extended analysis of the government?s failure to achieve its own objectives. In 2005/6 DAC
awarded the University and Phumani Paper a grant to establish a research and development
facility for the production of acid-free conservation paper and board. The pilot would have
established the first Southern African archival paper mill with the capacity to produce suitable
African-made archival paper for the South African National Archives. This project emerged
out of a Master?s Research thesis by one of my students, Bronwyn Marshall (2003), and was
planned in partnership with the South African National Archives. Although the DST had
ended its funding support to Phumani Paper in 2004/5, it supported the expansion of
handmade paper for the heritage sector (Figure 46).

After the Archive Mill was launched by the Deputy Minister of DAC in November 2005 at the
University of Johannesburg, Phumani Paper was encouraged to apply to DAC?s Investing in
Culture and Heritage Division for the expansion of this new industry as a flagship project.
Government identified the necessity of producing ?proudly South African paper? to supply
national archives and heritage institutions throughout the African continent, for purposes
such as the restoration of ancient manuscripts in Timbuktu, Mali. Millions of rands are spent
each year importing specialist material from the United States, Japan and Europe ? money
that could rather be used to create jobs and expand the handmade paper industry (Marshall
2003). In his budget speech of February 2006, the Finance Minister announced an allocation
of R9 million for the development of archival paper.73

73 DAC website: http://www.dac.gov.za/speeches/minister/Speech2June06.htm and KB Archives (PP Draw 3B:
File 6).
The plan was to convert some of
Phumani Paper?s existing enterprises into specialist archival paper and board producers. A
three-year business plan was developed in partnership with the Director of the National
Archives, who had championed this project. A grant agreement was provisionally awarded in
April 2006 with a range of requirements, among them that the roll-out be implemented in
each of the nine provinces. I had submitted a proposal that called for a phased approach,
building on the capacities of the existing mills and their various levels of sustainability.
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However, the new government official assigned to head this project made very specific
demands in order to match the national strategic objectives to support heritage development
in places like the Northern and Eastern Cape. Her mandate then, was to construct nine new
archival paper mills, one in each province.

No feasibility study was done to determine whether there was a need for nine plants in the
locations identified. I wrote several letters to the Directors of the National Archives and
Investing in Culture, in which I pointed out that the United States has fewer than five archival
paper mills to service the needs of their massive art market (Marshall and Berman 2008: 7).
As Phumani had been struggling to build a market to sustain the existing papermaking units,
we recommended that we expand slowly in accordance with market demand. The directorate
was adamant in its position, which was to apply the same approach used by DST in 2000: to
roll out as many projects nationally as fast as possible in order to create jobs. As the DST
experience shows, while such funding may create the required number of jobs in the first
year, this was only possible because those jobs were funded, and subsequently many would
be lost. Further, the placement of the mills would not necessarily draw on the expertise and
skill that had been developed in Phumani Paper over the previous seven years. However,
DAC?s primary objective was to respond to the perceived need to service developing regional
archives and heritage museums. The rationale was to build a supplier paper mill in the same
geographic proximity as each regional archive. The proposal was to initiate the first mill in
Pilgrims Rest, Mpumalanga on the property of the regional museum and archive currently
being established.74
As I was convinced that this strategy would result in failure, I was not willing to comply with
DAC?s requirement, and the Phumani Paper Board of Directors supported this decision, in
spite of the multi-million rand funding the Department was prepared to invest in this project.
The perception of the Phumani Board was that this would be a short-term investment that
would not be sustainable and would create ?white elephants,? the term often used for
government-funded centres that remain unoccupied because of the lack of consultation and
?buy-in? from local residents. In his letter to the appropriate representative at the Department
of Science and Technology, the Director of the Board, Professor Auf der Heyde pointed out:
?There is a short-sightedness by the department not to build on the already existing units

74 To quote from the website: ?The projects will be located in all nine provinces with an even geographical spread
across the municipal districts in each province? (http://www.dac.gov.za/projects/investing_culture.htm).
155
who have a seven-year history, and who have built their capacity, skill and resilience to
sustain their businesses.? 75
Furthermore, in spite of der Heyde?s letter, the position stated by the DST representative in a
letter and by phone was that the National Department requires an even distribution of
national funding support, so they would not consider supporting more than one unit in the
North West Province. DAC has since been unwilling to consider a counter proposal to
support the enterprises that had ready access to raw materials (such as the sisal farming
projects). Six units were assessed as viable by Phumani Paper due to their history of
successful group practice, and would be the most likely of the sixteen groups to manage the
large grants needed to expand their small businesses. They were identified as three units in
the North West Province (where there is ready access to the raw material), one in Gauteng,
(the pilot Research and Development unit) and one each in Limpopo and the Free State. The
argument presented in der Heyde?s letter referred to above, stated that the six groups
nominated by Phumani Paper and the University of Johannesburg Research Unit for the roll-
out of the industrialization of archival paper production had the track record, training,
qualifications, access to expertise, experience and necessary support, as well as access to
the raw material to convert their existing enterprises into viable plants or supply units for the
archival paper industry (Figure 45). However, the Department remains unconvinced.

75 Prof Thomas Auf der Heyde?s letter 2006, KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 4).
76 Correspondence documenting this exchange as well as the business plans and (unsigned) agreements
allocating funding to Phumani Paper is accessible in the KB Archives (PP Draw 3A: Files 5,6).

This case study is illustrative of a closed-system approach, which has rationally and
mechanistically calculated an equal distribution of funding to be dispersed geographically. It
also, in my opinion, symptomatic of the intransigence of powerful government officials who
want to be seen as creating their own program and are unable to value the history and
knowledge of local NGOs. Geographically, logistically there is no relationship in terms of
access, product developments or guaranteed orders, as well as the fact that access to
archival raw material does not match availability in each region. Yet equal allocation of
funding to each province seems to be an immutable aspect of the negotiation for
implementation. However, it is possible that this position is an excuse to terminate
negotiations on the continuance of the project, in spite of Parliament?s approval of the budget
allocation. The proposal has been pending from March 2006 to the end of 2008, and no
progress has been made in moving beyond this impasse.

156
The contradictions abound: Government purports to want independent sustainable
businesses, but sets them up to be dependent on government. For instance, the National
Treasury?s funds for poverty alleviation require allocation as community wages, but these
wages are not guaranteed beyond a one-year cycle. The further requirement that was
introduced for the setting up of the archival paper mills was that funds cannot be awarded to
an NGO implementing agent such as Phumani Paper. The funds had to be allocated directly
to the community facility or small business. This poses a problem, as there are no such
existing facilities in provinces such as the Northern Cape or Mpumalanga. And in the
Western Cape the Phumani Paper group is a craft unit made up of disabled people with no
training in archival paper production, and who have no skills to manage a grant of R1 million.
The government official?s response to this situation is that sufficient funds exist for the
necessary expertise to be bought to comply with these conditions, which indicates that
government would have to directly micro-manage implementation. However, as this is a new
industry in South Africa the expertise would have to be bought internationally, as local
expertise resides exclusively in Phumani Paper and its networks. This approach facilitates
conditions for corruption, nepotism and the lining of pockets of middlemen who do not have
any incentive to consult the communities involved.

In September 2007 I approached the Deputy Minister with a plea to hear my case. I attached
extensive documentation of my unanswered correspondence to the Directorate involved. I
was granted a hearing, and all the officials involved were present. The Deputy Minister set
certain conditions, including an agreement to call an imbizo (or special meeting) for all
papermakers to address concerns directly with the ministry. The imbizo has never happened
despite three invitations from Phumani Paper for government to address representatives of
the paper enterprises. The ministry has set various conditions for the meeting, including
registration of the Archive Mill as a separate enterprise from Phumani Paper, and the
requirement that the papermakers receive their NQF4 Archival Paper enterprise
development qualifications. All this has been addressed and submitted with reports. No
replies have been forthcoming.

It appears that the model envisaged by government to service the African archival
conservation market would require a corporatized factory-type system, which would employ
workers to produce a specialized manufactured product. The market and expense of the high
levels of skill and expensive equipment would, however, not allow for more than one
producer unit in South Africa. This closed-system culture values the directive approach; it
does not permit people to take initiative or demonstrate their expertise. In contrast, Phumani
Paper proposed a partnership approach that assured a shared vision. This approach also
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entails the risk, chaos and innovation, flexibility and unpredictability that characterizes an
open system. However, Phumani Paper maintains that successful entrepreneurial activities
have to take calculated risks in order ultimately to be sustainable.

It is useful to return to the understanding of Sen?s process of ?development as freedom? in
identifying useful models to achieve sustainability in practice. Political freedom and
democracy have been necessary conditions for economic growth and development in South
Africa. According to Sen, development must have both an instrumental and constructive
value: instrumental in the sense of ?enhancing the hearing the people get in expressing and
supporting their claims? and constructive in that it helps ?build a democratic culture of
discussion, debate and the exchange of ideas? (Sen 1999a: 5). This presupposes that a
primary purpose of democracy is to diffuse power throughout society, and as a result to
enhance the leverage of citizens and promote the accountability of state elites to their
citizenry. But what if such diffusion of power does not take place and such accountability is
not realized?

The case of the proposed archive paper mills highlights the difficulties in present South
African conditions in implementing development projects that are aimed at substantially
increasing the voice and agency of the poor. In the case study of the Archival Paper project,
Phumani Paper provided an excellent opportunity for ?empowered? groups to finally access
significant resources and directly manage funds that could meaningfully create a viable
industry in a poor community. However, the conditions outlined above have, thus far,
ensured that this opportunity cannot be realized (Figure 53c).

Systems Theory as a critical lens for analysing development
In my attempt to understand and apply the lessons learnt from the generally destructive
interaction with government described in the case studies above, I have found in systems
theory a useful set of analytical tools to address the challenge of negotiating dialogue within
a complex web of relationships. Within the ?web? of relationships between government,
Phumani Paper, its partner institutions, community groups and individual members, there are
complex networks that sometimes break down and hinder growth. According to systems
theorists such as Immanuel Wallerstein (1991), Fritjof Capra (1996) and Ilya Prigogine
(1980), we cannot understand how an organism interacts with its environment by dissecting
its parts, nor can we understand social systems by only examining the bodies within them.
The relationship between social systems and people is environmental. The individual reacts,
adapts and engages within a complex process of response and change amplified by self-
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reinforcing feedback related to the sudden emergence of new forms, emotions and ideas.
This iterative process can produce complex patterns of reaction, whereby each aspect of
feedback has a compounding influence on its next iteration (Linds 2006: 119). One of the key
characteristics of the organization of living organisms is their tendency to form multi-levelled
structures of systems within systems, ?or living systems nesting within other living systems?
(Capra 1996: 27).

This is exemplified by the Phumani experience. For example, at the thriving Twanano paper
project, there is continual self-reinforcing feedback that results in the emergence of new
forms and ideas. The introduction of the milkweed fibre into the group produced a complex
pattern of reaction, including environmental recycling, the production of new products, the
exposure through the WSSD, and the securing of an order of environmentally friendly
products for the Body Shop. This feedback process has had a regenerating influence.
Another research project by a master?s student, Tshabalala (2005), led to the production of
cast paper sculptures, developed by yet another group of students, into the ?Phumani pets?. A
French agency that saw this product at an international trade fair in November 2007 has
since provided significant orders for export of these unique products, which will sustain the
group with a steady flow of income (Refer to Figure 45).

In open systems theory, a prerequisite for growth requires systems that inter-relate and
interact to form a generating whole. The Kuyasa case study provides a revealing contrast to
Twanano as the feedback loops and interactive flows were consistently blocked, and the
system was unable to feed or renew itself. Fritjof Capra?s distinction between designed and
emergent structures can be equated with the designed structure imposed by government
frameworks for development, and contrasted with the emergent structures arising out of the
various formations of the different Phumani Paper groups. According to Capra, who has
applied systems theory to social situations, while a designed structure is based on rules and
procedures, an emergent one enables the continual development of new structures through
innovation. While designed structures are formal and based on official blueprints, emergent
structures represent an informal network of relationships that ?continually grows, changes,
and adapts to new situations? (1996: 47). For example, the blueprint required by government
for the equal distribution of resources to establish archival paper mills in each province did
not take cognizance of strengths and capacities on the ground.

Open systems maintain themselves far from the closed state of equilibrium, and instead are
characterized by continual flow and change (Capra 1996: 48). However, balance is desirable:
overly designed systems cannot adapt to changing conditions, overly emergent ones lose
159
sight of goals. In The Web of Life, Capra (1996) suggests that to understand our interactions
in this world, we must think systemically. As we engage in a continuous dialogue with each
other through our behaviour, relationships, and conversations, this web becomes the space
of possibility. What Linds calls the ?metaxic in-between? is not empty but alive with intentions,
responses and actions arising from the system?s prior history77
The use of the metaphor of living systems for understanding the process and evolution of
Phumani Paper suggests that the resilience and sustainability of the units are the result of
continual creativity and renewal, or ?self-making?. As long as the individual groups do not
reach a state of equilibrium or stasis, (such as was the case with Kuyasa), they retain the
ability to sustain themselves. In every community there will be contradictions and conflicts.
The community needs both stability and change, order and freedom, tradition and innovation.
(Linds 2006: 120).

Systems theory may be productively applied to cultural practice. The examination of arts-
based cultural engagement through the lens of systems theory, adds another creative
dimension in that the artist-facilitator is able to ask questions such as ?what can you imagine
for yourself and your group?? Such questions open a new space of possibility that is
respectful of a complex world, and helps those who occupy such a world to discover
different, unknown and unrecognized spaces within themselves or their communities. The
facilitator/ artist/ leader, is then to enable the conditions of ?metaxis,? so that stories can
emerge into and from this world. This task enables different voices, world views, value
systems and beliefs to converse with one another. This concept of the artist facilitator as a
catalyser of empowerment and creativity is something that will be explored further in Chapter
Six.

Following Capra, the structure of Phumani can be seen as a series of interactions between
the different projects and their environment. Capra maintains that living organisms
continually maintain and renew themselves, using energy and resources from the
environment for that purpose:
Moreover, the continual self-making also includes the ability to form new
structures and patterns of behaviour. Living organisms continually maintain
themselves in a state far from equilibrium. They need a continual flow of air,
food and water from the environment through the system in order to stay alive
and evolve. The theory of autopoesis shows that creativity ? the generation of
configurations that are constantly new ? is a key property of all living systems
(Capra 1996: 163).

77 Boal speaks of metaxis as ?the state of belonging completely and simultaneously to two different worlds: the
image of reality and the reality of the image. The participant shares and belongs to both these two autonomous
worlds: their reality and their image of their reality, which she herself has created? (Boal 1995: 43).
160
In ecosystems the complexity of the network is a consequence of its biodiversity, thus a
diverse ecological community is a resilient community capable of adapting to changing
situations.

According to Taylor, author of The Moment of Complexity:
When there is too much order, systems are frozen and cannot change and
when there is too little order, systems disintegrate and can no longer function.

Significant change, he argues, takes place between ?too much and too little order.
Falling between order and chaos, the moment of complexity is the point at which self-
organizing systems emerge to create new patterns of coherence and structures of
relation? (Taylor 2003: 24).

The organizational systems under investigation in this thesis are complex, and linear
reductive analysis would therefore be inappropriate. Complexity theory argues for the
importance of possibilities that lead to creativity and system transformation. It proposes that
systems are most creative when they operate with a combination of order and chaos. These
premises can support organizations to value diversity, change, and transformation, rather
than predictability, standardization and uniformity. A core assumption in this thesis is that to
understand social complexity is to value ?appreciative inquiry?, that is, surrender and
wonderment, over certainty.78
It is my contention that artists cultivate or possess the qualities needed to participate in
complex systems. Ideally, visual artists, like good jazz musicians,

78 The concept of Appreciative Inquiry was developed by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva in the 1980s.
The approach is based on the premise that ?organizations change in the direction in which they inquire? and
?enhances a system?s capacity for collaboration and change? (http://www.new-paradigm.co.uk/Appreciative.htm).
See also the Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry (Hammond 1996/8).
79 Frank Barrett presents improvisational jazz as a concrete example of a self-organizing process (Barrett 2000:
228-244).
are able to abandon what
does not work and create innovation that takes the system in a new direction. They grapple
with the constrictions of patterns and structures, and try to break out of these constrictions
and patterned structures to create something new with the awareness that committing to
either path entails a risk. They can embrace that risk and let go of the familiar. Ideally,
musicians and artists can challenge themselves to stretch beyond comfortable limits; they
can create fresh rather than stock responses, and they should be careful not to become too
linked to comfortable habits that have worked in the past. They are also able to make use of
whatever material is at hand and value the affirmative potential of found material and use it in
a purposeful and coherent way. While this may be a rather idealistic description of the
161
qualities of a ?good artist,? the values of creative practice can be applied to facilitating creative
growth in a group.

I have suggested that systems theory, when applied to sustainable development also makes
a case for the value of integrating the methodology of the creative arts in initiatives such as
Phumani Paper. The process of art-making does two things: it values the whole person and
her cultural values, and from that base asks questions that facilitate dynamism, prevent
equilibrium and promote growth. The artist?s questioning and facilitating creative practice
becomes a catalyser for change, and the resulting disequilibrium allows for transformation.
The statement quoted previously by one of the participants at the Winterveld project confirms
this assertion about agency: ?I am a paper-maker, and a paper-maker can make a plan.? 80
Reflections on Resilience

Eight years since the first Phumani Paper intervention in 1999/2000, fifteen of the original 21
paper enterprises are still surviving and still hold onto the vision of hope for a better, more
prosperous future. This phenomenon continues to puzzle me. Handmade paper and paper
crafts have not had much success in penetrating the market in South Africa. Sales are erratic
and the groups struggle to make enough income to pay each of their members at the end of
each month. Sales figures in 2007/8 indicate a moderately upward trend, with margins of
profit that are too minor to sustain the national office without subsidized funding. Income from
sales, therefore, is not the life-blood of the groups. It is also evident that Phumani Paper
national office has not been sufficiently successful in delivering on its core mission of
identifying markets for Phumani Paper products.81 This phenomenon indicates that
something other than money is sustaining the remaining 140 people in the Phumani Paper
organization. 82

80 Quoted by Lilo du Toit, mid-year review for the Ford Foundation, report submitted July 2007, KB Archives (FF
Draw 6: File 2).
81 Final review Report, May 2008b: 16. See Table 2: Earnings, Social Grants and Breadwinner Status Final
Review and Mid-Term Review.
82 The final review has counted 112 participants in the fifteen remaining groups from July 2008 and an average of
eight members per group (du Toit, Executive Summary, May 2008a: 1). However, I have included the broader
number of training team and community facilitators in the Phumani Paper organization; see lists of staff and
participants. KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 3a, b). See Figure 52, Table 1.
I propose that the success of this program over the past ten years has not
been poverty alleviation in the way that government intended through income generation, but
can claim success in terms of addressing the other kinds of poverty that Sen articulates, and
that are discussed earlier in this chapter. The real success of Phumani Paper, I would argue,
is its ability to incubate and nurture resilience. The resilience in the participants and the wider
organization of Phumani Paper in my view, derives from the belief in the capacity to dream a
162
better future, and from the participants who feel that they have the capacity and the skills to
achieve success.

My own continued efforts to support organizational and funding efforts for Phumani Paper is
a response to the resilience and the shared dreams of the participants. All of the stories told
by the women in the Phumani groups are inspirational. They are moving and heartbreaking.
They are powerful and humbling. One recent example of resilience and a belief in personal
capacity is illustrated in the story of Hermina Sephati from Amogalang in Mmakau,83 a
remarkable project that finally closed down in 2007. This group, mostly made up of
pensioners, was dependent on orders from Phumani Paper, as the women were not
entrepreneurial or mobile in the sense of being able to leave their village to go out and seek
external markets. Yet their endurance and belief in their own work and the will of G-d was
inspirational.84 Sephati is 61 years old and believes that the skills she has acquired are
valuable to teach the next generation and are an important asset to retain in Phumani Paper.
A small grant85
The stress is only one thing. Because I?m not earning something every month,
even if I do, it?s not that much. I?m learning so much here. I dream to drive a
car. I am an example to others.
allows her to travel for two hours to the Tswaraganang project to volunteer
and pass on her special skills in paper-pulp stencilling, a unique product developed through
the product development training of Amogalang received from Aid to Artisans. In a recent
interview Sephati (July 2008) attests to the power of belief in her own agency (Figures 49a
and b):
86
A Photovoice project (described in Chapter Six) began to facilitate and document the sharing
of Phumani women?s stories. This has since been developed into a proposed book Women
on Purpose: The Resilience of the Founding Women of Phumani Paper. Twenty of the

The project participants are often seen as leaders in their communities; they have dignity and
pride; they have skills and knowledge. They are no longer victims of the desperate poverty
around them. They create change. In spite of the extreme conditions of poverty and the
many years of sacrifice and commitment of the Amogalang group, the resilience of Sephati,
its surviving member, found a way to continue the group?s legacy of contribution (Figure 50).

83 This case study has been written up in the UNESCO, KB Archives (PP Draw 3A: File 13).
84 The documentary film A Ripple in the Water was dedicated to Amogalang because of the inspiration they had
on the USA film crew (see transcripts of interviews) KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 5b).
85 The grant was awarded by Eileen Foti, the Director of the documentary film A Ripple in the Water.
86 A series of twenty interviews exploring aspects of resilience and leadership among the women of Phumani
Paper groups was conducted as a joint project of University of Michigan and University of Johannesburg in July
2008. This project ?Women on Purpose? is intended for publishing in 2009. The transcriptions of the interviews are
available in KB Archives (PPR Draw 2: File 1b).
163
founding women of Phumani Paper have been interviewed as a way to begin to understand
the root and power of their resilience, and the reason why Phumani Paper is among the
estimated ten per cent of the poverty alleviation programs initiated in 2000 that are still
operating.87
I remain on the Management Committee of Phumani Paper that meets weekly, and am a
Director on the Board, which meets quarterly. At the national office, a year before the
resignation of Meintjes in June 2008, a creeping inertia had set in that seems to have
affected levels of productivity at the sites. This may be due to the fact that it is unlikely that a
Identifying the sources of this strength within the surviving Phumani Paper
groups is important with regard to understanding sustainable development practice.
Documenting and describing the different expressions of that resilience will be a way of
identifying and sharing the lessons of ?deep development.? Self-creation is a purpose and
outcome of teaching visual art practice. One of the core questions this thesis poses is: what
would it mean to include self-creation as an objective for development practice? I suggest
that self-creation is part of the hidden strength that accounts for the success of the Phumani
Paper program that has been unnamed thus far.

Admittedly, the stress and pressure of sustaining the organization was extremely high,
especially when Phumani Paper became a Section 21 Company. As stated earlier in the
chapter, I recognized that a different person with a business development vision was needed
to lead the organization. I realized that relinquishing control of the organization also meant
that my own ethic would no longer be followed. I had to step aside and allow the business
focus of the incoming Executive Director (January 2006), Frikkie Meintjes, to take over. My
interest and primary capacities are in creative research and training. The Phumani Paper
Board, which had been reorganized to consist primarily of business people, determined that
the groups that could not meet the business objectives through lack of orders from the
national office should be closed ? this, of course, would affect the most rural, remote and
poor groups. This approach, echoing earlier misguided government policies, counters the
vision of building a more equitable society, and valuing the poorest of the poor. This focus, in
line with the government?s market-driven GEAR strategy, values the parts that have been
historically (more) advantaged such as urban sites, for ease of bureaucratic management.
However, despite what has happened in the past few years, the resilience and determination
of many the rural groups has permitted them to weather the organizational shocks and they
have learnt how to survive. Some of the remote groups remained at risk but had not closed
down by the end of 2008.

87 Du Toit Interview with Steven Sack (22 April 2008d) KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 1a).
164
market for handmade paper and products will ever be competitive with the flood of imports of
similar and cheaper products. The funding to continue the programs within the Phumani
Paper units has always been extremely fragile, and without a surge of growth through the
expansion of commercial markets, the organization remains on the brink of survival. Phumani
has never had the security of long-term funding commitments; rather it has had to motivate
for funding support from year to year.

An interesting scenario has emerged which supports the systems theory metaphor of self-
creation when faced with change. With the resignation of the Executive Director in mid-2008,
young black leadership has emerged with a dynamic and creative approach to steering a
new vision for Phumani Paper. David Tshabalala has been promoted as the national
Phumani Paper Program Manager. His story is recorded as a case study in Chapters Three
and Seven, and in an article about his rise through the ranks of the organization (Legend
News 2008)88
Assessing Impact
(Figure 52). An injection of new international and local markets, new partners
and renewed interest in Phumani Paper by the University of Johannesburg has secured an
opportunity to move the national office and showroom from its existing venue on the
Doornfontein campus. Phumani Paper has been rediscovered as a flagship community
engagement initiative and business venture as part of the new multi-million rand University of
Johannesburg Soweto Campus investment. There are promises of investors, corporate
clients and a profile for the projected 2010 economic boom. Hope, imagination and resilience
continue to be the life-force of Phumani Paper (Figure 53).

Various impact assessments have been conducted on Phumani Paper projects in order to
evaluate the efficacy of donor-funded programs such as UNESCO and the Ford Foundation.
Stakeholder questionnaires have also been designed that determine a range of areas that
attempt to measure ?most significant change? within each of the Phumani projects.89

88 David Tshabalala: see KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 1e) and article:
(http://www.fetolammoho.co.za/emailers/emailer1/long/emailer.htm#section9).
89 Melanie Hagen (2007) KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 17), Lilo Du Toit (2007, 2008) (UJ Draw 5: File 13),
Joslyn Walker (2002, Due Diligence study 2003) (Draw 3B: File 11), Taryn Cohn (2004) thesis (UJ Draw 5: File
17).
These
include questions around what it is that people were able to do since they have left the
project. Is there greater value in their lives? Have they got jobs? Who stayed, and why? It
could be that people who had the least access to social capital stayed. What are the
benefits? Regrets? Do they believe that one day their skills will be needed? What are their
aspirations and hopes in staying? What family or social ties do they have that impacts their
involvement in their groups?
165

Both quantitative and narrative data is available and forms part of the independent impact
assessments and research studies. The most significant findings in my own assessment are
the acknowledgement of opportunities for increased growth at a local and national level as
well as the inter-dependent relationships of Phumani national office and the enterprises.
Some of these are articulated in the brief summaries below.

The final evaluation report submitted in July 2007 of the five selected groups from the
UNESCO Artists in Development Programme assessed by Melanie Hagen (2007) included
select findings and recommendations, and reinforced some of the proposed strategies
submitted to the Ford Foundation for further program support.90 These included: treating
programs holistically to start addressing some of the socio-economic issues at the same time
as developing the entrepreneurial aspects; the identification of market access and
penetration as the single biggest factor in ensuring the sustainability of the producer units;
the need for a demand-driven, as opposed to a supply-driven approach; the recommendation
of the implementation of an ongoing mentoring system linked to training programs; the
importance of further product development initiatives linked to new marketing strategy; the
requirement for support mechanisms for at-risk projects; the need to explore the
development of more visually-based learning support materials, and the recommendation
that an audit of administrative and reporting systems be conducted (Hagen 2007).91
Du Toit?s impact assessment found that the majority of Phumani members are women (75%)
and are either main breadwinners or contributing breadwinners in their households. The
The
report focuses on market challenges and reliability of the five selected groups that
participated in the intervention and identifies strengths and weaknesses in each site. An
overarching challenge hindering the success of market access appears to be linked to poor
communication from the Phumani Paper national office.

The July 2008 Impact Assessment submitted to the Ford Foundation by Lilo du Toit
examined the two-year intervention and focused on different indicators of change than the
UNESCO Artists in Development programme above, and drew from an extensive baseline
study conducted in 2007. I have selected a sample of the findings from the Executive
Summary report submitted to the Ford Foundation below, and other findings pertaining
specifically to the AIDS Action intervention will be referred to in Chapter Six.

90 Note these recommendations were picked up in some of the Ford Foundation project objectives: See log frame
of objectives and deliverables in Ford Foundation Summary, KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 2a-d).
91 Final Evaluation Report, July 2007: KB Archives (PP Draw 3B: File 17).
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average household size of the members of Phumani groups is six people, including elderly
parents, siblings, extended family and young children. All projects indicate that their
members access social grants, mostly the child support grant. Since the Mid-Term Review of
July 2007, project membership has remained stable, reporting a total of 112 members, and
an average of eight members per project in the final assessment. Most of the enterprises
report earnings between R500 and R1 000 per month per member, and Du Toit comments
that it would seem as if there are other reasons besides income for members to remain
involved with projects. This finding is something that this thesis addresses and expands upon
in Chapter Six. All the enterprises have requested help with marketing as their area of
greatest need. All groups have contact with a number of other organizations in their
communities, including organizations that work with HIV support. Phumani enterprises
access a range of resources and venues for opportunities to display their products. Du Toit
also comments on the fact that members of Phumani enterprises not only seek help from
other organizations, but they sometimes provide help to other groups and centres through
volunteer work, advice and even money.

Numerous interviews were conducted between 2006 and 2008 by Du Toit, my student
research assistants and myself.92
In attempting to draw conclusions that could be useful for better understanding in the field of
development practice in the arts and crafts sector, the following themes emerge from the
case study addressed in this chapter, some of which will be analysed and discussed further
in the conclusions to this thesis. The themes are as follows: the complexity of practice and
the importance of culturally sensitive approaches to development; the systems approach to
development and the role of government in supporting and/or undermining these
Interviewees include stakeholders in government and
NGOs that attempt to directly address specific questions about the role of government in
establishing poverty alleviation programs, as well as student facilitators, partners and
beneficiaries. The findings from the interviews will be referred to in Chapters Six and Seven.
In brief, the stakeholder interviews by project members, trainers and managers refer to the
values of leadership and the development of skills and capacities that have equipped
participants to contribute positively to making a difference in the lives of others. These
assessments support my argument throughout this thesis that it is not only income
generation that accounts for the survival of so many of the groups, but it is the facilitation of
deeper human values of dignity, pride, and the self-confidence that derives from having life
skills to pass on to the next generation that has kept the hope alive.

92 The original interviews are available in KB Archives (FF Draw 6: Files 1a-e).
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approaches; the sensibilities that arts processes can contribute to social development; the
role of aspiration and imagination in relation to resilience and sustainability.

Conclusions
The case of Phumani Paper shows that the value of visual arts practitioners placed in
unfamiliar contexts, such as that of development, leads to creative, innovative practices,
which, because of the unfamiliarity with development discourse, artists are unlikely be
prescriptive, hierarchical or disabling. The interactions with groups require consultation,
group process work and improvisation. The idea of dreaming alternative futures and
engaging in collective thinking in reaching for those dreams is a part of self-creation, and this
process was a component of the initial phases of forming this complex organization. Yet,
more and more, as funding requirements grew tighter and more rigorous, and deliverables
needed to be linked to log frames, Phumani Paper learned to ?behave? or comply (at least on
the surface) with the institutional practice of the South African government?s development
requirements in order to qualify for continued funding.

Edgar Pieterse has identified this process as typical, and cautions that it is counter-
productive to bypass what already exists in communities in favour of ?organizational forms
that are more recognizable to development programmes? (Pieterse 2004: 348). He further
claims that there is a tendency in many intervening government agencies or NGOs to
assume that poor communities lack structure. Therefore, ?upon arrival or ?descent? in a given
area, the propensity is to establish yet another new organizational formation to act as an
interface and to ensure adequate community participation? (Pieterse 2004: 348). This
?descent? approach is exemplified by Phumani Paper?s experience of government-funded
poverty alleviation programs, as reflected in the requirements for national outreach,
irrespective of sustainability potential or community needs.

From one perspective, Phumani Paper?s intervention in local communities was, in some
ways, a ?top-down? effort born out of the objectives of the Reconstruction and Development
Programme (RDP). The ?top-down? approach did not consult the communities as to whether
learning to make paper was of value to the group; this initial directive was in fact imposed.
As principal investigator, I identified papermaking as an innovative technology for job
creation, new research and skills training. What made this intervention different from other
?top-down? approaches to poverty alleviation was, I believe, the use of creativity and a
commitment to participation and shared decision-making. The artists who became the skills
trainers in the various Phumani Paper sites used a method of teaching that required dynamic
and active participation. The process of converting waste vegetation and recycled paper into
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products of beauty and value evoked excitement and magic in the creative process that, I
would argue, has contributed to the pride and resilience that has sustained commitment and
involvement in the groups for over eight years. The implication of much development
practice is that the ?beneficiaries? of the intervention are passive receivers. My own
experience has confirmed the arguments of Sen, Swilling, Pieterse and others that counter
the mistaken assumption that development can be ?given? to people, particularly
development in moments of exceptional transition such as those which characterized the
post-1994 government of South Africa. How does one ensure that the practice of
development can restore dignity and social justice, in addition to guaranteeing ?delivery??
How can the process facilitate the discovery of the individual agency that is needed to make
positive choices?

I agree with Alan Kaplan who advocates the approach that treats all development contexts
?as ?living processes? in order to anticipate non-linearity, surprise, multi-dimensionality, and
especially pre-existing agency? (Kaplan 2000: 33). This approach is akin to Appadurai?s
?deep democracy,? a concept that could be useful for development activists who could work
towards stimulating ?pre-existing agency? in community groups through creative participation
that addresses specific aspirations or needs.

This chapter proposes that success in development could be partially defined in terms of
resilience, which in the domain of craft enterprises in post-1994 South Africa, equals
survival. Systems theory provides the theoretical frame to analyse different modes of
development and thus to better understand the particular contributions that these case
studies from Phumani Paper make to conceptualizing development in moments of transition
in which cultures are striving for economic and social justice. I argue that open systems
thinking and self-creation is the core methodology of artistic and cultural practice. When
applied to development practice, this paradigm contributes to fostering and sustaining
agency and empowerment. Government policies and practices function within closed
systems, and I have argued here that this is at least partially why government-funded
poverty alleviation projects have a poor survival rate. If we can agree that resilience and the
survival of small development programs constitutes their success, then development projects
or programs which adopt an open system thinking and organizing approach (such as that
which characterizes art-making or creative practice) as their core methodology can succeed
through facilitating an enabling environment for survival and growth.

This chapter has demonstrated that visual arts and crafts facilitators assist people to fulfil
their potential and act productively for themselves and the collective, and in that way
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contribute positively to change. The premise underlying this argument is that the
development practitioner helps participants to achieve agency, and in that way the
enterprises have a much better chance of succeeding. The processes of creative dreaming
and imagining spark individuals to become agents of change; to go beyond self-actualization
towards agency and collective participation. The arts and creative cultural practice have an
important role to play in social transformation and in placing people at the centre of their own
development.
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CHAPTER FIVE: TRANSFORMATIVE PEDAGOGY IN HIGHER
EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY

Introduction
This chapter presents and analyses a range of challenges I have faced in my attempts to
encourage the institution of higher education where I teach to function as a site for
transformation. By transformation I mean a process of change from an oppressive to a
democratic social system, one that not only provides equality of educational opportunity but
also a more inclusive educational structure. In 1994 when I joined the Technikon
Witwatersrand (TWR), much of the country was filled with optimism and hope that was
fostered by the impending democratic change. Transformation in an institution such as the
TWR, which had been the primary training institution for the mining industry that had propped
up the apartheid government, was imminent. When I entered the Fine Art Department, there
were very few black art students or lecturers. To address the enormous disparity between
the educational opportunities offered to white students as opposed to minimal access to
black students, the White Paper on higher education called for a change in curriculum,
management and demographics. As a printmaker with a strong belief in the democratic
potential of the medium, I chose to join the Technikon because it was seen as an arena for
broad-based ?massification? that was not required to reproduce the more elitist educational
agenda of the university system. Change did come slowly: within two years the Fine Art
Department hired Moleleki Frank Ledimo as a printmaking lecturer and the first black staff
member in the Faculty.

Furthermore, substantive transformation required more than new appointments. It demanded
a deep institutional soul searching that questioned both the purpose and content of a
Eurocentric curriculum, and imagined new ways of producing knowledge. Our department
was privileged amongst tertiary education institutions, for as a college of technology we
enjoyed the space to introduce vocational opportunities for students, including teacher
training, workplace learning and community outreach, that helped to make fine art not merely
an indulgent qualification for middle class white students supported by their parents, but a
vocation that connects all students to the reality of economic survival. In this milieu, my
association with Artist Proof Studio (APS) was seen as an opportunity to introduce the black
artistic community to our students and faculty. However, as will become clear, it turned out to
be more difficult to achieve this and other community engagement goals than initially
expected.

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The aim of this chapter then, is to explore how research in the arts can play a significant role
in meeting the challenge provided by the Department of Education in 2001 to evolve ?an
equitable, sustainable and productive higher education system that will be of high quality and
contribute effectively and efficiently to the human resource, skills and knowledge and
research needs of the country? (Ministry of Education 2001: 6); and further:
contribute to the advancement of all forms of knowledge and scholarship,
and in particular address the diverse problems and demands of the local,
national, southern African and African contexts, and uphold rigorous
standards of academic quality (White Paper 1997: 1.14).

I focus my interrogation of the challenges of rising to this exciting opportunity by analysing
the fortunes of one Higher Education project designed to reach these goals. I initiated
instruction in a new medium ? hand papermaking ? that required the printmaking students to
learn about practice-based research and to apply their knowledge to a skill of making paper
out of processed waste materials. In order to access research funding outside of the Fine Art
Department, I established the Papermaking Research and Development Unit (PRDU). As is
the case with many university-based research centres, tensions developed within the
department, leading to heated conflict over educational priorities as well as my position as a
senior lecturer in the department.

The questions that underpin this analysis include the following: How can educators meet the
challenge of transformation in building a new democracy in South Africa? How can the arts
play a role in contributing to research and education for democracy? How is it possible to
expand the concept of research in the arts so as to make research relevant, fluid, inclusive
and collaborative? What would an ?African? research and education paradigm look like for the
arts? What framing research questions would ensure the production of new knowledge, and
enable researchers to exercise agency as participative democratic citizens? How can
programs supporting the ?public good? become part of an agenda shared by universities and
arts programs? And finally, what is it about the higher education system that is so resistant to
the incorporation of community engagement as part of core business? What are possible,
appropriate strategies to counter the conservative trend that is shutting down innovative,
imaginative programs, using the rationale that these are non-compliant with the given
academic structures of schools and departments?

What follows is a summary history of my early attempts at introducing transformational
pedagogic practices into the former TWR, and an interpretation of the causes of the
regressive tendencies that have increasingly opposed such transformation. As a senior
lecturer in the Fine Art Department since 1994, I have been engaged in the energizing and
172
challenging process of linking research activities with community engagement and artistic
practice. This process has established a dynamic arena that has required a rethinking of the
way knowledge is created, taught and retained, and that has created new spaces for
pedagogic practices that are radical and innovative. Such practices have at various stages
encountered dramatic resistance and opposition from gatekeepers within a hierarchical
educational infrastructure. I examine why this is the case, and investigate the conditions that
foster these retrogressive tendencies.

South Africa?s ongoing disputes over pedagogy are part of a much wider scholarly
investigation of the public role of the university that has shaken the ivory tower image of
tertiary education internationally. One of the first scholars to address the need for a radical
pedagogical practice was the Brazilian activist-educator Paulo Freire. In South Africa Freire?s
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) was a valued and banned text, sought after by
progressive left-wing activists during the apartheid struggle. It provided a foundation for much
of the philosophy of education for liberation that was part of the student opposition struggle
against oppression. Central to Freire?s approach were the complementary concepts of
building on the student?s existing knowledge base and of collaborative learning. According to
Freire:
There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education either
functions as an instrument to facilitate the integration of the younger
generation into the logic of the present system, or it becomes the practice
of freedom, the means by which men and women participate in the
transformation of their world (Shaull 2003 in Freire: 16).

In his introduction to the 30th Anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Donald
Macedo simply and elegantly thanked Freire, ?for having taught us how to read the world and
for challenging us to humanize the world? (Macedo 2003: 26). I share Macedo?s gratitude and
have endeavoured to respond to Freire?s challenge.

This initial approach to transformative education has been augmented by recent feminist
scholarship, as well as by South African educators such as Ahmed Bawa (2006), Jonathan
Jansen (2004), Nico Cloete and Teboho Moja (2004) and others who have provided an
ongoing critique of an increasingly conservative trend throughout the educational system
globally. 1

1 Transformation in Higher Education: Global Pressures and Local Realities by Nico Cloete, Peter Maassen, Richard
Fehnel, Teboho Moja, Trish Gibbon, Helene Perold (2004) provides a range of perspectives that support the
transformation goals of equity and democracy and ?to develop a structural understanding of how systems change in
the course of complex interactions between state, institutions and society? (Introduction: 2).

With respect to the former, the feminist scholar Chandra Mohanty contrasts
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pedagogies of accommodation ? comparable to Freire?s ?instrument ? for integration into the
system? ? with pedagogies of dissent; she writes:
Feminist pedagogy of dissent ? attempts to link knowledge, social
responsibility and collective struggle. And it does so by emphasizing the
risks that education involves ? the struggles for institutional change, and
the strategies for challenging forms of domination ? and by creating more
equitable and just public spheres within and outside educational
institutions (Mohanty 2003: 201).

After democracy was achieved in South Africa, it seemed as if Freire?s radically democratic
model was going to be implemented. The Department of Education?s White Paper 3 of 1997
and the 1996 White Paper produced by DACST (the Department of Arts, Culture, Science
and Technology) were far-sighted documents that incorporated some of the most advanced
theories of knowledge production and insisted on the importance of research to social
transformation. Alexandra Hofmaenner supports this progressive goal for higher education:
Human and social scientists play a vital role in the critical analyses of
national goals, choices of development policies and strategies, and other
national issues pertaining to the transformation of South African society.
Their involvement is crucial to a deeper understanding of social issues and
to stimulating public debate that could lead to a reconsideration of chosen
paths (Hofmaenner 2006: 11).

As a result of such newly-implemented government polices, exciting spaces opened in
education, all addressing the crucial goal of transforming a colonial-dominated education
system into one that was more appropriate to an African model. Entering the former TWR in
the year the ANC won the first democratic elections in South Africa, my interest as a lecturer
at a historically white, Afrikaans-speaking institution was to build community outreach and
access. It may have been na?ve and idealistic, but I imagined that our challenge as South
African educators was to devise an innovative new curriculum that built upon the knowledge
base of the new learners, while minimizing the legacy of oppression and injustice that
learners brought with them to the academic environment.

However, I am inclined to argue that the radical vision of the late 1990s has disappeared
from South African educational theory, policy and practice. My opinions were confirmed
when I attended a lecture at the University of the Witwatersrand in May 2006, given by
Professor Ahmed Bawa, Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal on ?Re-
imagining South African Higher Education in the Image of a Liberated South Africa.? He
argued that the higher education system has failed to enact the kinds of transformational
possibilities put forward in the 1997 White Paper. The discussion of the transformation of the
University as a social institution is a very large and important subject, and, as Bawa pointed
out, this would have to include discussion of the nature of knowledge and the nature of the
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production of knowledge. He argued that after twelve years of democracy, we have not seen
any fundamental changes in the educational system. On the contrary, he suggested that
there is a regressive re-racialization of the student bodies. My experience confirms Bawa?s
observations: the challenge facing educators in racially-mixed Fine Art student bodies
includes not only the politics of race, but also the politics of pedagogical transformation of the
ways in which meaning and identity are constructed, communicated and integrated into the
curriculum.

Bawa, Freire and Mohanty, among others, confirm my belief that the goal of education
should be to encourage students and their faculty collaborators to think critically about their
relationship to society and knowledge creation, and to fundamentally transform their
worldview: ?the pedagogy [of dissent] does not entail merely processing received
knowledges ? but also actively transforming knowledges? (Mohanty 2003: 201). Building on
the work of these scholars, it is my contention that artists in particular cultivate or possess
the qualities needed to transform knowledge. In their creative practice, artists are able to
abandon what does not work and create innovation that takes a project in a new direction.
They grapple with the constrictions of patterns and structures, and try to break out of them to
create something new. Artists are practiced at embracing risk and letting go of the familiar.
They expect to challenge themselves to stretch beyond comfortable limits; they aim to create
fresh rather than stock responses, and they are careful not to become too linked to
comfortable habits that have worked in the past. Artists are also trained to make use of
whatever material is at hand: they value the affirmative potential of found material and use it
in a purposeful and coherent way. In other words, the philosophy of pedagogy of freedom
introduced into the South African context in the 1970s by Freire?s writings seems to
constitute a very appropriate fit with the practice of the critical investigation of the relationship
between society and knowledge creation; moreover, I argue that the artist has the creative
ability to actively engage that relationship.

I suggest that today there exists a pressing need in higher education for a substantive
discussion about the role of universities in nation-building, in entrenching democracy, in
maintaining a culture of human rights, and in developing citizenship. In other words, I argue
that our challenge is to open a world with all its complexity to students and teaching, to learn
to democratize rather than colonize experience, and to do this using principles of non-
hierarchal participation and reflexive practices. I suggest that Higher Education should apply
its considerable knowledge base and resources to the task of reducing the pressing socio-
economic problems such as poverty, social dislocation and HIV/AIDS that are decimating the
population of this country. In my opinion, the fundamental task of education must be to serve
175
the public good and, accordingly, research should be practice-based and engaged with
public scholarship.

To address the questions posed at the outset of this chapter, I will broadly examine the
challenges of community engagement in post-apartheid higher education, and propose new
pedagogical models for community-based research through the case study of Phumani
Paper at the University of Johannesburg. Despite the promise of the 1996 White Paper on
education, the more radical impulses within higher education communities have been
significantly constrained by the neo-liberal economic policies established under President
Thabo Mbeki. George Subotzky argues that the concern for ?public good through pursuing
redress, equity, and redistributive justice [is] increasingly constrained by the hegemony of
global market-orientated, neoliberalism? (Subotsky 2005: 128). He argues that the
transformation agenda of the first eight years of democracy has been replaced with a
globalized market model of the university:
The dominance of the single market model and its higher educational
equivalent ? the entrepreneurial university, which has become the
benchmark of innovation and relevance ? ignores the pursuit of equity or
redress or, worse, discredits it as outmoded idealism. Despite the best of
progressive intentions, certain developments in South African higher
education have been unanticipated; they were driven by factors other than
policy, and in some cases, they have been counterproductive. These two
strands are linked. Together they obstruct the advancement of
transformative development goals, which are priorities in developing
countries particularly (2005: 128).

In South Africa, the university, I would argue, is moving away from its primary value as a site
of intellectual activity for the public good, and further towards a corporate activity for
developing the knowledge economy to serve the priorities of global capital. In a critical review
by Omano Edigheji and Steven Friedman that investigates ?Public Accountability in South
African Higher Education,? the authors affirm the problems of the corporatization of university
administration that Subotsky identifies:
The corporatisation of management and the consequent diminished roles of
democratic structures representing academics, such as the Senate, are also widely
seen as one of the major dangers to public accountability of higher education
institutions in the new South Africa. However, those who are concerned about
managerialism?s impact on academic activity are clearly concerned with threats to
academic freedom posed by higher education institutions themselves (Edigheji and
Friedman 2006: 11).

The corporatization of the university has changed the way education is understood. In
addition to Edigheji,and Friedman, scholars such as Donald Hall have argued that in the
United States, education is no longer considered a public good, but a means of equipping
students with the competence to contribute to economic competitiveness (Hall 2007: 11).
176
Similarly Cloete and Moja identify the major function of education in South Africa at present
to be the production of potential employees in the corporate world, rather than citizens who
participate in a democracy:
Higher education has two important functions in the knowledge economy. The one ?
is to produce medium-skills level professional graduates for the professions in the
service sector; the other is to produce highly skilled knowledge producers for high-
level [corporate] innovation (Cloete and Moja [2001] 2004: 244-245).

In sum, these scholars argue that a new form of colonialism has emerged in the information
age: the market has colonized the academy. The primary purpose of the latter has changed
from public scholarship serving transformation to education that serves the needs of
production and exchange. Equally disturbing, access to higher education in this model is
based on the ability to pay ? and as a result many people are denied access to higher
education institutions.

Instead of exclusively educating students to assume a position in a corporate hierarchal
environment, I argue that universities should create opportunities for the inclusion of
community-engaged research and learning. In spite of the listing of community engagement
as one of the three tenets in the vision statement of most higher education institutions,
universities are increasingly leaning toward what Freire terms the ?banking system of
teaching.? (Freire [1970] 2003: 72). For instance, at the University of Johannesburg there is a
pressure on all research output to be published in accredited journals, as this will lead to
subsidy for the University. However, only certain sorts of value are recognized. For instance,
although the Papermaking Research and Development Unit (PRDU) provides an example of
a research activity that can create economic value as well as facilitate access to education
by the previously excluded members of the public, there is still pressure to prove its value
through publishing accredited articles.

To cite a personal example of the current dominance of the banking mentality: in a meeting
with the Faculty research administrators in March 2007, to evaluate my research request for
funding students from different departments to work on my community research project, the
only criteria to qualify for internal funds put forward was: ?Will funds granted lead to an
accredited research output?? On presenting my proposed budget, I summarized the research
outcome as follows: the new knowledge generated from the skills of chemical engineering
students collaborating with Fine Arts students interning in the Archival Papermaking Mill will
present the possibility for greater job creation and enhanced excellence of the product. The
purpose of the research project is to develop mechanisms for testing archival handmade
paper for its permanence and pH content in a laboratory context, an exciting experiment in
177
multi-disciplinary investigation. Nonetheless, I was told that that new knowledge per se does
not qualify for funding support as a research output as it does not generate a Department of
Education subsidy for the Faculty. Only after I agreed to co-author an article with the
research graduate of the archival paper-mill would the Dean release the funds requested for
the Honours students? project. I agreed, and a compromise was reached and we
subsequently published a paper in TAPPSA, the (non-accredited) journal for the South
African paper-industry (Berman and Marshall: 2008).2
My experience of introducing Phumani Paper as a research project in the Faculty of Arts
provides valuable lessons about the ways in which arts-based research can play a role in
community upliftment. The research goal was to devise and implement appropriate
Freire?s analogy of the ?banking
system? is therefore in line with a capitalist paradigm of generating money for some, (in this
case the University); rather than improving the lot of many.

The limited vision demonstrated in this incident reinforced my determination to challenge the
trend in the ?knowledge economy? that is driving educators back into the former elite
conception of the purpose of the academy. This traditional approach to education is linked to
the notion that the undergraduate students? task is to consume information fed to them by a
lecturer: to be able to memorize and store it. Furthermore, the present funding ratios mean
that the viability of learning programs is dependent on a high ratio of students to lecturers. As
the arts cannot be effectively taught in large classes, the Fine Art Department is not
economically viable in the eyes of a university driven by corporate goals. Fine Art learning
programs depend on a ratio of relatively fewer students to lecturers than in other fields, in
some cases ten to one. The alternative is to generate subsidies through accredited research
publications, but these are not always appropriate forums for practice-based research in the
arts.

In spite of such obstacles to the implementation of my original vision, I remain convinced that
community-based arts research, that promotes consensual and cooperative ways of learning,
can provide an alternative objective to what I perceive as competitive, power-driven, conflict-
ridden organizational processes that characterize the academy at present. The model of
community-based research that serves the public good constitutes a viable strategy to
address what Ahmed Bawa has observed as the failure of higher education to imagine its
transformational vision (Bawa 2006).

2 TAPPSA (Journal for the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry of Southern Africa),
(http//www. tappsa.co.za).
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technology and skills for poverty alleviation and job creation through craft enterprises.
Ironically, Phumani Paper as a community engaged initiative of the University of
Johannesburg can be adapted to fit the demands of neoliberal banking-type criteria that
generate publications and have economic value. Yet the issue for me is to ensure an ethical
and social justice approach that extends a broader access to knowledge generation beyond
the academy and its accredited publications. The difference is that there is more value for the
poor and the focus is not the elite. An additional issue relates to the neoliberal thrust that has
somehow made it possible for a conservative backlash in the name of retaining ?quality? and
?real research?. Elements within the academic bureaucracy have tried, and sometimes
succeeded, in shutting down radical, innovative programs in the name of protecting the
academic integrity (and exclusivity) of the academy. I assess the pedagogical implications of
this case study here as an example of the role that arts can play in shifting a paradigm,
informing a pedagogy of liberation, and affirming an African model of re-imagination in the
generation of new knowledge.

In their essay ?Towards an African Identity of Higher Education,? Malegapuru Makgoba and
Sipho Seepe discuss ?the need for (re)-formulation of liberatory philosophy and goals for
education that will resonate with the aspirations of the majority?. Prominence, they assert,
?should be given to questions dealing with the type of society envisaged, [and] the kind of
knowledge, skills and values required for cultural, societal and economic development?
(Makgoba and Seepe 2004: 30). It is my experience that prominence can be given to these
questions in research projects, but that if the means for assessing community-based arts
projects remains hostile to such transformation strategies, the students engaged in these
projects fall victim to a clash with a seemingly incompatible discursive and value system that
has been associated with historically white institutions. This complaint is frequently
articulated by black students as ?an alienating organizational culture/ethos? in our universities
(Makgoba and Seepe 2004: 19).

In spite of the regressive tendencies that manifest in practice, such as those discussed
above, South African education policy documents reflect a continuing adherence to the idea
of higher education as serving the public good.3

3 The term is used in a position paper: ?Reinserting the Public Good into Higher Education transformation?
Kagisano, CHE Higher Education Discussion Series: (Singh 2001 and Badat. 2001a).
(Such a dislocation between policy and
practice is not uncommon in other sectors also.) In 2001 the Department of Education issued
three challenges to higher education institutions that are summarized as follows: How do
educators, through teaching, research and related activities, teach ?good?? (in the context of
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?serving the public good?). How do educators produce professionals and researchers who
can think theoretically, analyse with rigour, gather and process empirical data, and do all this
with a deep social conscience and sensitivity to the diverse needs of South African people
and society? How is it possible to produce young men and women who will personify good,
and in this way ensure that in the years ahead South African political, social and intellectual
life will not be banal, self-centred and mired either in greed or desperate attempts at survival,
but rather, will be rich and vibrant, engaging questions of social justice and intellectual and
political actions towards achieving a humane society? (Badat 2001a: 5).

The case study of Phumani Paper is a useful example of a community engagement and
research activity that attempts to address these challenges. The research I undertook with
my students into hand papermaking began as an empirically-based effort. It was only some
years after the PRDU had been established and funded (1997) that it began to be informed
by educational theory, which then began to redirect our efforts in the manner of a feedback
loop. Before turning to the research project, however, it is important to discuss the current
educational theory developed by both American and South African scholars that I have found
relevant, not only for my research projects, but that I deem important for the future direction
of a more progressive and participatory pedagogy furthering the public good.

Traditional Research versus Public Scholarship
The concept of public scholarship significantly challenges the traditional approaches and
methodologies of scholarly research in the academy. Julie Ellison, a professor of literature at
the University of Michigan and the founder of the nationwide consortium of American
colleges, Imagining America, has powerfully articulated the role that scholarship could, and
should, play in public life.4

4 Imagining America (IA) is a presidents? consortium of 70 colleges and universities, based at the University of
Michigan. Its mission is to strengthen the public role and democratic purposes of the humanities, arts and design.
IA supports publicly engaged academic and creative work in the cultural disciplines. It works to advance the
structural changes in higher education that such work requires. IA?s major task is to constitute public scholarship
as an important and legitimate enterprise.
She defines public scholarship as follows:
Public scholarship does not mean simply the delivery of knowledge to the
public in accessible forms. Nor does it mean that faculty scholars become
service providers. Public scholarship is not the same as public intellectual
work (academic production that has a public audience) or faculty
investigations of public culture or the public sphere. Rather, our approach
to public scholarship grants faculty members agency and interests as civic
professionals working with peers in a community of practice and inquiry.

Ellison supports her argument with a quote from her former colleague David Scobey:
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As asset- or resource-based theories of social movements and community
studies have taught, we are collaborating with partners who are
themselves agents, creators, and interpreters, with their own expertise and
their own account of both their world and ours. (Ellison 2006: 14).

In a study on responsive tenure policies for public scholars in the Humanities, Arts and
Design, Ellison and the Imagining America tenure team explored the value of ?the
adventurous work of publicly engaged scholars and artists? (Ellison 2006 Tenure Report5
This definition provides a useful way of framing the challenges that I experienced for
community-based research at the University of Johannesburg. In our context, I perceive the
main challenge to be for the University and its faculty, department and post-graduate
supervisors to be able to accommodate, supervise and provide evaluation guidelines for the
kinds of hybrid projects described by Ellison above. However, my experience with the
supervision of masters? students who were involved in such publicly engaged projects has
revealed the hopeless inadequacy of our accepted guidelines for evaluating the generic
Master?s of Fine Art student. Assessment of my students? research revealed the depth of
what I experienced as an inability of evaluators to support research whose primary outcome
was directed at the public good. The postgraduate students? non-compliance with a narrow
Fine Art model was seen by examiners as the students? failure. It took the seeking out of
international experts and scholars to transform these students? initially poor results into highly
rated achievements. This experience made clear to me the necessity of evolving guidelines
).
This extensive report on tenure policy provides a stimulating intellectual framework, as well
as a useful guide that is motivated by an imperative for universities to be ?accountable to the
larger civic purposes of education.? The report identifies four aspects of engaged scholarship
? contextual, complex, public and cultural ? and underscores the importance of ?the project?
in publicly engaged work in the cultural disciplines: ?The project is often a hybrid enterprise,
integrating creative work, research, pedagogy, and outreach? (Ellison 2006). Ellison
acknowledges the challenge of creating criteria to evaluate the scholarly excellence of such
integrative projects, and cites the following reasons for establishing clear guidelines to
support these undertakings: the project is often the basis for the core professional identity of
public scholars and artists; the project is the provocation for and subject of writing,
publication, and presentation; and finally, the project is the focus of new programmatic and
funding infrastructures in colleges and universities.

5 ?The Imagining America Background Study?, by Julie Ellison (2006) is a Discussion Draft for the participants in
the tenure team initiative.(http://www.imaginingamerica.org/IApdfs/tti-background-study%20DRAFT.pdf). This has
since been adapted and published as : ?Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and the Tenure Policy in the
Engaged University: A Resource on Promotion and Tenure in the Arts, Humanities and Design? (Ellison and
Eatman 2008).
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for examiners evaluating ?public good? research projects. I offer an example of such
guidelines in Appendix 1 of this thesis.

Although public scholarship is an unfamiliar term in South Africa, similar thinking has
occurred elsewhere in the world. University of Minnesota Professor Harry Boyte has
developed the concept of the student researcher as citizen that provides the appropriate
balance to Ellison?s public scholar. The model Boyte developed at the Humphrey Institute?s
Center for Democracy and Citizenship makes a powerful argument for the value of public
scholarship by student-researchers, one that is relevant to an African model of
empowerment:
From the beginning of Public Achievement [the engaged learning program
for developing civic capacities at the University of Minnesota], a central
question has been: how can young people shift from being spectators to
being citizens? Put differently, how can people develop a sense of
themselves as powerful, bold, effective actors, problem solvers, and co-
creators of the democracy, not its victims, clients, protestors, or
consumers? We knew that this transformed sense of selfhood would
require a different kind of politics, an everyday politics that teaches young
people to work across differences to solve problems, create things of
lasting benefit for their communities, and contribute to democratic renewal
(Boyte 2006: 2).

The following assertion by Boyte supports my own experience:
Young people want opportunities to break out of cultures that treat them
as objects to be manipulated and amused. They want to develop a public
life in living communities, and engage in work of consequence for
themselves and the larger society. They want to be recognized and valued
for their efforts. Public Achievement, in its largest aim, is part of the
movement to change the culture ?from Me to We,? building societies in
which all people are valued, and of which all can be proud (Boyte 2006:
10).

In short, he asserts that students want to be treated as ?critical agents,? who are directly
involved with working for change in their communities. This is also true for the students
working in the Phumani Paper program who have responded very positively to their
experiences.

However, the desired coalition between ?town and gown? can be problematic, and so
educator Beth Savan (2002) has proposed a structure that would help assure a positive
working partnership between university researchers and communities. In her essay:
?Campus and Community: Partnerships for Research, Policy, and Action? Savan focuses on
partnerships that join universities with community-based NGOs to achieve specific research
and action outcomes. She provides a definition of community-based research from the Loka
Institute that is applicable to my argument: ?Research partnerships that harness academic
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resources and rigour to meet community development goals are collectively termed
?community-based research.?? She elaborates:
Community-based research is distinguished from more traditional applied
research in that the community groups have an important role in defining
the research topic and sometimes managing the research itself. In other
words, community members are not research subjects to be studied by
academics to advance knowledge in a particular field: they are, instead,
research directors, working in partnership with university-based scholars
to identify and pursue original research trails. Invariably, these research
goals are intimately tied to action or advocacy outcomes, which contribute
to community development and environmental improvements or enhanced
population health (Savan 2002).

A question pertinent to the challenge of postgraduate supervision is: How can South African
higher education play this role in mentoring young, previously disadvantaged students in
both university and community settings? What should be the focus of postgraduate
supervision in engaging with a student from a background where there is often an
appropriate resistance to white colonial methodologies that uphold outdated standards and
values? How can supervisors facilitate the role of postgraduate students to fulfil their purpose
as change agents in communities?

Postgraduate supervision can be seen as a challenge of mentorship and role-modelling. Our
goal should not be to turn excellent practitioners into mediocre or inadequate academics.
Rather, we should shift the paradigm, and understand postgraduate supervision as a process
of facilitating ?voice? or ?agency?, that is, of teaching young people to ?work across difference,
to solve problems, to create things of lasting benefit for their communities, and to contribute
to democratic renewal? (Boyte 2006: 10). As an educator in the arts, I see this as a worthy,
exciting and challenging role. The skills of research methodology, academic compliance, and
structurally competent writing are all techniques and skills that can be taught as part of a
learning curriculum. However, methodological approaches must be used to support and
enhance the quality of research, and not suppress the voice of the agent to force compliance
to strictures of existing systems. Makgoba and Seepe go further by asserting the need to
make the ?political more pedagogical?. This requires pedagogical practices that ?problematize
knowledge, utilize dialogue, and make knowledge meaningful, critical, and ultimately
emancipatory? (Makgoba and Seepe 2004: 38).

This set of challenges leads back to the questions framed in the introduction to this chapter:
How may the concept of research in the arts be expanded in order to make research
relevant, fluid, inclusive and collaborative? And what would constitute an ?African? research
and education paradigm for the arts? Brenda Cooper has written an insightful paper on the
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role of interdisciplinary research for alleviating ?spiritual poverty? in the edited volume Shifting
Boundaries of Knowledge. She argues that interdisciplinary research requires a nuanced
understanding of the relationship between the social sciences, natural sciences and the arts,
while respecting the methodologies of each. I agree that the understanding of the role of the
arts in social change requires a mastery of the complexity of multidisciplinary strategies
(Cooper 2006: 92).

In an attempt to clarify and contextualize community-based research in the relation to theory
and practice, I have adopted two concepts: ?participatory paradigm? and ?praxis? as defined by
Marcia Hills and Jennifer Mullett (2000) from the Community Health Promotion Coalition in
Canada. Expanding on Peter Reason?s (1997) discussion of ?participatory paradigms?, the
authors offer various guiding principles for community-based research. On ?praxis? or the
relationship of theory to practice in community-based research, Hills and Mullet acknowledge
that theory is often talked about as if it belongs exclusively in the world of the academy. They
define theory as an explanation of phenomena; it is implicit in all human action and is
therefore necessary in developing evidence for community-based practice. In contrast to
orthodox science, community-based research does not see theory as something that is
known and that ?informs? practice; As Max Van Manen says: ?Practice (or life) comes first,
and theory comes later as a result of reflection? (Van Manen 1990: 15). Community-based
Participatory Action Research (PAR) is based on the concept of praxis that is dialectical. It is
a reflexive relationship, in which both action and reflection build on one another.
In community-based research, it is the cycling through the iterations of
action and reflection creates praxis, and concomitantly generates
evidence for future practice. This process grounds practice in theory,
rather than applying theory to practice (Carrol, Hills and Mullett
2007: 128).

This notion of praxis is a fundamental concept in Freire?s work and is fundamental to creating
evidence-based practice in communities. In interpreting what could constitute an ?African?
research and education praxis for the arts, I propose that it be linked to Hills and Mullett?s
?participatory paradigm?.6

6 A paradigm is ?a set of basic beliefs (or metaphysics) that deals with ultimates or first principles. It represents a
worldview that defines, for its holder, the nature of the world, the individual?s place in it, and the range of possible
relationships to that world and its parts, as, for example, cosmologies and theologies do? (Guba and Lincoln,
1994: 105). Guba and Lincoln made a significant contribution in articulating four differing worldviews of research -
positivist, post positivist, critical, and constructivist- based on their ontological, epistemological and
methodological assumptions. Heron and Reason (1997) argue for a fifth world view ? a participatory paradigm.
Community-based research is situated within this paradigm and also embraces the ideology and methodology of
cooperative inquiry described by (Heron 1996; Reason 1994; Heron and Reason 1997) (See expanded definition
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00001388.htm: Accessed 29 November 2008).
Engagement in the process of research allows students and
participants to develop new ways of thinking, behaving and practising:
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By full involvement of community groups and policy makers, decisions can
be made throughout the process about how to use the information to bring
about change. Community-based research recognizes that any research
process has multiple outcomes and takes into account the need to enact
ways of working that protect or enhance the dignity and identities of all
people involve. (Hills and Mullett 2000b: [s.p.]).

The paradigm of praxis/participation is central to the theory of PAR. As defined by Peter
Reason, PAR is a ?coming to know,? rather than a formal, traditional research methodology.
He defines PAR as a methodology for an alternative system of knowledge production, based
on the people?s role in setting the agendas, participating in data gathering and analysis, and
in controlling the use of its outcomes. It emphasizes the political aspects of knowledge
production, creating knowledge directly useful to a group of people. The research process
involves full reciprocity, so that ?each person?s agency is fundamentally honoured, both in the
exchange of ideas and in action? (Reason 2001: 324, 339). As this methodology has become
widely adopted, it has in due course been revised. For instance, activist educator Ernest
Stringer (1999, 2005) has expanded Reason?s definition of PAR to include the key outcome
of improving the quality of the lives of the participants. He writes: ?Community-based action
research is a collaborative approach to inquiry or investigation that provides people with the
means to take systematic action to resolve specific problems? (Stringer 1999: 17).

All of the scholars cited assume that community-based action research focuses on methods
and techniques of enquiry that link to people?s history, culture, social practices and emotional
lives. Such research seeks to shift the balance of the research situation so that it can
enhance the lives of those who participate. Accordingly, Stringer and others have proposed
that programs be evaluated not only according to their technical or functional worth, but also
according to their impact on people?s social and emotional lives.7

7 Guba and Lincoln (1994) argue for interactions that respect people?s dignity, integrity, and privacy. They contend
that such interactions will ?stimulate creativity, instil pride, build commitment, prompt the taking of responsibility
and evoke a sense of investment and ownership.?
It is my contention, argued
throughout this thesis, that the emotional responses conveyed through narratives by
participants in the course of PAR interventions are deepened through the use of visual arts
methods, which provide a critical component when evaluating aspects of sustainability and
resilience. (This will be expanded upon in Chapter Six). Participatory Action Research
methodology requires scholars to establish evaluative criteria that can measure the effects of
the research on intangible values such as taking responsibility, building commitment and
ownership, stimulating creativity and benefiting the public good. Value should also be given
to human dignity, care, justice and interpersonal respect.

185
Finally, complexity, a recurring concept in the analyses of arts-based processes for
community engagement and research has been discussed as both a framing theory and
strategy in Chapter Four. I refer to it briefly in this context in order to note that complex
systems theory ?invites us to look for patterns rather than parts, probabilities rather than
predictions, processes rather than structures, and non-linear dynamics instead of
deterministic causalities? (Swilling 2004: 327). I argue that this concept is vital in the quest for
transformation in South African higher education.

Papermaking as a Research and Development Program
When I began teaching at the former TWR in the mid-1990s, the research arena was wide
open, and the agenda for transformation had been initiated and supported by a progressive
Dean. At that time, the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded research projects that
had redress and community relevance as their key components.8
These students investigated appropriate papermaking technologies for sustainable rural
livelihoods, specifically the conversion of agri-waste into craft. What has become evident
over the past decade of engaging in and sustaining such activities is that artists? creative
thinking can introduce innovative ideas that have solid practical applications. In the context of
establishing hand papermaking for economic development as a research activity area in the
former Technikon, my students and I entered a space of possibility. The approach we used
emulated the principles of chaos theory more closely than any deterministic or rational
The research activity I
initiated, papermaking for economic development, thrived in this environment. As there was
no Master?s program at the time, (the MTech degree program was established in 1996), Fine
Art students had almost no foundation in research methodologies, whether quantitative or
qualitative. Ironically, this absence cleared a creative space for developing a curriculum
suited to the individual student?s projects or needs. At the same time, the government offered
funding opportunities for research projects in the newly-defined Cultural Industries sector.
Hand papermaking was one such industry, and the first two Master?s students developing
their research into hand papermaking, Bronwyn Marshall and Mandy Coppes, sought outside
assistance from other disciplines and external experts in the field, as there was no precedent
for this kind of research in South Africa. This opened the door to innovative knowledge
production through collaboration and multi-disciplinary methods of investigation.

8 At the time the NRF was called the Centre for Science Development (CSD). The National Research Foundation
(NRF), established on 1 April 1999, incorporates activities of the former Foundation for Research Development
(FRD) and the former CSD.
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methods. Chaos theory describes cyclical processes of discovery and change within a
system of unpredictability.9
ln 2000 I received a very generous grant from the government to use research to create
hundreds of new jobs in hand-paper crafts. This Papermaking Poverty Relief Program
became Phumani Paper (discussed in Chapter Four). Furthermore the NRF awarded full
research bursaries to four Master?s students and support to four BTech students in this new
activity area each year from 2000 to 2005. The program has since been renewed, with two
new master?s students being supported in activist and community arts and two to four BTech
students receiving support as research assistants annually.

10
In sum, this project was engaged in research that was directly applicable to the public good.
The stakes were high. The DACST grant of R3 million tasked the research unit of the former
TWR with establishing at least 460 new jobs in this new cultural industry in its first year of

The term ?cultural industries? was defined and framed by government in the 1994 White
Paper for Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. This area opened up new opportunities for
research projects in the arts sector. In the absence of a pre-determined methodology for the
research process, the creative space of inquiry and the drive to make a difference to the
poorest of the poor facilitated a very dynamic and fluid process of discovery. As a result my
students and I operated in an environment that felt like a creative incubator that was non-
prescriptive and was not policed by bureaucracy, nor constrained by academic conformity.
We were allocated a basement venue in the deteriorating Marydale building on campus,
where other faculty members refused to teach, as it flooded when it rained and was very cold
in winter. Down in the basement my printmaking students worked not just at the grass roots,
but in the muddy ditch of emerging knowledge, stripping bark off various plants and carefully
recording the optimal procedures for turning those plants into paper. They proved to be
outstanding researchers, and four master?s student research projects have been essential to
establishing sustainable processes within the Phumani Paper enterprise. These include the
use of cotton and sisal for archival paper production (Marshall 2003), the use of invasive
plant species for sustainable cultural development (Coppes 2003), and paper-based
technologies such as paper-clay (Ladeira 2004) and cast paper pulp for three-dimensional
craft production (Tshabalala 2005). (Figures 6a and b).

9 The term ?chaos theory? comes from the fact that the systems which the theory describes are apparently
disordered, but chaos theory is really about finding the underlying order in apparently random data
(http://www.imho.com/grae/chaos/chaos.html).
10 Annual Reports from NRF Research funding and student projects are available in KB Archive (UJ Draw 5 File
12).
187
implementation. The teams consisted of postgraduate students, BTech research interns,
papermakers with expertise (Linda Sihlali and Cathy Stanley), community facilitators (the
regional co-coordinators hired by the Papermaking Poverty relief program (PPRP) to set up
and manage the projects), and local community artists (primarily drawn from Artist Proof
Studio) who all worked alongside each other. There was no hierarchy of privilege or
knowledge. White and black university students were learning with, and were supported by,
their community-based counterparts in rural and township community centres. Knowledge
was shared, methods experimented with and invented, and an exciting world of
multidisciplinary and multicultural opportunities was opened up to all involved.

Subsequently, two of these master?s students (Coppes and Marshall) embarked on
internships with the Agricultural Council to research plant fibres, and were awarded research
grants to visit facilities in Belgium and Japan to study print and paper. Another master?s
student (Terence Fenn) received a fellowship to Australia to do a Community Research
Master?s program in multi-media.11 Further, through the NRF Visiting Scientist/Mentor grants,
I was able to arrange for all of the students and community artist collaborators to participate
in intensive workshops with visiting expert papermakers from the United States, Europe and
the Philippines, as well as a month-long intensive pineapple fibre training with a Japanese
shifu-master.12
Further collaborations with papermakers from the United States as well as local artisans led
to the design and construction of new equipment that was continually adapted to our evolving
needs. I applied for, and subsequently received, a patent for an unusual design and
modification of a duplex Hollander paper beater.

13 An accomplished Johannesburg-based
artist, Durant Sihlali,14

11 Research reports from international visits by students are available in KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 15).
12 The visiting artist papermakers included Robbin Silberberg, Lee Scott MacDonald, Gail Deehry from the United
States, Veerle Rooms and Angela Melson from Belgium. Shifu is an ancient Japanese art of weaving textile from
pineapple fibre paper, Asao Shimura both visited the PRDU and trained people on a pineapple farm in the
Eastern Cape in paper fibre arts (see Figures 4 and 29a Chapter Four).
13 The self-taught engineer and designer was Antonio Moreno (see Hollander beater Figure 43b Chapter Four).
The patent was registered and awarded: KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 7).
14 Durant Sihlali died in 2006 and the PRDU purchased his equipment to prevent it from being sold for scrap (see
Figure 39 Chapter Four).
(the father of South African papermaking and an innovator in paper-
making technology for artists), provided essential expertise, supervision, training and advice
to the students. Research into product design, plant dyes, invasive vegetation, sculptural
applications and livelihood opportunities emerged in collaboration with student and staff
members in different design departments and centres within the Technikon. Building on the
contacts we had established with Paper Prayers, (see Chapter Three) the students and
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community artists visited rural villages, learning about local environmental initiatives, and
investigating ways to tap into local industries and community centres. Partnerships with
NGOs that were active in each community assisted us in setting up workshops and recruiting
participants to join a new enterprise of converting waste paper and waste plant vegetation
into handmade paper and paper products.15
Further, each project was participatory and developed with the members of the groups
concerned. For example Coppes (2003) experimented and tested the viability of eight
invasive vegetation plant fibres and applied three that are currently used by the Phumani
Paper enterprises (black wattle in the Eastern Cape, Port Jackson willow in the Western
Cape and milkweed in Gauteng.) Coppes went on to design training manuals for the
accredited qualification in papermaking that has been implemented nationally.

Each of the Master?s students? research projects were involved in investigating and devising
new technologies for craft development to enhance income generation within Phumani Paper
projects. A part-time master?s student Taryn Cohn (2004), a sociology student from the
University of Stellenbosch, focused her master?s research on Craft and Poverty Alleviation in
South Africa, and conducted an impact study of Phumani Paper as a multi-site, craft-based
poverty alleviation programme. She was able to register her study at the University of
Stellenbosch and conduct her research under the PRDU. Her research findings assisted
Phumani Paper to make the argument to the National Treasury division tasked with
dispersing poverty grants, that poverty alleviation was not reductively about income
generation, but also needed to address social, environmental and economic poverty. Cohn
agued that the women who made less money than some of their counterparts in other sites,
expressed similar responses to social empowerment questions as those in the groups that
earned better incomes. Cohn?s research focused on the social and human dimensions of
sustainable development, and stressed the importance of social status, and that in some
cases the dignity of having work and skills outweighed income. I would add that the use of
creative processes further reduced spiritual poverty, a notion that is further explored in
Chapter Six.

15 An extensive network of community sites exists. Information on each community partner is available in KB
Archives (PP Draw 3B: Files 10 and 12).
16 See Training materials for hand Papermaking Qualifications (NQF 2 and 4) registered with SAQA through the
MAPPP SETA (Coppes and Marshall 2005). KB Archives (PP Draw 3A Files12-14 and Draw 3B14a).
Marshall?s
thesis (2003) formed the basis of the development of the archival papermaking mill at the
University of Johannesburg, and the subsequent development of an accredited training
qualification (NQF Level 4). Jeannot Ladeira worked with the Endlovini potters in their village
189
in the Gingindlovu region of rural KwaZulu-Natal to introduce paper clay to their pots for the
tourist trade in order to enhance their durability. He also introduced screen-printing and new
designs into the Eshowe paper and craft unit which contributed to their marketability and
resulted in increased income to the group, (see Figure 14 Chapter Four). David Tshabalala
conducted an ambitious poverty relief skills project in association with Friends of the Earth
and the World Summit on Sustainable Development,17
For some students, however, the risks associated with interdisciplinarity were worth it. The
first two Master?s students developing their research into hand papermaking, Coppes and
Marshall, established in-house links with the Departments of Engineering and Chemistry.
These departments assisted in assuring the use of proper scientific procedures, and
and introduced a new technology of
cast paper to produce sculptural products. This innovation is proving to be one of the more
commercially viable products for Phumani Paper: the Phumani Pets produced by the
Twanano group. (See Figure 42, Chapter Four).

These research projects, while not designed specifically as Action Research investigations
when they were initiated, exhibit the essential characteristics of Action research in that they
?improved the quality of the lives of the participants? and facilitated ways for people to reflect
and act to address specific problems (Stringer 1999: 17).

The PRDU?s interdisciplinary approach was central to knowledge production, but
unfortunately, interdisciplinarity was not welcomed in the increasingly conservative university
climate. This lack of support of the program was taken on in my own Department and it
became very uncomfortable to continue to fulfil my mandate from the University?s Executive
Management, who had signed the grant agreement with DST, as well as to fulfil my
commitment to undergraduate teaching and administrative duties in the Department. The
threat of exclusion from the Fine Arts discipline proper during the period of curriculum
revision, was an experience that my Master?s students and I, working in community-based
research outside of the Fine Art paradigm, consistently encountered. Among the challenges
we faced was ?crossing the line? from ?Fine Art? into ?craft, requiring artists to design tourist
items. As Sipho Seepe writes: ?the next generation of scholars must still reckon with the
possibility that interdisciplinarity can frequently lead to exclusion from one?s own discipline?
(Seepe 2004: 39).

17 Friends of the Earth contracted Phumani Paper to conduct a three-month project that involved recycling waste
paper leading up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in 2002. Tshabalala was assigned to
the project which subsequently became the case study he explored in his Master?s dissertation. This project is
expanded on later in this chapter.
190
recruited students for product development projects from Graphic Design and Industrial
Design. The value of working across disciplines went further than expanding the knowledge
base and capacities of all of the students concerned; most of them received funding,
internships, travel opportunities and job placements through and beyond their studies. As
researchers, these students were fully engaged and inspired by the challenge of their
groundbreaking efforts in a new field and they produced very substantial research. Each
spent two to three years of dedicated energy in the field before attempting to write up their
research findings in their master?s papers.

The guiding philosophy of all members in the PRDU embodied the values and ethics of
collaborative, participative, and consultative processes that worked towards the
empowerment and ownership of the research by community and university participants. The
vision was to facilitate the establishment of micro-enterprises that could generate livelihoods
for community members. As described in the previous chapter, 21 handmade papermaking
projects were established in the first two years of implementation, between the end of 1999
and 2002. Eight to nine years later at the end of 2008, fifteen enterprises are still surviving
with varying levels of success.

The students were not ?out there? researching ?the other?, but attempting to co-design and co-
produce new knowledge from local resource bases within each of the Phumani Paper
groups. Each group had different needs, different local vegetation suitable for paper, and
different degrees of access to resources such as electricity, water, transport, and raw
materials. Each unit therefore needed particular attention to issues of design, technology and
training that relied on the needs identified by the participants and trainers. All new paper and
product research was transferred, tested and owned, or rejected, by the community
participants.

The PRDU was also active in expanding existing curricular offerings in the Fine Art
Department. Many of the Phumani Paper facilitators who were fourth-year Fine Art
graduates, also serviced the Teacher Training Unit over the years. (These included Sister
Sheila Flynn, Terence Fenn, Percy Madia (from APS), Usha Seejarum and Mandy Coppes).
Each of the student facilitators contracted as trainers in papermaking, including the
community artist participants from APS, were required to attend a one-year learner-centred,
visual arts teacher-training facilitation course offered by the Fine Art Department, to develop
the necessary capacities and skills for training participants in their communities. The training
methodology designed for this certificate program eliminated the tendency toward top-down
191
teaching, familiar to students graduating from most pre-democracy and township schools
(See Figure 12 Chapter Two).18
The success of this approach to research is reflected in the quality of the student/artist
graduates. Most are still fully engaged in their own careers as educators, trainers, and/or
community facilitators, passing on their commitment to using the arts for economic and social
upliftment.

Our experience of what we termed at the time ?community-based research? was instinctive,
experiential and imaginative. While we did not subscribe to particular framing theories or
methods, our praxis was in line with the definition offered by Hills and Mullet:
Praxis does not involve a linear relationship between theory and practice
wherein the former determines the latter; rather it is a reflexive relationship
in which both action and reflection build on one another ?.
Conceptualizing the relationship between theory and practice this way
reorients our thinking about research from searching for understanding
and explanation to ethical action toward societal good (2000b:[s.p.]).

19
Yet despite their innovative and groundbreaking research, four of my master?s students?
research projects were dismissed by conservative, South African examiners, who would
have failed them as non-compliant to normative academic expectations because their
dissertations neither fit into the Fine Art format, nor complied with a social science model.

18 The Teacher Training Course was co-designed and partnered by CDP (Curriculum Development Project) which
has extensive experience in training arts educators. CDP have since partnered with Wits School of the Arts
(2003) which was more receptive to formalizing this important initiative than the University of Johannesburg
19 To cite examples among my postgraduate students are or have been involved in community engagement:
Carol Hofmeyr founded and directs the Keiskamma Trust, Sheila Flynn manages the Kopenang Trust, Terence
Fenn, who received a scholarship for his Community Master?s degree in Australia on the basis of his postgraduate
involvement as a facilitator for Phumani Paper, is a full-time lecturer in the Multi-Media Department at the
University of Johannesburg, Mandy Coppes has founded and directs Origanix, a company specializing in eco-
friendly craft product development and programme management, Bronwyn Marshall after managing the archival
Paper unit furthered her studies in multi-media and produces children?s books, David Tshabalala manages
Phumani Paper, Zhan? Warren lived in Belgium for four years during her Master?s studies and has recently
established a collaborating Print Studio in Cape Town called Warren Editions; Jeannot Ladeira is a consultant and
artist working on cultural exchange programs between South Africa and Angola, his country of origin.
20 The students whose results I contested were Carol Hofmeyr (1999), Mandy Coppes (2003), Bronwyn Marshall
(2003) and David Tshabalala (2005).

As I refused to accept this judgment, it became necessary to have these projects re-
examined by more visionary academics, both local and international. Ultimately, two of these
students graduated their Master?s cum-laude, and another, one of the first of two black
master?s student graduates in our Faculty, paved the way for a practice-based participatory
research methodology, particularly suited, in my opinion, for the South African context. I
analyse the case of David Tshabalala at length as evidence for this claim.

192

Case Study: David Tshabalala
In the case study I will now describe, the Master?s candidate was and remains an excellent
practitioner, has an excellent ability to conceptualize, is a dedicated community activist, is a
good researcher, and has an ability to transfer skills and assist others to achieve. However,
he had poor to average academic and writing skills. Most institutions would not accept such
an individual for a Master?s program, but the former TWR Fine Art Department, a program
that is reputed to have a strength in mentoring art students as high achieving art
practitioners, agreed to admit David Tshabalala on the basis of my motivation as his
supervisor. In addition, the government imperative for educational diversity and redress
supported the former TWR position at the time that artistic talent and discipline could
compensate for mediocre or poor academic preparation. Further, when the system opened
up to transformation, access, and community engagement, funding opportunities became
available to encourage postgraduate black students from financially and educationally
disadvantaged backgrounds. Tshabalala was one such student: from a poor and rural family,
he was keen to improve his qualifications, and to become a role model in his community.

In 2002 when South Africa was hosting the WSSD (World Summit on Sustainable
Development), the Friends of the Earth, an international environmental action NGO, offered
Phumani Paper the opportunity to participate in a poverty relief recycling project that required
the production of 10 000 paper dolls for a public installation. I handed this project to David
Tshabalala, who was a fourth-year research assistant to Mandy Coppes?s Master?s research
project at the time. The project included the participation of ten marginalized community
groups (ex-prisoners and HIV-positive men and women); the setting up of a range of
partnerships; the creation of a new paper casting technology for manufacturing 10 000 dolls;
and skills training for a range of stakeholders (Figures 1 and 2). The project turned into an
extraordinary learning process in leadership and conflict resolution, as well as community
facilitation. The results were spectacular. At the WSSD, Tshabalala led a protest march of
500 people to hand a memorandum to the Minister of Environmental Affairs (Figures 3a and
b). The installation of 6 000 dolls, which were made by impoverished participants from
recycled waste, symbolized the key themes of the Summit: globalization, environmental
decay, and poverty (Figure 4).21

21 The intended proposal for 10 000 dolls was not realized because of the unrealistic time frames and an
excessively rainy season that slowed the drying time.
A photograph of the installation was published on the front
page of the New York Times, (Figure 5) and it symbolically presented the three sustainable
development issues of the conference ? economic, environmental and social. Tshabalala
193
was subsequently encouraged to write up this highly successful and complex project as a
case study for his Master?s dissertation.

There were problems, however. The project was completed for the WSSD Summit and was
set up according to community imperatives and partnerships, and not as a research project
as its first objective. I proposed action research as an appropriate and acceptable practice to
assess the project, and suggested that Tshabalala conduct a subsequent research project to
follow up the impact of the intervention. The resistance to accepting this methodology in the
Art and Design academic domain was revealed when I sought examiners to evaluate the
student?s thesis. The external examiner rejected the project as non-compliant to accepted
standards in Fine Art practice.
In contrast the two internal examiners and a USA-based external advisor (who was a visiting
Fulbright scholar during the project phase of the candidate?s research) had all passed the
candidate (with a solid second-class pass), noting weaknesses in the literature review,
organization of written materials, and weakness of theory, but highly commending it as a
community-based research project with its numerous beneficial outcomes. In contrast, the
internal Academic Promotions Committee expressed concern in writing about ?a lowering of
standards? The committee then required the dissertation to be re-written with another co-
supervisor appointed, in a manner that would take into account the external examiner?s
concerns.22
Furthermore, the Faculty?s Academic Promotions Committee (APC) responsible for
coordinating the results and awarding a final mark for the student, overlooked the fact that
the two internal examiners and a USA-based external advisor (who was a visiting Fulbright
scholar during the project phase of the candidate?s research) had all passed the candidate
(with a solid second-class pass), noting weaknesses in the literature review, organization of
written materials, and weakness of theory, but highly commending it as a community-based
research project with its numerous beneficial outcomes. In contrast, the internal Academic
Promotions Committee expressed concern in writing about ?a lowering of standards? from a
student who is ?academically inferior?. The committee then required the dissertation to be re-
written with another co-supervisor appointed, in a manner that would take into account the
external examiner?s concerns.

22 The APC members, who are drawn from the Faculty Research Committee (chaired by the Dean), do not have
to be familiar with the candidate?s dissertation, they serve to moderate marks.
23 The APC members, who are drawn from the Faculty Research Committee (chaired by the Dean), do not have
to be familiar with the candidate?s dissertation, they serve to moderate marks.

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To ensure that the student was treated fairly, I elicited a further opinion from an international
expert familiar with community-engaged scholarship, who read the dissertation voluntarily,
and provided the academic promotions committee with a written report in which she outlined
the framework of ?public scholarship? and provided an argument in favour of the candidate?s
passing. A new co-supervisor, Dr Mark Creekmore, (a social scientist at the University of
Michigan), was appointed and proposed some concrete recommendations for restructuring
the document before submitting it for re-evaluation. Creekmore then assisted Tshabalala and
myself in restructuring the information and interviews into an acceptable formulaic format. He
was also able to verify the methodology of PAR as having sound academic merit. While the
outcomes remained the same, the structure of the document became more ?scientific?. The
personal, experiential voice of the researcher was significantly reduced, and the document
adhered to an acceptable formula of presentation in the social sciences. The second version
was evaluated a year later, and commended by all readers. The question of whether social
science methodologies, used exclusively, are appropriate to postgraduate theses in the Fine
Arts was never raised.

The value that this case study has contributed to the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture
has become evident in the subsequent acceptance of interdisciplinary co-supervision, as well
as the acceptance of specific criteria to assess research in the community-based arts. This
case study indicates that progressive scholars do need to develop evaluation strategies that
are adequate to research, and that integrate Fine Arts practice into social movements, in
which community groups and organizations play an important role.

In the case of Tshabalala there was a significant lack of common ground in
evaluating the candidate's work between the South African external examiner of
the first version of the dissertation, and the two international (United States-
based) advisors. For instance, the international advisor (co-supervisor of the
dissertation) noted in her reader?s report that the candidate?s research contributes
to important new developments in arts education, evaluates a ?remarkable? public
installation, and demonstrates in an original way how a social movement like
environmental advocacy changes the social meanings of material artifacts,
particularly when those artifacts are produced through an emerging ?new
economy? of cultural projects.

The negative comments by the South African evaluators, on the other hand, denied the
contribution of the thesis as the kind of case study and model needed in order to generate
new projects, and also ignored the fact that sustainability demanded an institutional
195
environment that values this kind of work. The evaluators comments were impossible for me
to reconcile with a postgraduate student who, in addition to winning an international
fellowship at a major United States University24

24 Tshabalala was the recipient of a Moody Fellowship at University of Michigan that offered him and fellow
Master?s student, Jeannot Ladeira, a three-month residency and two-person exhibition in 2004.
and exhibiting his fine art work there and in
South Africa, has demonstrated the ability to assume moral and intellectual leadership, and
moreover, has conceptualized, planned, facilitated, and documented, the transfer of skills to
over 100 individuals that resulted in both income generation and awareness of environmental
decay in their communities. Further, the candidate became the second black postgraduate
student to receive a Master?s degree in the Faculty of Arts. Deeply committed to community
development, he acted as the manager of a skills learnership at Phumani Paper that offers
accredited training for enterprise development. He was the first person in his family and
village to receive a university degree and is a role model for young arts practitioners. I have
had to contest the poor evaluations of three other master's students engaged in community-
based research. Community-based research projects should be assessed fairly against
guidelines and in accordance with its public-good values by academics who are familiar with
action research methodologies.

However, at the end of these lengthy procedures, and the lengthy discussions and
arguments they generated, the University of Johannesburg Faculty of Art and Design and the
administration departments now understands the value of community-based research. So, in
the end, the difficult process had a positive outcome. I proposed drafting guidelines for the
evaluation of future master?s projects of this sort, and in 2007 they were approved by the
Faculty Research Committee. Furthermore, the dissertation in community-based art is now
an official option within the Fine Arts Department?s revised Master?s of Visual Arts degree.
The attached guidelines of the new Community-Based Master?s Program (Appendix 1)
provide criteria for assessing community-based arts research that take into consideration the
contribution of the action research to its community partner. For example, the standard
academic categories such as ?field of study? and ?research design and methodology? would
consider criteria such as significance to the public good and the values and ethics of
collecting data. The ?literature review and use of theory? category requires a critique of
existing literature and a contribution to building new knowledge. The ?presentation? should be
inclusive of the voices of the stakeholders as well as the researcher, and the ?contribution to
technology and new knowledge? calls for a focus on values of caring, social justice, and
human dignity.

196
What the experience of introducing community-based research in the Arts at the University of
Johannesburg suggests is that the most effective way to develop a methodology of
evaluation for innovative new work in community-engaged research in the arts in South
Africa is to adapt evaluation policies based on the methodologies of public scholarship and
PAR. I recommended adapting the key criteria proposed by the Imagining America tenure
team?s advocacy for public scholarship within universities to the goals of evaluating
community-based arts action research. These include: scholarly and creative (?artifactual?)
work jointly planned and carried out by co-equal university and community partners;
intellectual and creative (?artifactual?) work that yields a public-good product; critical and
artistic work that contributes to public debates; and efforts to change cultural and educational
institutions themselves and research on the success of such efforts (Ellison and Eatman
2008).

Community-based action research suggests the possibility of more socially responsible uses
of research, providing the means for people to have a more direct impact on significant
issues that continue to diminish their lives. This kind of research seeks to formulate ways of
living and working together that will enhance the life experiences of the student and
community participant. Finally, it embraces richer, more intense forms of inquiry using artistic
forms of expression. The next section argues that the participatory and democratic structures
of community-based research projects are fundamental to fulfilling the university?s public
mission through research.25
Phumani Paper and the University of Johannesburg

Phumani Paper proved that it was possible for a higher education institution to be both
accountable and responsive (if only for a short period) to the government?s call in the White
Paper for tertiary education institutions to play a role in the reconstruction and development
of South Africa, as the government-funded poverty alleviation program was accommodated
by the mechanisms of the institution. Community partnerships were integrated into the
Phumani Paper program to the extent that the external funds paid salaries for community
activists through the university?s payroll.26

25 It has been established that public scholarship is legitimate as knowledge and thus research, (Ellison, Boyte et
al.), see the Common Agenda (2006) http://www.thenationalforum.org/common_agenda.doc (Accessed 25
November 2008).
26 Initially called the Papermaking Research and Development Programme (PPRP) from 1999 to 2002.
Needless to say, while Phumani Paper can hardly
claim credit for transforming the bureaucracy of the Human Resources and Finance
departments, I maintain that the Phumani Paper program did succeed in humanizing pockets
197
of the system: for instance the cashiers and creditors, human resource officers and finance
secretaries all began to feel pride when their timely payments made a difference to people in
the deepest poverty nodes of the country. Some individuals in administration received
handmade gifts from project participants and others held a sale of the groups? products in
their offices. In addition, the program received awards, was featured in the University?s
annual reports, and was cited as a success story in public promotion events.

However, in 2005 the Department of Education required traditionally-white universities to
merge with marginalized black institutions as a means of redress and integration, and the
Technikon was incorporated into Rand Afrikaans University (RAU). The new entity became
the University of Johannesburg. At that time, RAU?s management considered Phumani
Paper to be a liability that required excessive time and resources on the part of the
administration. For instance, as the merger was in process, RAU?s registrar was horrified to
discover that rural women in the remotest regions of the country were on the payroll as staff
members of the University of Johannesburg.27 In the end, the new administration demanded
a complete dislocation of Phumani Paper from the University of Johannesburg. All Phumani
Paper contracts were terminated, and the organization was re-established as a Section 21
company. Phumani Paper barely survived this very damaging process of separation that not
only discredited the program as a financial liability but also demoralized the students and
staff involved. The sizable grants from government, UNESCO and the Ford Foundation were
not seen as valuable to the University of Johannesburg as the funds did not benefit the
University directly. This phenomenon of the University adopting a capitalist paradigm that
values assets and resources being directed to the elite has been discussed earlier in this
chapter. The University of Johannesburg did, however, compromise after a series of high
level interventions that were symptomatic of the struggle between two institutions that were
culturally incompatible, and the executive management permitted the head office of Phumani
Paper and its two satellite projects to remain on campus with a University of Johannesburg
email address.28
I perceive this level of hostility as symptomatic of the new University?s understanding of
community service as an extra and expendable activity (Berman 2007).

27 As the government grant was paid to the TWR, the only way to appoint staff on this project was to use the
standard academic temporary appointment forms, the same used for contract lecturers.
28 The rental agreement remains under negotiation. See memorandums between the former Dean of Research
and University Executive Management, KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 4).
29 See further discussion on the difference of community service and community engagement in a paper
published in the University of Johannesburg Journal: Education for Change (Berman 2007a).
Phumani Paper
was not the only initiative that was closed down. Another casualty of the new dispensation
198
was the Department of Fine Arts one-year Teacher Training certificate program that has
trained hundreds of arts educators over the course of twelve years. The new Dean of the
Faculty, appointed in 2007, discovered that the Senate had not endorsed this course
because it was a ?service program? that was not accredited; as a result, the program has
been terminated. This is not only a tragedy for all the teachers that now cannot benefit from
this training, but is also a considerable loss to University of Johannesburg and Artist Proof
Studio students whose lives were profoundly touched through the communities these
programs engage with.

Mark C.Taylor has argued that the new mandate for ?merged institutions? has not led to a
vital process of rethinking curriculum needs, but rather provided a rationale for and ?longing
to return to basic values and foundational beliefs,? as institutions with very different histories
and functions attempted to find common ground. He concludes that such thinking tends to re-
establish hierarchies and inequalities (Taylor 2001: 31). It is my contention that in this
present period the University of Johannesburg exemplifies a closed, hierarchical system,
which is now promoting or privileging traditional scholarly research and publication over
experiential learning and community engagement. Indeed, it seems that the more research is
engaged with community, the less it is accorded academic value. The gap between
academia and activism will never be bridged unless new definitions of research are
developed that are consonant with the radical paradigm shifts in knowledge production that
have occurred over the past generation.

In support of this position, Teboho Lebakeng argues that ?the problem with the current
mergers is that ? they focus exclusively on governance and structures and are not based on
a comprehensive curriculum audit. Neither are they informed by a guiding educational
philosophy deriving from indigenous African epistemology? (Lebakeng 2004: 113). According
to Lebakeng, the mergers have tended to overlook the fundamental purpose of education
and intellectual production in South Africa. He goes on to recognize that ?the challenge lies in
capacitating African academics in establishing an Afrocentric epistemological paradigm?
(2004: 115). That paradigm, he argues, is critical of colonialism and affirms African socio-
cultural identity and values. This could be extended to include participatory and communal
practice.

When the TWR merged with RAU, the values implicit in a vocationally-based pedagogy were
discarded in favour of a strong effort to increase the number of formal, academic degrees
among students and faculty. In an essay on civic agency and change, Harry Boyte has
observed a similar process in the United States: ?Our norms justify ? meriocratic
199
assumptions about ?the best and brightest?, preparing students to join the elect, which form
the air we breathe in research institutions? (Boyte 2008: 12). In contrast, he argues: ?Craft
traditions treated knowledge-making as a social process and recognized the importance of
apprenticeships and contextual practice to student learning. The craft nature of the scholarly
disciplines has diminished; we need to revive it? (2008: 12).

These ?social processes? of learning describe the vocational and ?industry-based?
apprenticeships of the former Technikons that are currently being buried as a result of the
merger. Not only must the Fine Art lecturers focus on research and publishing, but they are
required to upgrade their qualifications to professorships. The intelligence and talents of
educators without graduate degrees has been de-legitimized. As a result, it has become
almost impossible for those of us committed to community engagement to find the ?free time?
for such research. The message the Fine Art Department has been given by the current
Dean, who is tasked with implementing the research-focused vision and mission of the
University of Johannesburg as a ?premier research institution,? 30

30 See UJ website for vision and strategic goals: ?To establish the University of Johannesburg among the top
research universities in the country in terms of nationally and internationally accepted research criteria?. ?As a
university it takes its research component seriously and is committed to intensifying research activities and
output? (http://www.uj.ac.za/).
is that the ?knowledge
economy? that generates subsidies through accredited publications and rated researchers is
the first priority.

These kinds of pressures, in my opinion, can be detrimental if they are prioritized at the
expense of teaching and learning. Our contact hours with students have been reduced, staff
members must improve their qualifications, and students must complete their degrees in the
minimum time or the department?s subsidies are cut by the Department of Education.
Education is becoming product rather than a process. Is it right for educators to accept the
devaluing of skill and craftsmanship in favour of a financially focused bottom-line approach to
learning, or do we assume leadership in efforts to oppose this trend? In a position paper,
?Reinserting the ?Public Good? into Higher Education Transformation,? Mala Singh
acknowledges that:
Making social justice issues explicit and real within the notions of higher
education responsiveness and accountability is likely to prove enormously
difficult, if not impossible. The task requires not only tenacious
commitment but also clarity of conception about what is required, and
mobilisation of different role players around it (Singh 2001: 18).

American scholar Donald Hall concurs:
200
Change is uncomfortable and nerve-wracking for anyone, but for
academics, alone or in groups, embracing change means giving up of one
of the foundational myths of academic identity: the myth of mastery ? To
seek change is to admit humbly that one?s current existence and one?s
current set of narratives are outdated or inadequate (Hall 2007: 6,7).

Fortunately, since the start of 2008, there are a number of initiatives that indicate a
progressive direction at the University of Johannesburg. These include new leadership,
including the appointment of activist scholar Adam Habib as Deputy Vice-Chancellor:
Research, Innovation and Advancement; and new programs such as the establishment of
the Centre for Education Practice Research in the Faculty of Education; the establishment of
a Centre for the Study of Democracy with appointments of very progressive scholars such as
Founding Director Steven Friedman; and Dr Xolela Mangcu as a founding Director for the
Platform for Public Deliberation as well as an introduction of a Community Engagement
Policy.31
Applying Hall?s concepts of the transformative conversational process, I have recently been
able to establish a new research activity, ?The Role of the Visual Arts in Social Change,? that
operates within an NRF-funded Research Centre in the Faculty of Art Design and
Architecture. The Centre facilitates the support of students and projects working in this

Despite these positive developments, research continues to happen in the elite world of
higher education, while activism and community engagement continues to happen on the
ground. Until we bridge that gap, we have not truly transformed South African education.
Phumani Paper as an action research and community-based program that has led to the
establishment of papermaking as a small cultural industry for South Africa has demonstrated
the value and possibilities of engaged and collaborative research. Although many writers,
policymakers and educators agree on the need for transformation in higher education in
building democracy in South Africa, this task appears to have barely begun in the university
system. Yet, however slow, the process of change must continue, and will do so only through
ongoing dialogue with students, faculty and administration. According to Hall:
The transformative conversational process really rests on a few basic
principles ? we listen carefully to others, allow their perspectives to
denaturalize our own assumptions, engage with enthusiasm in explanation
of our own lives and perspectives and learn to work with that process of
dialogue toward understanding, and mutual tolerance of abiding
differences (Hall 2007: 69).

31 I was involved in the advisory committee to formulate a Draft Policy document (KB Archives, KBR Draw 4: File
14).
201
area.32 The research outputs are measurable: improved qualifications, papers and
conferences in accredited and peer-reviewed journals, Master?s-student exchanges, a
research publication, and an impact assessment funded by the Ford Foundation.33
This chapter has discussed the topic of the transformation of higher education using the
specific example of a graduate program. Although not discussed in detail, I am clearly
advocating the transformation of the entire university system, both graduate and
undergraduate. The American activist Andrew Mott of the Ford Foundation?s Community
Learning Project, has asked a crucial question in his publication, ?University Education for
Community Change: A Vital Strategy for Progress on Poverty, Race and Community-
Building?: ?If poverty, race and community are such central issues for our society, why don?t
institutions of higher education develop programs to educate people for careers as leaders
and supporters of community change efforts?? (Mott 2005: 5).
These
outputs meet the corporatized criteria for research that the university has imposed, and
permit me to continue my work.

Conclusion: Directions for Engaged Learning and Research

32 My NRF-funded research activity is registered in the official Fine Art research niche area entitled ?Visualising
Identity in a Post-colonial Environment?. Ironically, although my program?s ideology, purpose and vision is
opposite to that of my colleague, who is the leader of the niche area specializing in post-colonial theory; being
part of the niche area as the research umbrella has allowed me to submit my program as part of our ?core
business? in the Faculty. Subsequently, the Master?s program in Community-Based Arts using PAR was passed
by the Faculty of Art Design and Architecture (FADA) as this program has become much less of a threat to the
Faculty. It is now ?inside the system?, as opposed to operating on the margins.
33 See Research outputs of the NRF/URC/Ford Funded research activities : KB Archives (KBR Draw 4: File 12).
34 See full report (http://www.communitylearningproject.org/docs/university education.pdf).
His question is directed to
undergraduate education in general, and not to specialized programs in economic
development. The report highlights the practical steps ?which would substantially increase
the relevance and impact of American Universities in opening up new opportunities for
communities of color and low-income people.? Mott lists the following elements for
developing the skills that university graduates need to lead the process of change, all of
which are relevant to the South African context:
? low-income communities must be the prime movers in order to ensure that the
change reflects their needs and priorities
? they must build their own effective organizations to represent their interests, and
they must hold those organizations accountable
? while people can learn and develop all these capacities through experience, trial
and error, they will develop far more quickly if they have an opportunity to learn
through a combination of structured learning opportunities, practice and critical
reflection
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? university-based programs can be one important route for developing these leaders,
but the curricula must be reshaped to accomplish this specific purpose.

Despite the drawbacks of university bureaucracy, Mott argues that the university?s role is
indispensable:
First, universities are the best point of contact with the young generation
which the community change movement desperately needs.
Second, it is by now abundantly clear that non-profits will never get the
resources which are needed for the intensive, long-term educational
programs.

Third, while the vast majority of universities offer few courses which are
directly relevant to community change work, universities do have great
potential as sources of education and training for this field.
Fourth, this generation of students has a strong orientation to service
which is causing universities to give new attention to community needs
(Mott 2005: 11).

The experience of Phumani Paper, a community development program within a university,
has reflected many of the benefits Mott has listed. It introduced students to the field of social
and community change; it linked research projects to technology transfer for community
development; it required multi-disciplinary expertise; it was grounded in both theory and
practice, and advanced both; it created real partnerships with community individuals and
organizations; it strengthened participatory processes that were designed to build on
community assets, and it strengthened students? abilities to lead community change efforts.
The students also graduated with a significantly greater knowledge base than that of other
graduating Fine Art students, as well as analytical capacities and practical skills that were
gained through the use of experiential teaching methods and participatory action approaches
to research. Most of all they learnt empathy, and now most are deeply committed to social
justice and democratic values. They have been trained as leaders in community change
efforts, and exemplify the educational goals Mott has outlined.

Each of the six Master?s students involved directly with community-based research through
Phumani Paper has found employment and has assumed a leadership role in community
facilitation, training and development. Examples of these have been indicated previously
(see footnote 20). Furthermore, there are many other university graduates whose exposure
and involvement in community arts programs have had a profound influence on their choice
of career in community-based arts.35

35 They include BTech graduates, including Terence Fenn, Usha Seejarum, Shannin Antonopolou, Sheila Flynn,
Ilse Pahl, Christian Hlasane, Cloudia Hartwig and Shonisani Maphangwa.

203

I argue throughout this thesis that strong and creative grassroots organizations in South
Africa are central to building a healthy democratic society. They bring low-income people
together to address issues that matter; they are in the forefront in the fight for the prevention
of HIV/AIDS, and the support and treatment of those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS; they
create ties and partnerships and strengthen communities; they build social capital, develop
leadership, build self-reliance and skills, and represent the interests of the people who would
otherwise be marginalized or ignored. Many NGOs are critical vehicles for delivering
responsive services and launching important community development projects, but, as Mott
asserts, universities must play an increasingly central role in this endeavour.

I argue strongly that a high priority should be given to supporting university-based efforts to
prepare the next generation of leaders and staff for leading grassroots organizations and the
networks and institutions that are critical to their growth and success. The arts in particular
should not be excluded from this critical role for community change. Arjun Appadurai argues
for a research culture based on imaginative rethinking of given relationships between
pedagogy, research and activism in the age of globalization. He calls for the democratization
of research in the ?context of certain dominant forms of critical knowledge? (Appadurai
2004: 3). The PRDU has, in a small way, responded to this imperative for the
?democratization of research? that can open opportunities for greater connection between
community building and the pursuit of new knowledge. Participation in this program has
created enabling environments for students to see themselves as change agents and
navigators for democratic society building.

While the case study I have described reveals my personal struggle for acceptance of
community engagement projects as research activities in my Faculty, the point that needs to
be made is that this case study is symptomatic of much bigger issues around research and
transformation. I am proposing a paradigm shift that goes much deeper than assessment
criteria and is a radical challenge on a number of levels as it crosses several ?sacred
boundaries? in higher education.

These are:
? it is deeply interdisciplinary across faculties (uncommon in the arts except for recent
moves in digital arts)
? it requires simultaneous recognition of three areas of an academic?s role: research/
teaching/ community service
? it bridges the ?Town/Gown? divide, in which the ivory tower encounters the street
204
? it challenges different definitions of what constitutes research: Creative Arts as
research, Community work as research, Research as research (divisions between
what constitutes research in formulaic social sciences, development, social work,
public health and humanities).36
? it challenges the corporatist model of what is of value to the university. For example,
the prioritizing of accredited publications is the equivalent of bottom-line quarterly
reports to shareholders in the corporate sector; versus the long-term contribution to
the public good in the form of a new industry and employment of the previously
unemployable.

As proposed in this chapter, the arts in my opinion could be ideally suited to applying
imagination, collaboration and scholarship to integrate all three pillars of learning (teaching,
research, and community service) in higher education for arts research to have relevance in
contributing to building a post-apartheid democratic society.37

36 This is extracted from a paper, ?Shifting the paradigm: The need for assessment criteria for community-engaged
research in the visual arts?. Publication pending in The South African Journal of Higher Education (Berman
2008b).
37 The three pillars in Higher Education are listed as three of the ten strategic objectives of the University of
Johannesburg?s mission to: ?promote excellence in teaching and learning, conduct internationally competitive
research, be an engaged University? (Available: http://www.uj.ac.za/).
Change is the intended
outcome of community-based action research. This kind of research allows for the possibility
of moving from reflection and theorizing to action. These moves must be made explicit so
that the institutional imperatives of the universities and bureaucracies do not inhibit the
potential of the research process. These values and practices of engagement connect
knowledge produced inside and outside of academic institutions, a model well suited, in my
opinion, for a transformed paradigm of research and evaluation of community engagement in
the arts.
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CHAPTER SIX: CULTURAL ACTION FOR CHANGE:
AN AIDS ACTION CASE STUDY

Introduction
In many ways the four chapters preceding this one, Artist Proof Studio, Paper Prayers,
University of Johannesburg, and Phumani Paper, are the spokes of a wheel that involve
different organizational structures, different teams of people, different missions and visions,
and distinct components of my professional, educational, activist and managerial activities.
This chapter connects the four different organizational ecosystems. It aims to bring together
the challenges that arise from each program as revealed in the previous chapters, and links
these challenges in order to form the components of a complex AIDS Action intervention.
Combining the four programs manifests the gestalt tenet that the whole is greater than the
sum of its parts, which motivated the strategy for designing an integrated methodology that
could prove how the visual arts can create change.

The Ford Foundation funded an intervention from July 2006 to 2008 that brought three
organizations ? Artist Proof Studio, Phumani Paper and the University of Johannesburg ?
together in an ambitious program. Following the submission of the impact assessment and
findings, the Ford Foundation extended its funding for two further years to July 2010. The
overarching program is titled Cultural Action for Change and has had three iterations over
five years. An early pilot collaboration (which was separately funded) was undertaken by
scholars and students from the University of Michigan in July 2005 and July 2006, and was
called New Partners/New Knowledge. This was an intervention in six of the Phumani sites
that implemented and tested the methodologies used in the subsequent AIDS Action
program. It culminated in a seminar and workshop at the University of Johannesburg that
was designed to explore and share the early findings and Participatory Action approach with
the academic community. This prepared the way for the subsequent two-year roll-out of the
program to all sixteen of the Phumani Paper sites from August 2006 to June 2008, which
was titled the AIDS Action Intervention. In July 2008 the Ford Foundation funded an
extension of this grant that will include a broader outreach and will use a new methodology ?
community and visual mapping. Artist Proof Studio will use its trained teams to expand the
outreach of this new phase into broader sectors, such as schools and support centres, using
the methodologies that have been developed in partnership with the University of
Johannesburg and Phumani Paper.

206
This third phase is called Cultural Action for Change, the name that the program has also
adopted to describe the whole five-year program. This chapter will describe the
implementation of the five-year program, including its methodological approaches, and will
asses the outcomes thus far. The latter will also be elaborated on in the conclusion of this
thesis in Chapter Seven.

The rationale for the Cultural Action for Change intervention is linked to the journey of my
thesis: the quest to provide evidence to support the contention that the visual arts are a
valuable tool for creating social change. The program has developed a range of methods to
evaluate impact, because the measuring of impact is often a challenge for arts-based
programs. Funding agencies want to know that their funding criteria have been met, and the
academy wants to know that the research is credible and verifiable, and that scientific
research procedures are being followed. The Ford Foundation funding facilitated the
contracting of an independent social science researcher to use the discipline?s ?hard data?
approach to measure impact alongside the ?softer? arts-based participatory methods of visual
arts activities such as the use of Photovoice and Paper Prayers to generate narratives. This
mixture of approaches has come together in the latest intervention through the use of tools
such as social and visual mapping and can be used by each community site to monitor and
manage their own research data linked to action plans. This chapter aims to trace and
analyse case studies that describe processes of change in individuals and Phumani sites.
The chapter is divided into three parts: Part One is focused on the theoretical framework and
methodologies of the intervention; Part Two provides a descriptive analysis of the different
phases of the intervention, and Part Three presents the findings and the way forward through
the Cultural Action for Change program.

PART ONE: Framing and Methodologies

Starting the Process: Goals and approaches
Preceding the fire at APS in March 2003, I wrote a concept paper for the Ford Foundation for
an intervention that would expand the Artist Proof Studio?s HIV/AIDS campaign through a
more extensive use of visual arts. After the fire the funding priority shifted to the building of
the new studio, and so the program was put on hold for two years. In 2005, working together
with the grant-makers at the Ford Foundation and focusing on the principles of the
participating organizations, I conceptualized a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project
that would involve the collaboration of Artist Proof Studio, Phumani Paper, Paper Prayers
and student researchers at the University of Johannesburg. The PAR Research program that
207
I devised was directly linked to the key research questions of my PhD thesis. How do the
visual arts contribute to social change? How deep can that change go? Can it foster agency
and empowerment? Can it enrich people?s quality of life, alleviate spiritual and economic
poverty, or even save lives? How can I demonstrate my impassioned belief in the power of
the creative process? Can the research and the research outcomes provide evidence of
significant change, as well as co-create new knowledge that will have direct benefits to the
participants of the process?

The resulting complex and ambitious proposal to the Ford Foundation required the
Foundation to collaborate across three of its program disciplines: Sustainable Livelihoods,
HIV/AIDS and Reproductive Health, and Higher Education and Research. In turn, the
successful grant allocated funding to three collaborating programs: Artist Proof Studio,
Phumani Paper, and my University of Johannesburg research activity area: Art and Social
Change. I served as the conduit across the three programs, each with their distinct objectives
and roles.

The goal of the AIDS Action Intervention was to provide support to, and increase the agency
of, participants of the Phumani Paper craft enterprises affected by the HIV pandemic. The
great majority of these workers are women. The aim was to enable them to break the
silence, to confront the fear and stigma of HIV, and to seek voluntary counselling and testing
(VCT), thereby reducing the numbers of deaths in their projects and communities. This was
an intensive intervention that aimed to both provide support to the groups and individuals
through the multi-modal workshops, to initiate awareness of the value of VCT, and to
establish links to local clinics, counsellors, and medical support. In this way each enterprise
could gain the capacity to access support or refer others to support within their own
communities. The program did not claim to reduce the infection rates of HIV, but to reduce
the fear and stigma surrounding the pandemic, so that the participants could act on choices
available to them.

An additional objective was to achieve an increase in productivity and income for the
enterprises as a result of greater group trust, information, networking and agency. The
Phumani Paper program intervention aimed at empowering the groups themselves to better
manage their enterprises, whereas the Phumani Paper national office and regional staff were
challenged with investigating and accessing markets.

Finally, the academic component of Cultural Action for Change was structured to test the
efficacy of participatory learning that employs students as researchers and teachers as well
208
as learners through PAR methodology. What is gained academically from engaged learning?
What is the unique role of the creative interventions of Photovoice and Paper Prayers in this
process? The fundamental challenge the research teams faced in engaging research with
Phumani Paper groups revolves around the following questions: How can this endeavour
maintain an equal exchange of value and not result in exploitative power relationships? How
does this research resist the perpetuation of the norm, which often involves researchers
using institutional research resources to exploit a community to further their own career
development?

The success of this research is dependent on its meeting the community development
priorities. The project proposes that the visual arts can play a valuable role in connecting and
integrating new knowledge transmitted from the community participants to the researcher,
and in redefining the researcher as an activist and facilitator for catalysing social action. In
sum, Cultural Action for Change bridges the divide between engaged, experiential and
participative learning, and theoretically-based academic research.

In this chapter, one of the Phumani groups, Kutloano in Welkom, Free State Province, is
discussed in depth in order to clarify the process and outcomes of this complex project. The
program was structured around the concept of fostering agency as the most effective means
of addressing the overwhelming challenges posed by HIV/AIDS.

Framing the Approach: Concepts, issues and theory
What follows is an identification of the key issues and concepts that inform this intervention,
and an overview of the ideas that have been instrumental to the establishment of the
theoretical framework of this strategy. The strategy focuses on the framing theories in three
areas: the role of culture in development, visual culture in relationship to arts and crafts, and
a gendered approach to AIDS action.

The Role of Culture and Development: Poverty, agency and empowerment
Lourdes Arizpe provides a definition of culture as the flow of meanings that human beings
create, blend and exchange:
Cultures are philosophies of life that hold together all the social practices that
build and maintain a capable, creative human being. Such practices also hold
together well-functioning, balanced societies. In this sense, cultures function
as primary regulating systems that help to keep peoples? feelings and actions
within the bounds of institutionally acceptable behaviour. Guidelines for
behaviour are expressed in discourse as values. When such systems are
ignored in development they tend to create unsocial behaviour
(Arizpe 2004: 178).
209

Arizpe?s definition of culture revises the lay interpretation of culture as tradition, that is,
unchanging customs from the past. Both Amartya Sen (2004) and Arjun Appadurai (2004)
advocate with this position and also stress the dynamic, future-oriented qualities of culture,
understood as systems of meaning on multiple levels. As discussed in Chapter Four,
Appadurai develops the concept of the ?capacity to aspire? on the part of the poor. He
proposes that ?in strengthening the capacity to aspire, conceived as a cultural capacity
especially among the poor ? the poor could find the resources required to contest and alter
the conditions of their own poverty? (Appadurai 2004: 62). While Sen and Appadurai?s
approach to development has been referred to a number of times in the course of this thesis,
an elaboration of this underpinning theory is particularly crucial to understanding the
principles of the AIDS Action Intervention. Appadurai stresses culture?s open, interactive,
fluid, dynamically complex, and constructed qualities. People?s capacity to aspire is tied to
?voice,? and the development of the power and recognition that people gain through long-term
organizing. He argues that ?voice must be expressed in terms of actions and performances
which have local cultural force.? The development of voice also means learning how to
negotiate larger contexts. ?There is no short cut to empowerment. It has to take some local
cultural form to have resonance, mobilize adherents, and capture the public space of
debate.? Organizing requires ?efforts to change the dynamics ? in their larger social worlds?
(Appadurai 2004: 60-62). As so defined, however, Appadurai?s notion of voice is based on
linguistic skills. I argue that the eleven official languages spoken in South Africa make this
linguistic model of agency a potentially limiting one. The multi-modal approach of this
intervention instead used the visual arts of photography and printmaking to develop voice as
defined by Appadurai: that is, the capacity to inquire, share, dream a better future, and plan
actions that transform silence into articulated goals.

A pivotal working premise of this thesis and all the interventions it analyses is the power of
voice expressed as action ? action that has local cultural force, in terms of initiating social
change. Chapters Two to Five provide evidence that using creative capacities to construct
narratives can positively impact on the creation of identities though imagination and
aspiration, and can have a powerful effect on an individual?s agency and self-actualization.
This is especially the case in the AIDS Action intervention funded by the Ford Foundation,
which sets out to facilitate the creation of those narratives or cultural expressions that lead to
a greater sense of agency for each participant, both in the implementing team and amongst
the community partners.

210
The participants in each of the Phumani Paper sites described in Chapter Four differ
considerably with regard to ethnicity, language and age. Each group also exhibited different
responses to the AIDS Action Intervention, but the determination of agency expressed by
how many people each member has referred to counselling at the end of the intervention is
one of the quantitatively measurable indicators of change. Qualitative results, however,
provide a richer elaboration of the impact. For example the comments made during an
interview of the group leader from the Bosele group in the Northwest Province conducted at
the end of the two-year intervention (April 2008) demonstrates this power of voice expressed
as action. The project leader in her interview cites various instances of referral of family
members for testing and counselling, as well as disclosures in the group contributing to
greater group cohesion.1

Visual Culture and Public Action
The concept of agency is becoming central to many development fields. In a collection of
essays entitled Culture and Public Action, edited by Vijayendra Rao and Michael Walton, the
authors argue for a shift from ?equality of opportunity? to ?equality of agency?. This shift
requires a radical change from expert-led interventions to an understanding that poor people
must become the authors of their own development. The editors sum up the contributions to
the anthology from authors such as Amartya Sen and Arjun Appadurai as follows: rather than
doing things for people, development workers need to focus on ?creating an enabling
environment to provide the poor with the tools, and the voice, to navigate their way out of
poverty? (Appadurai quoted by Rao and Walton 2004: 361). This understanding of agency
requires that participants have the navigational capacities to negotiate and to transform their
own environments that they understand to be fluid and open.

The collaborative partners engaged with the AIDS Action program as ?a culturally aware
public action? intervention use creative methods to express the perspective of each
individual, so that they may visualize themselves as agents. In order for the poor to use their
voice to ?navigate their way out of poverty,? our challenge was to develop the capacity to
discover modes of vocalization that are not threatening or intimidating, and do not require
specific linguistic competence or knowledge. The approach proposed that visual and cultural
literacies can compensate for the possible limited ability amongst many participants to
express thoughts and ideas using a linguistic voice.

1 Jacobeth Lepedi interviewed by Shonisani Maphangwa, April 2007. See transcript of interview KB Archives (FF
Draw 6: File 1h).
211
The essays in Rao and Walton?s anthology unmask former assumptions about the ?culture of
poverty? that attributes the persistence of poverty to the cultural practices of poor groups.
Such ?blame the victim? poverty diagnoses are not fruitful; they argue: ?Poor people display a
remarkable capacity to adjust to extraordinarily difficult circumstances, and it is incorrect to
characterize their poverty as deriving from some unchangeable, inherited attribute. However,
it is the case that conditions of poverty and inequality can be a product of cultural processes,
and culture, economic conditions, and power can interact to sustain disadvantage? (Rao and
Walton 2004: 16).

In the context of attempting to use the visual arts and crafts as a process to create agency
for meaningful social change, the focus is on the striving for a good and valuable life.
Artefacts can carry meanings based on existing social, economic and cultural values.
However, whether or not the products are tied into a given culture, history or tradition, they
can still embody values such as pride, dignity, self-confidence and aspiration, all of which are
qualities that are necessary for Appadurai?s notion of ?voice?. For example, the members of
the Phumani Paper groups do not see themselves as crafters who are building on traditional
practices, but as individuals who have acquired skills that can transform waste into objects of
beauty. I would however distinguish between craft, which is income-generating, and the more
creative and free expression of visual art processes in, for example, the making of a Paper
Prayer artwork. The participants may or may not be producing a saleable item when they
make expressive prints, but they acquire a different ?capability?, a capability that I argue
enhances agency. If you are creative, it means you can make a plan, make a decision,
produce an artwork, and respond to the world.

Appadurai asks the crucial question for those engaged in the active work of development:
?What does it mean to nurture the capacity to aspire?? He makes the following
recommendations, which have served as guidelines for the methodology of the AIDS Action
program:
Whenever an outside agent enters a situation where poverty is a major
concern, he or she should look closely at rituals through which the process of
consensus is produced. Every effort should be made to encourage exercises
in local teaching and learning which increase the ability of the poor people to
navigate the cultural map in which aspirations are located and to cultivate an
understanding of the links between wants or goals and the contexts. All
internal efforts to cultivate voice among the poor in the context of any project
should be encouraged, as it is through unleashing the capacity to aspire that
the exercise of voice by the poor will be achieved. Any developmental project
or initiative should develop a set of tools for identifying the cultural map of
aspirations that surround the specific intervention. This may require specific
technologies or material inputs to be placed in their aspirational contexts.
Further, this will require careful surveys that can move from specific goods
212
and technologies to the narratives within; and then to the norms which guide
these narratives (Appadurai 2004: 83) [my emphasis].

These interrelated points are key to effective and holistic development interventions, and the
concept of ?cultural mapping of aspirations? has been adapted to designing methodologies
and criteria of assessment for future programs. (This assertion will be developed in the
findings described in the conclusion of this chapter). For example, the next phase of Cultural
Action for Change will apply the concept of ?mapping? to help situate individuals and groups
within their cultural milieus. How do individuals locate themselves in a given community, and
how can fruitful interactions be fostered? These maps will assist the enterprises to develop
action plans that plot the identified priorities of the group.2
AIDS Action and Gender: HIV and women?s empowerment

Appadurai argues broadly for the need to create more productive relationships between
anthropology and economics, that is, between culture and development, in the battle against
poverty:
This change requires us to place futurity, rather than pastness, at the heart of
our thinking about culture. It has direct implications for increasing the ability of
the poor to truly participate in the aims (and debates) of development
(Appadurai 2004: 84).

To help test the validity of this argument, an honours course has been developed for 2008 by
Dr Naude Malan from the University of Johannesburg?s Department of Anthropology and
Development Studies on participatory democracy. During the course, each honours student
investigates particular organizational structures of a local Phumani Paper craft enterprise. As
a result of their interviews, they then assess aspects of power and participation in a
democratically based organization and initiate an investigation into the levels of economic
participation of the groups though arts and culture. Their findings are fed back through an
open discussion with the groups and the Phumani Paper national office. This process led to
improved changes in communication and structure in two of the groups (Tandanani and
Rags2Paper) in August 2008.

The trauma experienced by the members of Phumani Paper rural projects across the country
as a result of the illnesses and deaths resulting from HIV/AIDS seems overwhelming. The

2 My Master?s of Fine Art student, Mphapho Hlasane, at the University of Johannesburg, who has been involved
in the Ford Foundation project to date will facilitate and document this next phase as a component of his
research. See Hlasane proposal KB Archives (UJ, Draw 5: File 4).
213
statistics continue to shock: over 1 000 people are dying of AIDS each day in South Africa.3
One seemingly intractable barrier to behaviour change is patriarchal tradition. Gender
inequality fuels the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Because of government intransigence and disinformation, the nation has failed to respond
adequately to this crisis. The pandemic continues to take its daily, deadly toll, and in its wake
it has become clear that every citizen must be involved on some level to help ameliorate this
tragedy. How many educators and artists respond effectively? One meaningful action is to
address the emotional and economic impact of HIV/AIDS through skills training and
empowerment (Figures 1a and b).

It is important to be specific about the context of the AIDS Action Intervention. There are
numerous approaches to addressing the AIDS pandemic in South Africa, some of which
were discussed in Chapter Three. Strategies include the legal efforts by the Treatment Action
Campaign (TAC), initiatives by the Art Therapy Centre, the Love-Life Campaign, home-
based care and many others. The AIDS Action Intervention chose to work with a gendered
approach to HIV that addresses South Africa?s patriarchal culture and the gender inequality
that fuels the epidemic. Inexplicably, HIV is often considered by the general populace to be
women?s problem, and there is a prevailing myth that women are the ?vectors of the
epidemic? (Albertyn and Hassim 2003: 140).

4 For instance, Shireen Hassim and Catherine
Albertyn (2003) note that HIV/AIDS has deepened the gendered stigmatization of women
and further entrenched resistance to ideas of gender equality and women?s autonomy.
Women are blamed for spreading the HIV/AIDS epidemic to partners and children. This
bigotry is reflected in the colloquial labels given to the disease. In KwaZulu-Natal, the
province with the highest levels of prevalence, HIV/AIDS is referred to as a ?woman?s
disease? or a ?prostitute?s disease?.5

3References to statistics can be found on the websites of the AIDS Law project http://www.alp.org.za and
Treatment Action Campaign www.tac.org.za. UNAIDS (2006), ?UNAIDS 2006 Report on the global AIDS
epidemic?, Annex 2: HIV/AIDS estimates and data, 2005. By the end of 2005, there were 5.5 million people
living with HIV in South Africa, and almost 1 000 AIDS deaths occurring every day, according to UNAIDS
estimates.
4 This point is now widely accepted in academic and policy literature. It was acknowledged in the Declaration of
commitment on HIV/AIDS: Global crisis ? Global action, United Nations General Assembly Special Session on
HIV/AIDS, June 2000, http://www.un.org/ga/aids/coverage/ Final DeclarationHIV/AIDS.html, paragraph 4.
5 Leclerc-Madlala argues that ?the general theme of blaming women for AIDS has been documented throughout
Africa?, in ?Virginity testing? (2003: 16).
In sum, HIV infection in women has resulted in
reinforcing misogynistic sexual stereotypes. Although men are assumed to have multiple
partners, it is women who are labelled as ?promiscuous? and morally unworthy. The disease
214
also reinforces the cultural codes that sustain these stereotypes, such as violence against
women or a conservative return to ?traditional values? (Leclerc-Madlala 2003: 16).6
The realization of the idea of freedom as the ability to achieve a fulfilling life requires an
engagement with, and transformation of, the social and cultural norms that constrain
women?s choices. Although the AIDS Action intervention builds on existing cultural values, it
does not necessarily accept all of them (such as entrenched patriarchy), but rather attempts
to understand these values as a starting point for change. Amartya Sen relates freedom to
?our capability to achieve valuable functions that make up our lives and, more generally to
promote objectives we have reason to value? (Sen 1992). The AIDS Action intervention
recognizes that it cannot achieve any radical change of patriarchal culture, including men?s
sexual behaviour, but proposes that the creative process that evokes the expression of voice
can reduce the stigma and empower women to seek support and treatment that may save
their lives. In other words, while in general men may remain reluctant to relinquish their
claims to sexual privilege, women can work to save themselves and help change their
communities. Such assumptions do have precedents. For example, Men as Partners (MAP)
training programs do actively work to change patriarchal attitudes, and the Engender Health
approach has been incorporated into the AIDS Action intervention though a partnership

Experience from the Paper Prayers Campaign suggests that people are saturated with
information on HIV, yet infection rates continue to be high. In response to this puzzling and
frustrating phenomenon, the AIDS Action Intervention takes the position that there is an
obligation to try a new approach. The standard information workshops with condom
demonstrations have been conducted repeatedly for more than a decade now, and there
does not appear to be much change in sexual behaviour. What arts activists have found, and
which is reinforced by the interviews with various stakeholders and beneficiaries, is that a
participatory approach is better received than simply ?learning a lesson? (Gould 2007: 5). The
emphasis on the participants? own narratives and expression through the artistic processes
enables agency. The pilot project designed a sound methodology to train multi-disciplinary
teams to offer week-long interventions into the targeted communities. The resulting
intervention used a combination of visual methods in combination with storytelling and
narrative to explore the concept of self-creation.

6 See, for example, the comments of Zuma in V. Warby, ?Tighten reins on sex and violence, Zuma urges?, The
Star, 18 August 2002. The campaign on ?moral regeneration?, championed by the then Deputy President Jacob
Zuma, sought to set up a movement that is an alliance of government with religion, business and women?s
organizations. However, far from ?liberating? or ?empowering? women as equal and autonomous beings, the
dominant public images of moral regeneration tend to be conservative, signifying a ?return? to traditional values
and slipping into a discourse that rejects ?promiscuity? and ?unnatural? sexuality.
215
agreement that includes a training representative whenever possible on each of the teams?
site visits.7
?It has done so in a way I never expected. I have seen the most powerful
articulations of HIV-related issues than in any other intervention I engaged in.?

Helen Gould and Mary Marsh have confirmed that communication programs for HIV/AIDS
strategies have tended to focus largely on one aspect ? behaviour change. However
behaviour change communication models are criticized as being based on Western
assumptions about what change is required, and for assuming a degree of individual volition
which does not exist in some societies (Gould and Marsh 2004). Such models have also
tended to focus on giving information, rather than building dialogue and sharing knowledge
within communities ? influencing attitudes and behaviour through telling, rather than by
engaging and empowering people.

While this thesis does not claim the application and impact of art therapy through the use of
professional art-counselling services, the methods of the interventions share the premise of
art as therapy; and that creativity provides the essential energy for the process of art towards
healing and empowerment. As Martina Schnetz writes in relation to the use of image/word
approaches in group therapy sessions for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome: ?It appears that
the image-making process using the dialogical image/word approach seems to facilitate a
process for individuals to reconnect and integrate their mind, body and spirit within a social
context in a more primal, intuitive way? (2004: 233). Schnetz presents a convincing case as
to why artistic expression is helpful in dealing with trauma in therapy. She describes
traumatic memories of illness and death as ?being wordless, de-contextualised, meaningless
patterns that affect the individual on many levels without them being able to consciously work
with them on a cognitive and verbal level? (Schnetz, 2004: 232).

The visually-based methodologies of Paper Prayers and Photovoice provide opportunities to
?break the silence? in a safe and supportive environment. For some groups the resistance to
engaging in discussions about HIV and AIDS is initially high, and participants feel threatened
to disclose or share their status for fear of gossip or marginalization. However, that fear
dissipates when discussing a photograph or artwork which creates a mode for describing
personal feelings in a non-threatening way. The conceptual view of using artistic methods in
healing and teaching was corroborated strongly by various stakeholders in the program, such
as those involved at a program level as trainers, coordinators and managers:

7 Engender Health website ref MAP www.engenderhealth.org/our-work/gender/men-as-partners.php. Also see
APS and MAP training partnership agreement 2007. See KB Archives (APS, Draw 1: File 1).
216
and ?... if empowerment means being able to make more choices, then yes, I
think these interventions contribute to empowerment?8 (HIV counsellor,
Stakeholder Interview 2007).9
Methodology for the Intervention
I divide the discussion of the methods used for this intervention into four categories:
academic approaches, multi-disciplinary arts-based research, visual methods for the
interventions, and assessment methods. The specific discussion of how these methods are
implemented is discussed in the next section on the intervention that cites specific case
studies.

Academic goals and approaches for the AIDS Action interventions
The methodology of the intervention draws on the paradigm of Participatory Action Research
(PAR). The specifics of the intervention are described in the section below, and the
methodology is more particularly illustrated through the description of case studies that
attempt to illustrate how change occurs. For example Caroline?s story from Twanano
Papermaking in Ivory Park exemplifies how change occurred as a result of her ability to
relate her story through Photovoice (Figure 3).

Budd Hall, who helped establish some of the founding principles of Participatory Action
Research suggests that this research methodology was not invented by researchers or
community activists but has always existed whenever communities attempted to understand
their contexts. His approach adopts the view to ?do our best work by validating the
participatory research processes that are already underway within a given community or
social movement context? (2001: 174). In John Heron and Peter Reason?s ?The Practice of
Co-Operative Inquiry: research ?with? rather than ?on? people,? the authors problematize
traditional research as often being theoretical rather than practical (2001: 179). ?Primacy is
given to transformative inquiries that involve action, where people change their way of being
and doing and relating in their world in the direction of greater flourishing? (Heron and
Reason 2001: 180). The approach of PAR is the grounding principle of the methodology of
the AIDS Action interventions described below, in that the knowledge systems, inquiry skills
and validation procedures are structured to ensure and enhance the quality of knowing. This
capacity of knowing is core to initiating social change that emerges from the community
participants.

8 Du Toit (2007) Phumani Paper/ Artist Proof Studio Stakeholder Interviews: Summary Document KB Archive (FF
Draw 6: File 1b).
9 Stakeholder interviews: 20 interviews can be found in KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 1a-d).
217

The pilot project designed a sound methodology to train multi-disciplinary teams to offer
week-long interventions in the targeted communities. The resulting intervention used a
combination of visual methods in combination with storytelling and narrative to explore the
concept of self-creation, which will be expanded upon in the following section.

As has been stated in the introductory chapter of this thesis, the fundamental challenge that
the research and training team face in engaging research with Phumani Paper groups
revolves around the following questions: How can this endeavour maintain an equal
exchange of value and not result in an exploitative relationship of power? How does the
researchers? purpose resist the perpetuation of the norm, which often involves using
institutional research resources to exploit a community to further research goals?

The pilot phase New Partners/New Knowledge reflects on the relationships between partners
? be they higher education institutions and academics, AIDS activists, community artists or
group participants. These partners share the common objectives of deepening democracy
and agency. The approach aims to resist the imposition of a hierarchy of privilege onto those
who are seen as disadvantaged. The ?outsiders? (students and trainers) were invited into the
sites to learn and exchange knowledge, and the community facilitators were tasked with
mediating an equalizing of skills exchange, and upholding the spirit of partnership. The
diversity of the teams with respect to discipline, gender, culture and expertise was a strategy
designed to resist hierarchy of privilege and is described in the case study of an intervention
below.

Multi-disciplinary, Arts-based Research
In this thesis I argue that the arts, far from being an optional extra, are critical for the
formation of a fluid, cohesive, and mutually-engaged society in South Africa. I further suggest
that arts research can contribute to the discursive fields of sociology, social psychology and
health studies. For example, research has demonstrated that music and art therapy
?generates inter-subjectivity and enhances as well as repairs human communication?
(Pavlicevic 2006: 214). The AIDS Action intervention described in this chapter explores ways
for academic research to make a meaningful difference in the lives of ordinary people. I
propose that research results matter when they can improve livelihoods or the well-being of
the participants. I argue in Chapter Five that community engagement though a university
program can function both as a site for research and as a site for social change. In other
words, while such engagement should produce very concrete and tangible results, such as
218
income generation, it can also act as an ?incubator? for the work of researchers who are trying
to connect theorizing, research, production of knowledge and advocacy. The AIDS Action
intervention has both research and community agency and participation outcomes. The
success of the research is dependent on the achievement of meeting the community
development outcomes. The project proposes that the visual arts can play a valuable role in
connecting and integrating new knowledge transmitted from the community participants to
the researcher, and nurturing researchers as activists and facilitators for catalysing social
action.

The multi-disciplinary approach does much to ?ground? the social sciences, (such as
sociology, anthropology and development studies) in reality, because each discipline adds
value to another. It is useful to cite an example of a multi-disciplinary project linked to
Phumani Paper that is not directly part of this intervention, but that offers an example of
effective inter-disciplinary co-operation. The eco-fuel briquette project, which manufactures
an environmentally friendly energy source, has required a collaboration between chemical
engineers, chemists, researchers, industrial designers, mechanical engineers, papermakers,
graphic designers and artists at the University of Johannesburg. Together this team has
developed an eco-friendly alternative to coal and charcoal made from compressed plant and
waste fibre from papermaking that will meet a local need and provide a new product for the
projects (Berman 2008a FADA Newsletter: 11).10
Claudia Mitchell, a Canadian researcher working with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, draws
from the work of Schratz and Walker (1995) and uses the term ?research as social change?
to describe the ways in which research might operate to enhance social change (Mitchell
2006: 227). Mitchell asks some of the questions that the Ford Foundation HIV/AIDS Action
intervention has addressed. Some of her questions challenge improving research designs so
that there is fluidity of boundaries between doing research and reporting on research. They
include: expanding the possibilities of making the results of the research more accessible to
the communities they serve; deepening our understanding of social science research by
drawing on artistic modes of expression in the visual arts; and challenging innovative visual
The technology is sourced from Uganda
and Malawi where there is a successful history of alternative fuel production. This project
reflects a growing interest in cross-disciplinary research as well as a response to the energy
crisis in South Africa. Graphic design students have designed innovative packaging, and
marketing students will be conducting preliminary market research of this new product as
part of a class assignment (Figures 2a-d).

10 See eco-fuel briquette project report and findings. KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 9).
219
and arts-based methodologies to link to a more action-orientated agenda for both academics
and participants in social science research (Mitchell 2006: 228). Mitchell recognizes that
?those working in the arts and those working in the social sciences need to form alliances.?
Her own work with Photovoice emphasizes the link between research, social change and
visual arts-based methodologies, such as photography, drawing, video documentary and
performance, and attributes this alliance to the long-standing traditions of the arts in ?making
visible and making public? (Mitchell 2006: 234).

In the AIDS Action intervention the research team found that all of the stakeholders regarded
interdisciplinary collaboration very favourably, not only for their own practice, but also for the
growth of their students and trainees. In an academic environment, practitioners often do not
realize the extent to which they are products of, and therefore limited by, their particular
disciplines. In programs such as these, which facilitate real-world engagement while at the
same time applying the wisdom and knowledge of academia, academics and students get
the chance to stretch their capabilities for the betterment of people?s lives. As one Higher
Education stakeholder asserted:
?Most problems in life require interdisciplinary perspectives and methods, yet
in higher education most of our learning occurs within highly constrained,
disciplinary frameworks? and ?When knowledge is shared, creative solutions
become possible? (Stakeholder Interview 2007).

Mitchell argues that visual arts-based methodologies have potential both for engaging people
in finding solutions, and for deepening understanding of the interplay of knowledge,
behaviour and attitudes within a social context. She asserts: ?This work forces us to look
again at what the purpose of research in the social and human sciences in South Africa
should be, and how it should be evaluated. Can it provoke change? Can it afford not to??
(Mitchell 2006: 240).

For the purposes of this thesis, multi-disciplinary research is not simply cross-disciplinary
within the academy, but multi-sectoral and multi-modal, in that it involves many sectors of
society in engaged, interactive endeavours using a range of methods to foster social change.
The team of researchers, artists and community activists worked from the assumption that
visual and cultural literacies could compensate for the possibly limited ability amongst many
participants to express thoughts and ideas using a linguistic voice.

220
Visual Methodologies: Photovoice, Paper Prayers and Community Mapping
The creative strategies that the research teams used for the AIDS Action intervention were
Photovoice11 and Paper Prayers. The use of two different visual strategies helped to ensure
that the majority of the participants found a vehicle to articulate their concerns, fears and
visions for the future. The rationale for the choice of these two methodologies was based on
the proven record of success they had demonstrated in other applications, particularly in the
example of Brinton Lykes? (2001) use of Photovoice in Guatemala in 1992 and the Artist
Proof Studio?s organization of the National Paper Prayers campaign in 1998.12
Photovoice: Imaging and Imagining the world
Photovoice uses the photographs made by individuals in the community to produce
narratives about their lives. Photovoice is increasingly used by Action Research scholars
such as Brinton Lykes (2001), Wendy Ewald (2005), Caroline Wang (1998) and Claudia
Mitchell (2006), and is especially prominent in the health sector. Lykes worked in Guatemala
with women who only spoke Ixil, their mother tongue, and only a few of them were able to
read and write. According to Lykes (2001: 365), photography not only allowed for full
participation by the group, but also improved communication. The following more extended
definitions of the tools of the intervention are described in order to clarify the methods used in
the intervention. The Photovoice method was developed by Caroline Wang and Mary Ann
Burris:
Photovoice is a process by which people can identify, represent, and enhance
their community through a specific photographic technique. It entrusts
cameras to the hands of people to enable them to act as recorders, and
potential catalysts for social action and change, in their own communities. It
uses the immediacy of the visual image and accompanying stories to furnish
evidence and to promote an effective, participatory means of sharing
expertise to create healthful public policy (Wang and Burris 1997).

Community
Mapping is being used as a visual tool in the third phase of the intervention, which is
expanded on in the conclusion of this chapter.

Photovoice enables researchers to more accurately perceive the world from the viewpoint of
the people who lead lives that are different from those usually in control of the means for
imaging the world. As such, this approach to participatory appraisal values the knowledge

11 More information on the history, theory, and applications of Photovoice can be found on Caroline Wang?s
website, see website: http://www.photovoice.com See also workbook and reference materials used to
introduce Photovoice to the groups. KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 4a).
12 Brinton Lykes first presented her Photovoice project that she conducted with Mayan women in Guatemala
in1992 at a conference on Healing and the Creative Arts at Museum Africa in 2000. She spoke of the women?s
use of Photovoice to bear witness on atrocities experienced and the violent repression during Guatemala?s 36-
year war (Berman, 2004).
221
put forth by people as a vital source of expertise. It confronts a fundamental problem of
community assessment: what professionals, researchers, specialists, and outsiders think is
important may completely fail to match what the community thinks is important. Most
significantly, the images produced and the issues discussed and framed by people may
stimulate policy and social change. According to Wang, Photovoice is a methodology to
reach, inform, and organize community members, enabling them to prioritize their concerns
and discuss problems and solutions. Photovoice goes beyond the conventional role of
community assessment by inviting people to promote their own and their community?s well-
being. Examples of how this happens are provided further in the chapter in the discussion on
the case study interventions (See Figure 3). A catalogue providing a range of Photovoice
examples was published in July 2008 and is housed in the archives (Antonopolou, Berman,
Hlasane and Sellschop 2008).13
Paper Prayers: Expressions of Hope

As described in Chapter Three, Paper Prayers uses simple printmaking techniques to
encourage individuals to express their emotions about loss and illness. Paper Prayers
workshops have proved to be an effective method of teaching AIDS awareness, sexual
practice and behaviour change using artistic methods. The structure of each workshop
depends on the profile and circumstances of each group. A training manual for facilitators
has been developed to conduct HIV awareness and printmaking workshops. This manual
describes particular exercises and techniques in practical detail (Antonopolou et al. 2008).14
For instance in communities where resources are scarce, printing is done with cut-out
stencils, found or waste materials such as string and found objects such as plants and items
with different textures. The objects are rolled up with printing ink, or sponged with paint, and
a spoon is used to rub the back of the paper to transfer the image (See Figure 11 in Chapter
Three). The facilitator explains how emotive words and adjectives can be translated into
formal elements such as line, colour, symbols and shapes. This becomes the stimulus for a
visual narrative and artwork (Figures 4a-c). A range of examples is documented in the
catalogue published for the Cultural Action Exhibition in July 2008 (Antonopolou et al.
2008).15

13 The catalogue: Visual Voices from the Phumani Sites provides a range of examples KB Archives (FF Draw 6:
File 6b).
14 The Training Manual for facilitators is used by the APS facilitators and a copy was distributed to each Phumani
Paper site. KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 7a).
15 The catalogue ?Paper Prayers: An art-making process for emotional well-being? provides examples of different
paper prayers and narratives from a range of groups. KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 7b).
Participants draw their ideas and designs on paper before the printing process is
demonstrated to the group. The images and symbols facilitate an open discussion of
participants? fears and concerns in a safe environment.
222

Comments from student educators capture the efficacy of Paper Prayers as a methodology:
I think that art activities like Paper Prayers can really make a difference in
changing people?s attitudes about HIV/AIDS. When one engages in an activity
like this, one feels at ease and happy, unlike sitting down and listening to
gruesome stories and realities about the virus. Paper Prayers is a positive
action that encourages people to think good thoughts and helps to eliminate
stigma and stereotypes about the HI-Virus (Bongiwe evaluating the workshop,
August 2008).

Paper Prayers contain messages that heal people?s spirits. It lets them know
that they are not alone in their struggle with the illness. Paper Prayers also
serves to promote awareness to those not infected yet to take all the
necessary precautions to protect themselves ? in order to stay negative (Jane,
August 2008).16
? to familiarize participants with the basic HIV/AIDS facts, myths, modes of
transmission and gender-related issues

An HIV/AIDS educator or counsellor accompanies each team. Before artistic processes are
introduced, the workshop participants take part in an information-sharing session that
determines the priorities of the group and the focus of the training. For example the goals of
one workshop may be structured as follows:
? to reinforce behaviour change practices especially with regards to individual
responsibility, prevention and risk-reduction practices
? to facilitate education sessions focusing on enabling and capacitating participants
to make effective decisions regarding their sexual behaviour and reproductive health
? to help participants to strengthen their sense of individual responsibility, reduce
risk and adhere to universal precautions regarding their sexual behaviour.

Some facilitators introduce the Behaviour Change Model which emphasizes risk reduction,
prevention, and individual responsibility to encourage positive lifestyle choices. Others focus
on sex and sexuality, HIV and gender, sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) and treatments
such as anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) and various forms of contraception (Antonopolou and
Sellschop (eds) 2008).

Community and Visual Mapping: a pathway out of poverty
Asset or resource mapping is a familiar term used by geographers and social and health
development practitioners. John Kretzmann and John McKnight (1993) and others (Galen El-

16 Workshop for student educators at Wits University. Report by Shannin Antonopolou August 2008. KB Archives
(PPR: Draw 2: File 2).
223
Askari, Julie Freestone, Chicky Irizarry, Karen L. Kraut, et al. 1998) have written extensively
on asset-based community development.17
Assessment Methods
This methodology has been adapted to develop
action plans for improved access to health care, and to resources and markets for
enterprises. The action plans are translated into a visual process of wall-mapping, onto which
a range of images, texts, photographs, references and action plans are collaged. The mural
map in each enterprise provides a very direct way of monitoring change and increased
productivity.

Visual mapping is an artistic practice currently used by a significant number of contemporary
South African artists. I propose that the application of these artistic interventions is an
emerging area that has rich possibilities for research and community change objectives
(Figures 5a and b).

A social science researcher was contracted to conduct an impact assessment for the Ford
Foundation AIDS Action Intervention. Three reports were compiled: a Baseline Report (du
Toit and Korth 2007), a Mid-Term Report (du Toit 2007) and a Final Report (du Toit July
2008b).18 However, as has been repeatedly stressed, the ?hard? data generated through the
use of traditional methods that use social indicators cannot successfully convey the richness
and complexity of the community groups and interventions. The assessment and monitoring
design of the AIDS Action intervention has used mixed-method approaches and indicators,
developed by the research team to measure impact and take into account the equal mix of
?hard? and ?soft? information.19
While the first phase baseline report used traditional social indicators, such as per capita
income, housing, literacy rates and others (Korth 2007),
Here I will briefly summarize the range of methods and
indicators, and then compare the team approach to one suggested by Arlene Goldbard who
proposes some very useful approaches particularly suited for community cultural
development. Her indicators can helpfully be merged into the structure we have developed
thus far.

17 See website links to Health asset mapping. These include: The Asset-Based Community Development Institute
for Policy Research (http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/abcd/ and others such as:
http://heb.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/25/2/146).
18 The reports, questionnaires and raw data are filed in KB Archives (FF Draw 6).
19 The team here comprises the contracted researcher and myself, with collaborative input from partners at the
University of Michigan.
20 See Baseline Assessment tables: (du Toit and Korth 2007). KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 2d).
the later mid-term report and
stakeholder interviews enriched the data with diverse personal narratives on the role of
224
creative approaches and individual understanding of creative practice. The designs of the
assessment tools were collaborative: they were drawn from sources such as Most Significant
Change (Davies and Dart 2005), and World Bank Empowerment Indicators (Alsop and
Heinsohn 2005), and modified by the team of academics from the University of Michigan, as
well as artists and community practitioners. Recommendations were then collated by the
social science researcher contracted to implement the assessment (du Toit 2007 and
2008b). The format retained social science conventions and methodology; but considerations
of indicators were expanded to include vitality, access, participation, consumption,
productivity, lifestyle, health constraints, loss, social grants, identity, creative practice, ethics,
governance, conduct, and many others.

For me it was important to continuously ask such questions as: How important are such
indicators? For whom and what purpose? How can this approach avoid the risk of people
feeling like experimental subjects? I was concerned to achieve a paradigm shift to bridge the
gap between community development and a creative, engaged arts-based approach. Arlene
Goldbard proposes values for unifying the cultural development field. These include: active
participation, diversity, equality of cultures, commitment to culture as a crucible for social
transformation, prizing cultural expression as a process of emancipation, an encompassing
understanding of culture and valuing artists as agents. Goldbard proposes these values as
yardsticks to assess actualities against aims. This is a practical methodology for assessing
change. The way the research team was able to engage the research element in the AIDS
Action intervention was to focus on what the community needed to enhance the growth of
their enterprises. Our team approach included:
? having group workshops and discussions
? conducting Paper Prayers workshops as a visual arts intervention to discuss the
impact of loss and trauma as a result of AIDS
? role-play performances/ drumming circles/ drawing
? discussions on consent and ownership of knowledge/ use of research
? handing out disposable cameras to take photographs of issues affecting them in their
communities and to develop personal narratives about their images to participate in
Photovoice
? having group discussions and sharing personal family stories emerging from images
to develop trust and intimacy
? having each group set their own priorities for further themes for planning each
intervention.
225
The interviews conducted by the students in the local language also became one of the
components at the end of the intervention, and these functioned as part of an evaluation of
the process. In this way the team attempted to minimize the discomfort of a participant
feeling like a research subject. Interviews took on a format of dialogue and exchange and
were conducted by a familiar member of the team.

PART TWO: The Intervention

PHASE ONE: The Pilot Phase: New Partners/New Knowledge:
2005- 6

The grant application to the Ford Foundation, which supported a two-year intervention,
outlined an approach to training for change that embraced the complexity of the cultural
contexts existing in individual Phumani projects. Building on the experiences that Artist Proof
Studio had encountered over the years with the impact of the Paper Prayers on collectives, I
collaborated with like-minded academics in the United States to develop a program that
would include a verifiable process to measure the impact of any significant social change.
The intervention?s overarching goal was to influence the lives of HIV-positive people who do
not believe that they may choose to seek support. This project was named New
Partners/New Knowledge: Sustaining Learners and Social Change through Participatory
Action Research. The work of four American-based scholars has inspired and assisted me
with designing the methodology of this project: Professor Julie Ellison, Director of Imagining
America, inspired me with her writings on public scholarship and community engagement; Dr
Mark Creekmore, a social scientist and social worker contributed his expertise in assessing
the impact of community development programs; Dr Jane Hassinger (University of Michigan),
clinical psychologist and feminist scholar; and Professor Pamela Allara my PhD co-
supervisor from Brandeis University.

While completing the design of New Partners/New Knowledge my collaborators and I set
specific goals for the intervention that included: 1) creation of networks within rural
communities in order to provide access to information on HIV prevention and treatment; 2)
training in creative skills and actions for the proposed rural and urban projects? HIV/AIDS
interventions; 3) conducting research and contracting an independent impact assessment to
track the changes that the various creative interventions have made; 4) building support for
the Phumani Paper business units to reach acceptable levels of self-sustainability and
commercial viability; and 5) engaging in the research methodology of Participatory Action
226
Research in order to gather data for subsequent scholarly publication that is intended to
contribute to the literature on social engagement through the visual arts.

The New Partners/New Knowledge approach was first tested in 2005, with a separately
funded visit from University of Michigan academics and students who wished to explore and
teach the use of Photovoice and Participatory Action Research methods. This first
intervention provided the foundation for the more ambitious program, and launched the
partnership between the University of Michigan and the University of Johannesburg. The
Ford Foundation funding was granted the following year, and the pilot project was
implemented in July-August 2006. The pilot involved five Phumani hand-papermaking sites,
and three academic institutions committed to exploring the pedagogy of practice. The training
of the Johannesburg-based teams was coupled with the second visit to South Africa of the
University of Michigan?s ?Working in Cooperatives in South Africa? (WiCSA) program,
managed by Mark Creekmore and Jane Hassinger and including five of their students.

Each of the three teams on the pilot project consisted of two artists from Artist Proof Studio,
who were tasked with presenting the Paper Prayers workshop; several students from the
University of Michigan and the University of Johannesburg, who documented the intervention
and assisted with the introduction of Photovoice; a community leader from the regional
Phumani Project; an HIV/AIDS trainer; and an academic from each of the participating
universities (University of Johannesburg, University of Michigan and Brandeis University).
The teams conducted visits to five Phumani Paper sites: Kutloano in Welkom, Free State
Province; Twanano in Ivory Park Gauteng; Tswaraganang in Winterveld, Northern Province;
and Eshowe Paper and Craft and Imboni Craft in KwaZulu-Natal (See Figure 6 map).21
As discussed in Chapter Five, PAR requires a repositioning of traditional research and
scholarship from the individual and the archive to the communal and the collective, thereby
serving as a bridge between theory and practice. Following Peter Reason (2001) and Lykes
(2001), the research team adopted PAR as a methodology for an alternative system of
knowledge production, based on the community?s role in setting the agendas, participating in
The
teams? challenge was to create a multi-layered program for the scholars, students, activists,
and project participants, wherein each member could learn to democratize rather than
colonize experience, using principles of non-hierarchal participation and self-reflexivity. The
pedagogy of Participatory Action Research (PAR) was adopted to facilitate community
engagement.

21 See www.phumanipaper.co.za for a description of each site.
227
data gathering and analysis, and in controlling the use of its outcomes (Reason 2001: 324-
339). Part of the research findings included the documentation of how the method of PAR
functions in creative practice.22
Summary of the 2006 Pilot Project Intervention

As suggested above, the major reason for this intervention was not only to break the silence
and fear surrounding the AIDS pandemic, but to facilitate access to resources such as
testing, counseling, support and treatment. It was also envisaged that the Phumani Paper
enterprises could become more sustainable and generate a more consistent livelihood for
groups if the effects of AIDS were addressed. All of the groups had experienced losses due
to illness and death, but they had not, prior to this project, received trauma or bereavement
counselling, nor the support needed to cope with loss of members, income, and the resulting
decline of their business. Our thesis was that creative practice can bypass negative group
dynamics that might exist, because the participants? discussions of their own lives are framed
by their own images of themselves and their community ties. In addition, with the emphasis
on participants being able to determine the subject matter and direction of the conversation,
there is little room for the researcher to impose preconceptions during discussions or when
administering questionnaires.

The New Partners/New Knowledge training was held at the Faculty of Art, Design and
Architecture (FADA) at the University of Johannesburg in July 2006. Three teams were
established that were led by a senior researcher and had representatives drawn from each
participating organization; the teams consisted of at least seven members each. The training
was designed consultatively, and included contributions from specialists from Engender
Health or other experienced HIV/AIDS counsellors; and the Universities of Michigan,
Brandeis and Johannesburg.23

22 The seminal work of Dr Brinton Lykes inspired the methodology when I was introduced to her work in
Photovoice on a trip to Boston in 2001. I subsequently wrote an article in the FADA research newspaper
called ?Archival Paper: A model for Project-Based Research? (Berman 2004) which I presented as a hybrid of
the sector of practice. FADA articles can be found in KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 11).
23 See website for more information (http://www.engenderhealth.org/).
Creekmore and Hassinger from the University of Michigan led
the six-day pilot training. Principles of behaviour and methods, such as listening, not giving
advice, and creating safe spaces, were demonstrated through interactive activities
throughout the training. In addition to understanding the methodological processes and
theoretical goals of Photovoice and Paper Prayers, the training emphasized team-building. A
central activity was the sharing by each member of their own Photovoice narrative, so that
trust and respect were established among all members (Figures 7a and b). At the end of the
228
training, a day-long symposium was held for stakeholders and partners, as well as the
broader university audience, which enabled general questions and feedback to be provided.
The symposium also fulfilled the research and academic objectives of introducing PAR as a
new method of scholarship into the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at the University
of Johannesburg.

The training was followed by site visits, the format of which was as follows: introductions and
learning of names, introduction to Photovoice and distributing of cameras, and the
introduction of the HIV/AIDS trainer. Two days of intensive HIV/AIDS training followed, then
one to two days of making and printing Paper Prayers. On the last day, the Phumani
members returned the cameras so that the photographs they had taken could be developed
and distributed on the return visit the following week.24
Once the teams went out in the field, however, the methods of each intervention differed
according to the strengths of each team, as well as the differences in dynamics at each
Phumani Paper site. For instance, in the Tswaraganang group in Winterveld in the Northern
Province, a historic dumping ground of people from various ethnic and language groups in
the old apartheid homeland system, where there was less cohesion among the group of
seven women than at the other sites, one of the facilitators, who was also a musician, used
the mbira and other traditional musical instruments as a vehicle for assisting the group to get
in touch with their feelings of loss and fear

24 Original photographs from all interventions are housed at Artist Proof Studio in the Paper Prayers files, and
digital copies of photos and narratives can be found in KB Archives (PP Draw 2: Files 8, 9).
25 The mbira is a musical instrument from Zimbabwe consisting of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys
have been attached.
(Figure 8: Stompie Selibe and group). The group
sat in a circle, and as they listened to the evocative sounds of different instruments, they
were encouraged to express the spontaneous associations and memories that surfaced.
Participants were able to then extend the exploration of their feelings by picking up found
objects, and share with each other what they felt each object symbolized. According to
psychoanalyst Jane Hassinger, a collaborator on the intervention:
Creative activity ? particularly in groups where members share the results of
their efforts ? helps to restore a sense of inner cohesion by establishing an
experiential tie to a sense of unity of self that was once inseparable from
mother and home. Creativity constitutes an attempt to feel oneself, see
oneself, and ?tell? oneself. Viewers/listeners also are beneficiaries, acquiring a
more nuanced sense of identity and accurate understanding of one?s cultural
history (Hassinger 2008: 3)

229
Subsequently printing the found objects with ink and transferring them into a Paper Prayer
collograph became a powerful vehicle for the translation of feelings, which led to an opening
up and a willingness of the women to tell their stories about loss and illness (see Figures 9a
and b). Art became an equalizer; it generated laughter, release of tension, and a sense of
pride (Figure 10: an example of Photovoice). Their narratives were recorded in the workbook
that was later provided to the group as a record of the intervention.26
When the fieldworkers returned to Johannesburg after the first site visits, the training process
continued over the following weekend with the groups coming together for the PAR-
established process of self-reflexivity and sharing of experiences. I attended the reflections,
assisted in providing direction and advice for the next stage of the process, and took note of
particular difficulties communicated in the various interventions. Some of the weaknesses of
the training program that emerged included the problem of translation from English to the
local language(s), especially because the HIV training was conducted in English.
Dependence on the local language speakers in the team for translation was in certain
respects a strength, because it required mediation, communication, listening, and slowing
down the discussion so that everyone could participate and understand. The drawback was
the extra burden placed on local language speakers, mostly University of Johannesburg and
Artist Proof students or facilitators, most of whom nonetheless excelled at the task and
enjoyed the increased responsibility required by their skills. Moreover, the local translators
understood that the American students bore the burden of writing up and correlating all of the

A number of difficult situations arose that the pilot project could not address in just two
weeks; these resulted from the very patriarchal attitudes the AIDS intervention was designed
to confront. For example in the traditional village of Endlovini in rural KwaZulu-Natal, the local
Zulu men are polygamous and infect each of their many wives. The women felt that they did
not have bargaining power to advocate the use of condoms, and unfortunately they had very
little recourse to seek treatment, because it cost R70 to transport themselves to the nearest
clinic. As we anticipated, many women did not see that they had choices. This was
corroborated by the fact that the highest rate of AIDS deaths in the country, one in three, is
experienced in that region. Obviously, the intervention could not provide access to treatment
if it was inaccessible or unaffordable. Solving that problem became a challenge for the next
phase of training. In the second year of the program trainers arrived on site with resources
and contact information on support services available in the surrounding districts, or
particular suggestions for site members to source information for themselves.

26 See Workbooks intervention 1 and 2 KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 4a-f).
230
narratives. Another difficulty was the size of the teams, which sometimes outnumbered the
smaller Phumani Paper groups and contributed to altering power dynamics in the workshops
(Figure 11: Training team and group).

A further weakness was the problem generated by the need for signed consent forms for the
research component of the project. The teams had difficulty conveying the idea that this legal
form was to protect the privacy and ownership of the material by the site members, rather
than to legally bind them in some way. The fact that the consent forms were in English made
them very intimidating, but in the end led to productive discussion. By the end of the initial
training, the Phumani Paper participants understood that they owned their photographs and
stories, and that they would not be used without their knowledge and consent.27
After the weekend discussions, the teams returned to the sites to give back the developed
photographs. Some of the remarkable narratives that emerged will be summarized below.
The last day in the field was given over to the facilitation of action plans identified by each
group. These were recorded in the workbooks and used to feed the planning of the next
intervention. In discussions with the researchers, the Phumani Paper women expressed
delight, pride and self-worth in both celebrating their new creative skills and sharing their
lives with people from overseas who wanted to learn from them. Their new art skills were
also recognized as a source of empowerment, as some of the women expressed confidence
that they could teach the new activities: for example, to children, to help them stay off the
streets. They felt empowered for future action that would address problems in the community
such as environmental degradation, unemployment, and HIV prevalence. They recognized
that their new skills would also assist them with the development of new product designs and
enhance their Phumani Paper products. Finally, the methodology of training for many of the
participants made them more comfortable with communicating about sex across generations,
and equipped them with a vocabulary and the confidence to begin to break the silence and
communicate with each other. These findings translated into an initial action plan for several
of the groups, who wanted to function as a site for distribution of nutritional supplements
such as ?e-pap? and vitamins.

27 See file of consent forms and translations KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 3).
28 E-pap is a vitamin-enriched supplement of porridge that boosts the immune system and is distributed primarily
to poor people suffering from TB or HIV/AIDS.
Some groups also anticipated serving as a source of advice
for testing and treatment in their communities, because they had become owners of a new
resource: knowledge.

231
The close of the pilot program consisted of a two-day seminar open to members of the public
and attended by all the relevant partners and stakeholders. Each team presented a printed
poster and a PowerPoint presentation displaying the processes undertaken in, and lessons
learned from the field, as well as selected Photovoice and Paper Prayers narratives.
Funders, government and university officials also attended the seminar. The concluding
session, a seminar for representatives from the Phumani sites, was dedicated to
interrogating the pilot model, detailing future action plans, and suggesting modifications for
the implementation of the intervention at the remaining Phumani Paper sites during the next
phase of the two-year program (Berman, FADA newsletter 2006b).29
Kutloano ? A Case Study of the Intervention: July-August 2006
As indicated in the beginning of this chapter, the Kutloano group in Welkom, which is one of
the sixteen Phumani Paper groups which participated in the AIDS Action Intervention, has
been selected as a case study in order to present the practicalities of implementing the
methodology through the various phases (Figure 12).

Kutloano is situated near Welkom in the Free State Province. At the time of the intervention,
in July-August 2006, the organization had five members, all women, who lived in Thabong
township, 6.5 km from the enterprise?s premises. Members earned an average of R500 per
month from their craft activities. Kutloano indicated that they needed help with the marketing
of their products.

According to the National Census 2001, in the Lejweleputswa District Municipality, 45% of
the economically active population were unemployed; 56% of households lived on R800 or
less per month, with 27% of households having no income. HIV prevalence was 34%
compared to the 30% provincial average. Anecdotal information suggests that such statistics
had not improved between 2001 and the time of the intervention. All five members indicated
being the main breadwinners in their household, with the average household size in this
group being six people, with mostly children as dependents. Members generally indicated
living in brick houses, although one member indicated that she lived in a shack with two other
people. The members? long-term goals included becoming successful businesswomen. Apart
from this, they indicated that they wanted to provide a better education for their children, and
to own a car and a bigger house (Du Toit March 2007: 7).

29 The Pilot Program is documented with articles, reviews and copies of the presentation in KB Archives (UJ Draw
5).
232
Before the intervention began, the student researcher in the Kutloano team conducted an
interview with the project leader. These were some of the leader?s responses to questions
about HIV and AIDS:
?Members in our group do not talk much about HIV,? ?People do not disclose,?
?People in the community: they don?t talk about it,? ?If someone dies, he is
bewitched or poisoned? (Mamiki Mangayi, Kutloano project manager).30
The group then assembled for the Photovoice training. The members of the team introduced
themselves to the five women, and a student from the University of Michigan distributed the
disposable cameras and instructed the members in their use (Figures 13a and b).

31
1) In the last year, what are the most significant changes you have seen as a result
of illness?
The
themes identified for taking photographs were presented as two questions:
2) In the last year, what are the most significant changes you have seen as a result
of creative activities?
The discussion that followed made clear that the women could addresses changes at any
level ? self, family, work community, faith community, and neighbourhood, and trainers
encouraged members to discover their own themes as well. At the end of the training, the
group was extremely reluctant to sign the consent form designed by the University of
Michigan academics, which they found confusing. Overnight the team simplified and
translated the form into Sesotho, and the resulting discussion with the group was very
productive about picture and story ownership, as well as the subsequent use of the research.
The forms were signed and copies retained.

The HIV/AIDS Workshop
On the following two days, AIDS activist and counsellor Bart Cox, presented the HIV/AIDS
workshop. All of the members and researchers were very engaged in learning and gathering
information for themselves, families, and communities. Cox provided Kutloano members with
files to keep information as resource materials and gave some Kutloano members (on
request) colour pictures of genitals infected with STIs to show to their children. He used a
variety of visual and spoken approaches, many of which were interactive. He understood that
change could occur only if sexual partners could speak to each other about safe practices,
hence the use of role playing. He underscored the need for women to speak up for their right
to be protected and to move beyond traditional patriarchal gender relations (Figure 14).

30 Interviews by Kim Berman and research assistants 2006-8 (KB Archives FF Draw 6: Files1a-h).
31 The team consisted of an HIV trainer, two students from Michigan, one University of Johannesburg student, two
artist facilitators from Artist Proof Studio, an academic from Brandeis University, the intervention coordinator, and
a Phumani Paper manager.

233

The Paper Prayers workshop
The Paper Prayers workshop that followed the end of the HIV training was hampered by the
fact that the APS facilitators were not thoroughly prepared. They had not explored methods
for printing collographs without a press, and the results were of poor quality. After a team
discussion and resolving an argument between the two APS facilitators, the workshop was
repeated the next day more successfully (Figures 15-17).

The Photovoice discussion and images
When the photographs from the Photovoice part of the intervention were returned to the
participants during the second week, the group gathered in a circle, and the women each
chose one image to present. The depth and emotional honesty of their personal stories made
clear that even the most rudimentary image can carry the weight of trauma, and convey the
strength of perseverance in the face of enormous obstacles. One researcher commented
that their narratives demonstrated a subtle grasp of symbolism and metaphor that she would
not have anticipated. In addition, their honesty and frankness in dealing with huge trauma
and loss demonstrated their willingness to trust the group as a unit. Finally, it was clear that
they were looking forward to receiving their illustrated narratives, and to sharing them with
family and friends. The testimonies bore witness not only to the difficulties of their lives, but
also to their courage.

The team who conducted the HIV training in the intervention found that the visual methods
created a level of comfort that made it increasingly possible to discuss sensitive topics, such
as sexuality and HIV/AIDS: ?because of their [the methods?] potential for empowering
individuals and groups by virtue of their emphasis on opening up formerly inhibited,
stigmatized speech, decreasing isolation, increasing group solidarity and activating social
goals in the group? (Trainer, from Stakeholder interview 2007) [my insertion] (Figures 18a
and b).

Action Plans
The workshop concluded with group members devising plans for future actions to implement
what they had learned. These actions included: a wish to continue the facilitation of Paper
Prayers with their children and in their communities; a commitment to talk more with family,
friends and community members about HIV/AIDS; to connect with potential agents to sell e-
pap and Nature?s Health products (vitamins) to people affected by HIV/AIDS; to continue
234
taking pictures and using them to enhance sales of paper products; and to have more regular
meetings between the site members to discuss more effective marketing strategies.

General Summary of the Findings of the Pilot project intervention
The process of creating an enabling environment in which to use the tools of Photovoice and
Paper Prayers was the key to the varying levels of strength of each intervention. The
resulting artworks and outcomes depended on the team of facilitators, HIV trainers and
artists, and their ability to work effectively as a group. As this was a pilot project and the team
members were students being mentored at different levels, there was a level of unevenness
in some of the resulting outcomes, such as the lack of experience and preparation by some
of the Artist Proof Studio facilitators. However the process was consultative and reflexive,
and after each intervention the team met with the mentors and coordinators to discuss
strengths and weakness. The development of the notebooks, which remained at each site as
a data recording and progress monitoring resource, was seen by site members as very
useful for their own organizational management.

The results of the pilot project demonstrated that artistic forms of expression such as
Photovoice and Paper Prayers offer a rich and intense form of inquiry, and are effective in
facilitating the expression of voices that have not been heard. These visual-narrative
methodologies produce a form of documentary evidence that can contribute to a further
process of what activist Maria-Rosario Jackson identifies as a need for ?rigorous qualitative
analysis of projects,? as in her Rockefeller-commissioned study on the impact of cultural
initiatives she ?found little theoretical or empirical research that speaks to how arts and
cultural participation contribute to social dynamics? (2002: 4).

Visual outcomes as research evidence
Artists are not generally trained in data collection and analysis, but I have found that visual
methods of engaging creative thinking provide a useful means of gathering evidence. The
resulting materials and outcomes enable both the researchers and participants to analyse
and draw useful findings from the themes elicited by the narratives. The visual narratives
from the pilot and subsequent roll-out of the interventions in each of the sixteen sites have
been collated and archived. Some of the visual and narrative texts have been included in the
needs assessment compiled by the contract researcher Lilo Du Toit, from the Department of
Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Johannesburg, some have been
included in the site workbooks and others published in an exhibition catalogue of visual
235
voices (Antonopolou, Berman, Hlasane & Sellschop 2008).32 In aggregate, they demonstrate
a marked increase in the Phumani Paper women?s awareness and empowerment around
issues of HIV/AIDS. In addition, the project exemplifies Amartya Sen?s notion that the
leadership of women is a crucial aspect of ?development as freedom? (Sen 1999b: 202), as,
in addition to providing information to assist HIV-positive women in choosing options for
treatment and counselling, this intervention focused on the changing agency of women that
derives from also improving their economic and social conditions.33
The research methodology, Participatory Action Research, provided a recognized and
progressive research context for students and facilitators, and helped secure a successful
pilot project. Close collaboration between the facilitators and the project members insured
that knowledge production remained non-hierarchical and that the member?s voices were
accurately recorded. To quote from the facilitator-stakeholder interviews: ?I have seen the
most powerful articulations of HIV-related issues than in any other intervention I engaged in?
and ?if empowerment means being able to make more choices, then yes, I think these
interventions contribute to empowerment? (Facilitators stakeholder interview 2007).

34
PHASE TWO: The Roll-out of the AIDS Action Intervention 2006-8

One of the ongoing challenges of any intervention is to sustain the enthusiasm and
commitment initially created. The initial pilot training was followed by the roll-out phase that
assisted in establishing links to additional networks and resources in response to the action
plan drawn up by each of the five pilot groups. In addition, the roll-out also required that the
AIDS Action Intervention reach the remaining eleven Phumani Paper sites across seven
provinces. Each of these groups was to receive two training and collaboration visits of four
days each, led by a team of four to five facilitators from multi-disciplinary fields. For example
the training teams are comprised of a Phumani Paper community liaison, a team coordinator,
two printmaking trainers from APS (a mentor and mentee), a University of Johannesburg
research assistant and an HIV/AIDS counsellor. Despite our efforts to retain this balance of
academics, artists and activists, the pilot project New Partners/New Knowledge had specific
and somewhat unusual characteristics that could not be replicated during the subsequent
roll-out phase. Specifically, the pilot teams were top-heavy with academics from the United

32 Photovoice narratives, as well as Paper Prayer narratives have been printed in two exhibition catalogues
(July 2008) that document selected narratives. Further narrative analyses of many of the Photovoice
outcomes have been analysed by Creekmore and Hlasane. See KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 5).
33 While several male group members in some of the sites were also included in the training, women were
numerically dominant.
34 Records of all stakeholder interviews are in KB Archives (FF Draw 6: Files 1a-d).
236
States and included American sociology students who had fairly sophisticated research and
reporting skills. The local teams had to face the daunting challenge of managing the
nationwide roll-out without international support. As a result, during the second year, the
interventions, as well as the research and facilitation methods, were adapted to better fit
specific local conditions and capacities. In fact, the approach differed in each regional and
ethnic context. The selection of the facilitators was dependent on their language skills, and
their familiarity with regional and project dynamics. For example, in conducting a second
intervention in KwaZulu-Natal, the team composition was changed considerably. The
HIV/AIDS trainer-counsellor, Bart Cox, a white, older, English-speaking activist who we had
used in the pilot phase, was replaced with a young Zulu woman, a Treatment Action
Campaign (TAC) activist who focused on the importance of treatment. To begin with this
change appeared to be misdirected, as the group were initially very hostile and suspicious
towards the young Zulu woman activist, but the artists chosen for the creative intervention
were also Zulu speakers and had experience in art therapy and group management and
managed to hold together the group?s dynamics. The new configuration of team members
subsequently proved to be effective in that the group?s resistance softened, and the
members were able to open up to each other through the narratives that they shared.

One major challenge that the teams faced was that the APS and University of Johannesburg
art students? research and writing skills were less well-developed than those of their
American sociology student counterparts, and these weaknesses contributed to the decision
to collaborate with a specialist within the Social Science Department at the University of
Johannesburg. The Head of the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies,
Professor Thea de Wet, referred me to part-time lecturers in the department and
independent consultants: anthropology researcher Marcel Korth, who conducted the
Baseline Survey, and Lilo du Toit , who completed the analysis and conducted the mid-term
study, as well as the final impact report as required by the Ford Foundation agreement.

A parallel research process that used traditional social science survey and questionnaire
methodologies supplemented the results with those generated by participatory and
interactive methods. The documents generated by the social science researchers held
weight and credibility due to the classic research methods approach that substantiated ?hard
data.? The results from the social science researchers have been impressive, but their
process was parallel to the intervention and not integrated into the participatory method used
by the teams. While a sociological approach satisfies established notions of what constitutes
effective quantitative and qualitative methodologies for data collection and analysis, the
research team found that the visually-based interventions of narratives emerging from the
237
use of Photovoice and Paper Prayers deepened and enriched the social science approach.
Further, I argue that visual arts-based learning methodologies provide a richer and more
meaningful expression and quality of information than when standard social science methods
such as surveys, questionnaires and interviews are applied in isolation. Both benefit from
being used together. The encounter with artistic methods of communication results in a more
personal experience of the research process for that participant: in creating her own artwork
she has a level of freedom to talk about personal feelings and beliefs in visual and symbolic
form that is often not possible in dialogue within a group context. It was those personal fears
and embedded beliefs of the myths about HIV/AIDS that the intervention aimed to change.

For me still, there is a need to find new ways to bridge the divide between theory and
practice. An uncomfortable conflict exists between data analysis and the creative facilitation
of empowerment, that is, the agency to make purposive choices. Evaluating, analysing and
measuring are important in serving the ends of academic research and donor requirements,
yet the richness and value of creative processes and exchange lies in less measurable
attributes: the ability to dream and imagine. The capacity to aspire leads to action, a sense of
self, and the development of purposive goals through reflection ? The voices from the
intervention: ?I am someone.? ?I can make a difference to my life and others,? (2007 extract
from participant narratives) provide powerful evidence of change that would be muffled if fed
into a numerical summary of similar statements (Figures 19-21).

For example, standard action research methods involve focus group discussions and
interviews, which are beneficial for achieving specific research and community change
objectives. I would argue, however, that the personal engagement with creating and
narrating a personal image focuses on the emotional wellness of the participant, and that that
process taps into what was previously described in Chapters Two and Four as ?self-creation?.
The depth of reflection in a description of a photograph is critically revealing and life-
affirming, and integrates learning and life changes. The self-reflexive component of
storytelling, as well as the interpretation of symbolic or abstract representation in imagery,
enriches the understanding of everyone involved. I argue that in some cases, the
internalizing of knowledge through art processes can lead directly to agency and
empowerment in ways that standard social science methods do not. The image often
contains the ?evidence? of agency that the social scientist struggles to prove. See examples
of visual voices in the exhibition catalogues (Antonopolou et al. 2008).

A visual analysis of the imaging of the individual?s view of the world can contribute to
deepening the understanding of aspiration and positive change.
238

Case Study of Phase Two: The Kutloano Group 2007-2008
The Kutloano group requested that the second intervention be focused on HIV/AIDS training.
Unfortunately, Bart Cox reported that on his return to the group a year after the pilot phase,
the group was not well prepared due to poor communication of dates and time by Phumani
Paper national office, and that the group was distracted by a pending order. Furthermore, old
information had to be repeated to refresh everybody?s memory and understanding. Because
of this loss of ground, the team recommended a list of actions for future interventions that
included: the clarification of the short- and long-term aims of HIV/AIDS workshops for
members, the training team and Phumani Paper national office; the preparation before each
workshop should include a list of questions the members may have on the HIV/AIDS-related
issues; the listing of facilitation techniques to assist members ?teaching? each other; the
drawing up of a detailed plan of action at end of the first workshop; the identification of a
dedicated person for regular communication on HIV/AIDS-related needs, activities,
community links and plans of action; finally, a local language speaker is needed in order to
conduct training and to increase its effectiveness. These relatively unsuccessful interventions
often provided lessons to strengthen subsequent training visits.

A visit after the second Intervention in Kutloano: May 2007
In May 2007 I visited the group in Welkom, accompanied by my masters research student,
Mphapho Hlasane from the University of Johannesburg, who acted as scribe and translator.
These were the replies to the same questions that were asked before the 2006 pilot
intervention. They indicate that, despite the weaknesses of the second training, the women
had regained the ground they had lost:
?We always talk about HIV. People disclose to us; they come to us to get
advice.? ?I have sent people to the clinic for testing and counselling when they
were very sick, and now they are well and on treatment?. ?Yes, we have
saved lives.? ?I have been invited to talk to my church on Women?s Day about
HIV/AIDS. I will talk about Photovoice. I will use Bart?s35
In addition to the powerful and insightful narratives from the pilot project, subsequent focus
group interviews in the form of group discussions during the roll-out site visits has revealed a
remarkable change in attitude and sense of agency among the women. When asked why
pictures to show the
young people about this disease.? ?We want to help others with our
knowledge?. ?All my grown-up sons and my close family have now tested?
(Kutloano members May 2007).

35 Bart Cox, the HIV Trainer, left training materials on site at the request of the group, KB Archives (PPR Draw 2:
File HIV training materials).
239
they thought Photovoice and Paper Prayers are effective, responses included: ?It?s easy to
talk about photos;? ?You can use symbols and colours to talk about feelings and things that
are not easy;? ?Art helps to relieve stress ? it is a way of healing;? ?I?m no longer shy to talk.?

With respect to this group, Kutloano, which is one of the smallest and most cohesive of the
Phumani Paper enterprises, I am confident that the arts interventions had provided the
women with ?voice.? They identified the changes they saw in themselves articulately:
?We are leaders in our community.? ?I am proud of what I can do. Before I
could not speak; I was ashamed that I did not have an education. Now if a
doctor or professor comes to visit us I have something I can teach them.? ?I
am confident now; I can socialize and be with other people.? ?I know that I
can turn a leaf into paper. I do not throw away; I recycle waste.?36

36 Kim Berman interview translated by Mphapho Ra Hlasane April 2007. Transcripts of interviews in KB Archives
(FF Draw 6: File 1h).

The interviews, Photovoice and Paper Prayers narratives represented in this case study
focus particularly on two members of the group, Mamoeti and Mashechaba, who both
indicate change and agency. Masechaba is 56 years old and only had one year of high
school education. She recently joined an adult literacy program in her area. All the women
believe that hard work, and walking six kilometres each day to start work by 9 am sets an
important example for their children. They all express pride in keeping their business alive,
and aspiration in growing their business and markets. Or as Mamoeti says: ?I can do
anything I want to do to help myself?. An earlier aspiration of the young unit manager,
Mameki, was her wish to help people and to grow as a leader, and she received a
scholarship, and is now registered as a student in nursing college.

A recent investment in August 2008 by the De Beers mining group and their mines in the
Free State will boost Kutloano?s visibility, orders and production ? perhaps to the extent that
they will be able to hire additional members and create additional jobs. Yet, my impression is
that their sustainability is not about economic success and marketing, but about resilience
and ?self creation.? Each one of these five women sees herself as a role model in her
community.

240
PHASE THREE: The Third Intervention of the Kutloano Case Study:
March-July 2008

Visual Mapping or the Tshupatsela37
Mphapho Hlasane, the researcher on the team, introduced the making of a map of the
community, which the group then created on interfacing, an inter-leaving material used for
papermaking. The mapping exercise began by using artist Marcus Neustetter?s method of
using masking tape as a marker of routes from and to work.

This final intervention aimed to consolidate and test knowledge about HIV training and to
conduct a resource-mapping exercise to assist the Kutloano group with their action plans.
Because the team introduced a new visual strategy at this session, this process in effect
became the pilot phase for the next two-year phase (July 2008-2010) of the continuation of
the Ford Foundation-funded program: Cultural Action for Change.

38
It can fill the whole wall! (Masechaba) (MC Hlasane report April 2008a).
The point of the exercise was
to locate participants within the project in relation to the broader community of Welkom. Each
participant chose their own colours, which they then used to write resources and important
places they pass to and from work, as well as other resources around their homes and the
project (Figures 21a-d).

After the exercise, the women defined the map in their own words:
This has been important to us. This is a tshupatsela [navigator], it?s like lesedi
[light]. In life I need to know or be aware of important places for me where I
walk, also where my markets are along my way. It is also about how to direct
our clients. Open your eyes and ears when you walk (Mamoeti).

39
In July 2008, shortly after the mapping intervention, Jane Hassinger returned to South Africa
to collaborate on a book project with me, which we had proposed as one of the academic
outcomes of the New Partners/New Knowledge initiative. We have called this forthcoming
book: Women on Purpose: The Resilience of the Founding Women of Phumani Paper. It will
document the stories of 22 founding women of Phumani Paper who have been involved with
their projects for eight to ten years. Interviews were conducted by Hassinger, her PhD

37 The tshupatsela (or navigator), named by Mamoeti Mano in her description of the experience of mapping, is the
term adopted by the research team for the subsequent visual mapping interventions.
38 Marcus Neustetter, South African artist from the Trinity Session uses mapping as part of his interactive visual
practice. See http://www.onair.co.za/ Neustetter was invited to train the intervention team on mapping as a
practice to organize groups and projects.
39 All site visit reports by facilitators are filed in an archive, KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 6).
241
student Leah James from the University of Michigan and myself. Portraits of the women were
taken by New York-based photographer Debbie Rasiel and the translation and transcription
was done by my University of Johannesburg research assistants Keboni Ramasimong and
Shonisani Maphangwa. The interviews are transcribed and housed in the archive.40
Summary of Findings from the Intervention: Cultural Action for Change
As previously mentioned, a summary document entitled the ?Socio-Economic Indicators and
Narratives of Living and Working Conditions for Phumani Paper Affiliated Organizations? has
been compiled by the Program researcher Lilo Du Toit as part of the baseline and mid-term
study for 2007. What follows is a summary of her findings linked to two Phumani groups:
At the end of the two-year intervention at Kutloano, the findings table of the
impact assessment describes the changes indicated by three members of the
group. With reference to AIDS support referrals: Mamoeti Mano referred about
seven people for VCT, Masechaba Molelekoa referred at least four people
and Matshediso (Shidi) Sepagela referred two. Mamiki Manganyi was inspired
to apply to do full-time nursing as a result of the intervention, and she has
since been accepted with a full bursary into nursing college (Hlasane report,
April 2008a).

They all
have in common the women?s belief in independence and the value and pride of work as an
overriding reason for their resilience (Figure 22).

Compared to Kutloano, the results from the Imboni group in KwaZulu-Natal, were less
positive initially. As a rural KwaZulu-Natal group whose region is within a poverty node and is
one of the highest indicators of unemployment (69%) and HIV infection (30-36%), the impact
of loss, fear and trauma has been significant in the group.41 Yet, after the second intervention
the group members decided to go collectively for voluntary counselling and testing. Some of
the observations by the trainers noted a marked improvement in the emotional health and
physical demeanour of the members during the follow-up visit after the Photovoice
intervention.42

40 Women on Purpose interviews, transcriptions KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 5).
41 Imboni Paper and Wood Carving Studio is situated in Sodwana Bay, in the Saint Lucia Wetlands World
Heritage Site in KwaZulu-Natal. The district municipality of Umkhanyakude is in a rural area identified by the
South African government as suffering from extreme levels of poverty and deprivation, making it one of the focus
IRSDP nodes. The Department of Social Development (DSD) measures the unemployment rate in
Umkhanyakude specifically at 82%, and the poverty rate at 58%. According to Census 2001, 76% of households
in this local municipality live on R800 or less per month, with an overwhelming 45% of them having no income at
all. These rates are the highest of all the municipalities included in this report. These figures are coupled with a
high rate of households headed by women (52%), who are more vulnerable to unemployment and
underemployment than their male counterparts. Households headed by women are therefore more vulnerable to
poverty and insecurity. Households in this municipality have very low levels of access to water and sanitation.
(Figure 25: Table 1). (See: http://www.statssa.gov.za/).
42 See Sue Sellschop report and observations from the field: Imboni workbook 2006-7 in which she describes the
look as ?looking positive, more confident and healthier? on the team?s second visit (Figure 16b). KB Archives (FF
Draw 6 File 4c).
The impact of the intervention has been quite significant with all project
242
leaders reporting up to five referrals and the station manager in Imboni project in KwaZulu-
Natal reporting up to ten referrals for HIV help (Figure 26, Table 4: Knowledge of HIV
organizations, referral and own testing since APS intervention: du Toit 2008b: 24).

Along with the common perception shared by the training team members, these results
support the contention that visual and narrative materials when applied as a training
intervention can systematically increase the achievement of social and behaviour change.
Since the intervention, some of the members of the groups have participated in VCT, and
some have initiated ARV treatment for themselves or others. The encouraging interim
findings from the questionnaires conducted by the researchers on the project support the
proposed objectives of the intervention. The extracts of two interviews (Figures 23 and 24)
recorded fully in the archives, point to specific changes such as prolonging lives, improving
confidence and optimism and increasing productivity in the groups.

The value of this methodology was reflected in the stakeholder interviews by the student and
artist facilitators, HIV counsellors and academic partners.43
The research team also found that social transformation has the most potential when it
integrates local cultural and ethnic practice with multi-disciplinary approaches and practices.
The cultural contexts influenced the choice of strategies, methodologies, and the composition
of team members. As described above, in conducting a second intervention in KwaZulu-
Natal, the selected HIV/AIDS trainer-counsellor ? an older, white male trainer ? was more
Students were asked whether
they feel as if they have made a difference in the lives of others since becoming involved with
the interventions. Answers ranged from the personal (being able to help family members), to
being able to engage more broadly with society in a positive way, to being able to provide
support to and mentor others. Quite a few people in the student researcher group indicated
the practical differences they could make to the lives of people close to them. As du Toit
notes in her final summary of findings: ?these opportunities have very positive effects on the
individuals involved, and result in many instances in a paying forward of skills, resources and
positivity into [additional] communities? (du Toit, Executive Summary 2008a: 4).

43 Thirty-four stakeholder interviews were conducted and are included in the archive, and the summary recording
extracts are cited in the Mid-term and Final reports (du Toit 2007, 2008b), KB Archives (FF Draw 6: Files 1a-d).
Student/Graduate beneficiaries: those stakeholders who benefited from the programs in terms of receiving
employment or a chance to complete a qualification (17 interviews) Managers/Coordinators: those who are
involved with the programs in a managerial capacity (8 interviews) Other institutions involved at a program
level: those partners who are from other organizations/institutions involved with the implementation of the
programs, such as Men as Partners and independent consultants (five interviews) Other institutions involved at
an academic level: those partners who are involved via an academic institution (four interviews) KB Archives (FF
Draw 6: Files 1a-e).

243
effective with the group of grandmothers in the Amagalong group in the village of Mmakau,
North West Province, who had been extremely uncomfortable with the initial choice of a
young black man from Engender Health to talk with them about sex. The different cultural
practices and ethnicities within the groups required different approaches.

The self-reflexive process of reviewing the iterations of each phase of the intervention
accommodated recommendations and evaluations from feedback obtained by participants,
as well as site trainers and facilitators. This feedback proved to be significant in factoring in
the cultural dimension of approaching the impact of HIV/AIDS in the groups.

Du Toit notes that all of the projects, without exception, described overwhelmingly difficult
circumstances in their communities, with high levels of infection and unemployment, young
people dying, children being orphaned and people unwilling to disclose or discuss the
disease. By the end of the two-year intervention, participants indicated in general being more
aware of issues associated with the disease, thinking differently about their own roles and
responsibilities, thinking differently about how they relate to HIV-positive people and being
more aware of the need to test and know their status. The majority of Phumani Paper
organizations? station managers (nine or 65% in the mid-term report (2007) and 85% in the
final report (2008)) indicated that they had personally recommended testing, counselling and
treatment to individuals in their communities, and furthermore, these individuals knew where
to go for such services. In terms of opening up discussions on the subject, this change has
been quite significant. In the baseline report, only two organizations (Kutloano and Twanano)
indicated having discussed HIV/AIDS within their groups.44
The Phumani groups indicated that, apart from the information on HIV, the creative methods
used in the APS interventions taught them skills that they can use in their papermaking and
craft businesses. Du Toit notes that the ability of the methods used by Artist Proof Studio
artists to access deep, emotional issues of the participants in a non-threatening and
participatory way, was the main benefit cited by stakeholders. More than one stakeholder
reflected on the methods? ?therapeutic? effects, their ability to ?bypass language?, and ability
In the mid-term survey, only two
organizations indicated not having discussed it, that is twelve organizations that had not
spoken about this issue within their groups before, indicated that discussions to this effect
had taken place since having the interventions (Figure 26 Table 4).

44 These two projects, along with KwaZulu-Natal Papermaking and Imboni, participated in the pilot phase
of Photovoice, which was done before the baseline survey was conducted. That accounts for why they
are the only two groups that had engaged with the subject of HIV/AIDS.
244
to ?inspire agency? in the participant,? and their accessibility to people ?when language falls
short.? 45
The outcomes from the interventions are substantial. They include rich archives of data in the
forms of workbooks that document and describe the trainings and site visits and record focus
group discussions and identification of key challenges facing individuals and the groups. In
addition, the photographs and photo-narratives, Paper Prayer prints and personal
interpretations have been archived. These resources are grouped with training materials
pertaining to each of the sixteen Phumani enterprises, with a second copy of the material at
each site. As part of the ?deliverables? to the Ford Foundation these materials are available to
the public in the form of published training manuals (Antonopolou and Sellschop and (eds)
2008), and an exhibition and catalogues of representative examples of Photovoice and
Paper Prayers (Antonopolou et al. 2008), and the forthcoming book that documents the
narratives of the founding women of Phumani Paper (Berman, Hassinger and Rasiel
(forthcoming 2009). In addition, a compilation of articles by the participating academics and
partners from each collaborating institution will provide a valuable analytical resource on
multi-modal approaches to engaging the AIDS pandemic (Berman 2007a/b, 2008a/b).

46
The baseline and mid-term impact assessments have also opened up a range of
opportunities for continuing research. For example, four new Master?s research projects have
been registered in 2008. These include Master?s project proposals: ?The Child Support Grant
and Economic Activity among the Phumani Women: a qualitative study of the link between
social grants and economic capabilities for women? (Lilo du Toit, Development Studies
2008e); ?The impact of the eco-fuel bricks on the environment: testing energy efficiency and
reduced carbon emissions? (JT Pilusa, Chemical Engineering 2008); and two Master?s
projects under the community-based arts activity area: ?Visual Strategies as Mobilizing Tools
for Social Change: Combining Photovoice, Mural Art and Mapping? (MC Hlasane, Visual Arts
2008b), and ?The Role of Graphic Imagery in Social Action: a case study of an educational
graphics campaign at the University of Johannesburg? (V Nanackchand, Visual Arts 2008).

45 See Stakeholder Summary Report, April 2008, and Indicators by District, March 2008, KB Archives (FF Draw 6:
File 2g).
46 Two articles and unpublished conference papers are filed in the KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 1a,b).
47 See Master?s Research project proposals: KB Archives (UJ Draw 5: File 5).

The latter two projects expand on the research activity that investigates the roles of the visual
arts in creating social change.

245

PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS

Possibilities arising from the Intervention and Public Policy Implications
This project extended various methods to explore creative and passionate engagement with
research that can contribute to the transformation of the self and the group. It is a research
process that meets South Africa?s developmental agendas as well as wider cultural,
intellectual, and political concerns. The extensive impact assessment has been summarized
in a format of a log-frame of indicators such as income, health, impact of disease and death
in the community, productivity, environment, social grants and others (see footnote 49).

It is useful to return to a discussion of ways of addressing the dimension of cultural
approaches to social action, as the considerations of cultural practice have been critical to
how the intervention has been continually adjusted from the pilot strategy to the roll-out of the
intervention.

A paper by Helen Gould of the Creative Exchange in partnership with UNESCO investigates
how the cultural dimension can be effectively factored into HIV and AIDS communication
programs. It reports the initial findings from HIV/AIDS: The Creative Challenge, a project that
is developing discussions with field practitioners and policymakers on the value of cultural
approaches to HIV and AIDS.48
This project has approached the concept of ?research? in a multidisciplinary but highly
structured fashion that included a parallel analysis and assessment. In designing a
continuance of the next phases of the intervention, the information gleaned from the impact
assessments as well as the stakeholders interviews have revealed various weaknesses and
Gould?s report is evidence that development thinking is
shifting towards acknowledging the role of culture. Increasingly donors are investigating how
they can work with other sectors within the cultural web to improve the impact of their work
on the ground. ?If culture is a factor in transmission and impact, it follows that prevention and
care require a cultural approach? (Gould 2007: 2). Gould and Marsh?s research
acknowledges that creative and artistic activities ?offer a way in to building relationships with
local communities, of tapping into the cultural undercurrent, of gauging the thinking and
experiences of different segments of the community in relation to HIV and AIDS, and of
building skills, confidence and capacity to act? (Gould and Marsh 2004, Gould 2007: 3).

48 This paper was written by Helen Gould based on research prepared by Marsh and Judy El Bushra for the
international research project HIV/AIDS: The Creative Challenge (http/ www.healthlink.org.uk).
246
strengths (Figure 26 Tables).49
The Phumani programs are therefore recognized by most of the stakeholders in the positions
of coordinators and/or managers as encompassing more than merely skills development. It
relates to the growth and actualization of individuals, through their income-generating
activities, their access to training and skills and through their membership of a supportive
group: ?... we cannot make a difference in the lives of people if we have not attempted to
change certain mindsets. All of the job creation in the world will not make a difference until
Some of the weaknesses relate to problems of access to
resources such as health care facilities, local markets for craft sales, access to information
about social services and grants available to community members from local government
(these may include spatial/ environmental improvement funding, small business support,
food grants for orphans and vulnerable children and others). The stakeholders
questionnaires designed by myself and Lilo du Toit provide an insightful evaluation of the
AIDS Action intervention. I extract from du Toit?s findings of stakeholders responses below:
Stakeholders in the positions of managers and coordinators and those involved at a
program level were asked whether they think the program makes a difference.
Answers seemed to coalesce around the belief that the most salient difference
achieved related to opening up discussion, first of all, around HIV/AIDS within groups.
It was generally felt that interventions would have to continue and be sustained in
order to effect bigger changes: Opening up communication about highly personal,
highly stigmatizing information among vulnerable populations without providing
scrupulous follow-up efforts risks leaving people more vulnerable to
community/relationship abuse and abandonment. AIDS is a problem of intimate,
familial relationships, thus the complexities of those relationships and the needs of
the people in them, need to be taken into account in the interventions. (du Toit 2007:
18).
This issue again links up with the need to have longer, more sustained interventions, or more
broadly, more sustained contact and interaction with groups. Finally, ?diagnosing? group
conflicts and needs, and effective collaboration with team members will dramatically improve
the outcomes? (du Toit 2007: 18).

Significantly, being involved with a Phumani group furthermore provides some of the needed
ongoing support to members which is often not available in communities, or in grant-funded
projects: ?One element of Phumani?s success is the ability to create strong mutual support
among the group. Work at Phumani distinguishes members from others in the community,
because it is idealistic, educational, hopeful and affirming? (Phumani community manager:
Stakeholder Interviews: du Toit 2007: 5).

49 An executive summary of findings against the log-frame of objectives for APS, University of Johannesburg and
Phumani Paper are tabulated as part of the Final Report to the Ford Foundation. KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 2j).
247
certain issues are addressed such as HIV and AIDS as well as self-discipline and
responsibility? (Phumani community manager: Stakeholder Interviews: du Toit 2007: 5,6).

The success of the AIDS Action Intervention met the objectives of the Ford Foundation of
reducing the fear and silence in each site, and I am aware of four HIV status disclosures that
took place during the training interventions of members of groups who previously felt shame
and had kept their HIV status private from the groups. Others in the groups who qualified for
anti-retroviral treatment have initiated treatment since the intervention. An additional
objective that was proposed to the Ford Foundation was to achieve an increase in
productivity and income for the enterprises as a result of greater group trust, information,
networking and agency. The increase in income however has not as yet proven to be
consistent (du Toit 2007: 38) (Figure 26: Table 3).50
The Use of Mapping for navigating a way out of Poverty: The way forward for Cultural
Action for Social Change, 2008-2010
This has led to the funding and program
support for the next phase of the intervention, to improve market access and increased
productivity for Phumani groups leading up to 2010.

The identified weaknesses of the intervention have been valuable for developing a new
visual strategy that I term ?visual mapping?. Visual mapping as discussed earlier in the
chapter is an artistic practice used by a significant number of artists.51
In The Art of Possibility Ben Zander makes a profound observation when he asserts that
?You name yourself as the instrument to make your relationships into effective partnerships?
(Zander 2000: 158). This implies that the qualities needed for making a difference are both
self-respect and, significantly, the ability to connect. In envisioning the next phase of the
AIDS Action intervention, the collaborating team has started to experiment with the concept
I propose that the
combination of artistic expressions with social change objectives constitutes a rich new
research methodology and development intervention.

50 See table and graph of the sixteen Phumani paper sites? declared income at the time of the Mid-Term Review in
November 2007. Objective: Access to markets to effectively promote and sell new and existing products. Refer to
Mid-Term Review pp.62-64; pp.73-75; pp.76-79. Also earnings: p.38 Mid-Term Review; p.11 Final Review.
Objective: Increase productivity affected negatively by the impact of HIV/AIDS: Refer to Mid-Term Review pp.80-
91.
51 Stephen Hobbs and Marcus Neustetter, Johannesburg-based artists affiliated to the Trinity Session,
explored the concept of mapping in their own art practice and presented an investigation of perceptions
of foreignness in their own city in their mapping intervention and exhibition at the University of
Johannesburg Art Gallery in August 2007. Their exhibition entitled UrbaNET ? Hilbrow/Dakar/Hilbrow
reflects an interactive experience in Hillbrow that was extended into their trip to Dakar where they
examined issues of ?ownership in terms of space and territory, and also degrees of belonging?
(www.onair.co.za).
248
of mapping, a technique introduced to us by our collaborators, Men as Partners. According to
a report by the University of California Los Angeles Center for Health Policy ?An asset map
can help you identify community assets and concerns. The map results help determine new
directions for your program or identify new programs that need to be developed? (2006: 12).
At the beginning of this thesis, in Chapter One, I posed a number of questions. These
included: ?If the recipients of development interventions are not passive collective
beneficiaries; then who are they? How can the facilitator assist people to fulfil their potential
and act productively for themselves and the collective?? The premise underlying these
questions is that if the development practitioner can help participants achieve agency, then
development projects have a much better chance of working. My assertion was that the
visual and creative arts are a means of acknowledging and developing potential in people,
and of facilitating change (Chapter One: 4).

Visualizing the concept of drawing a map and plotting connections and actions onto that
format, a new and exciting opportunity opened. The idea of mapping as a visual and creative
activity carries enormous potential, as indicated by the significant interest that mapping has
generated in contemporary art internationally. If the physical process of creating a map of
aspirations can strengthen the articulation of voice, it then enacts a process of agency and
empowerment. The importance of cultural voice is supported by both Appadurai and Sen?s
understanding of development practice as more effective and inclusive when it fosters a
greater equality of agency.

Appadurai?s notion of ?the recovery of the future as a cultural capacity? (2004: 62) is valuable
in considering the role of aspiration in fostering ?capacity? and ?capability?, and in asking ?How
may the poor be helped to produce those forms of cultural consensus that may best advance
their own collective long-term interests in matters of wealth, equality and dignity??
(Appadurai, 2004: 64). As has been discussed earlier in this chapter, Appadurai presents the
need for the poor to exercise ?voice?, which he argues ?must be expressed in terms of actions
and performances which have local cultural force? (Appadurai 2004: 67). I would like to
suggest that the intervention described in this chapter provides examples of using
Photovoice and Paper Prayers as cultural expressions that exercise ?local cultural force?, and
that the idea of Visual and Community Mapping can be a tool to navigate the concept of
futurity. Mapping through the construction and plotting of actions and ways to imagine social
and economic connectivity, provides a means for what Appadurai states for the poor ?to
mobilize themselves (internally) and in their efforts to change the dynamics of consensus in
their larger social worlds? (2004: 67).

249
As I came to understand this genre as used by both visual artists and by activists, I
concluded that the concept of mapping and interpreting the relationships between people
and environments offers a way to link all the open ends emerging from the various
interventions analysed in this thesis. The mapping process is a practical form that can value
the past and permit it to coexist with the present, as well as provide a format to plot the
possibilities of the future. Facts and realities can be seen as the platforms for new actions
and outcomes. Art practice can initiate transformation, creating new approaches to current
conditions. But how can this be applied to development practice that addresses the
challenges of achieving economic participation, sustainability, growth and mobility facing the
craft enterprises that are dependent on Phumani Paper to create markets? How can the
prevalence of scarcity thinking in communities struggling in poverty in fact be overcome?
(Figure 25: Reflections).

James Clifford in ?Spatial Practices? (1997) and ?Travelling Cultures? (1997) refers to
concepts of travel, shifting locations, border crossing, self-location, a map of ?unfinished
paths and negotiations, leading in many directions? and ?the inescapable task of translation?
(Clifford 1997: 52-91). ?A location is an itinerary rather than a bounded site ? a series of
encounters and translations? (Clifford 1997: 11). I interpret ?multiplicity of practice? (Clifford
1997: 54) as the capacity to integrate many forms of knowledge. A further commitment to the
?task of translation? is needed in the context of the project Cultural Action for Change in order
to work towards a common language for the project team. Perhaps what the methodology of
visual mapping can achieve is the imparting of group skills and the capacity to form
purposeful relationships and networks; to sustain team members through inclusive planning
processes; to negotiate difficulties; to reflect together on the goals and priorities of the
project; and to assess its successes and failures. Community mapping can also develop
group skills and the ability to organize and monitor multi-partner projects that may involve
several sites and different types of organizations and groups, as well as multiple timelines,
tasks, and products. Maps also provide a sense of the layered histories of places, including
their simultaneously local and global meanings and their potential to become sites of growth
and change. These group capacities, together with individual agency that emerges from self-
creation through art-making, are the methodological contributions to the development field
offered by the visual arts in the interventions I present and analyse.

?The capacity to aspire is thus a navigational capacity? (Appadurai 2004: 69) and so the
intervention proposed to create visual and experiential mural maps that include images,
creative expression, Photovoice, and may be realized in a public community mural, has the
potential to materialize the concept of aspiration. The next intervention Cultural Action for
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Change (2008-2010) aims to give a creative and visual voice to this notion of aspiration. ?By
bringing the future back in, by looking at aspirations as cultural capacities, we are surely in a
better position to understand how people actually navigate their social spaces? (Appadurai
2004: 84).

I have argued that the value of the creative process lies in envisioning, or in aspiring; in the
creating of the path to navigate a way out of poverty. Or in the words of Mamoeti Mano, a
participant in the Kutloano enterprise: ?This is a tshupatsela [navigator], it?s like lesedi [light].
In life I need to know or be aware of important places? (Hlasane report April 2008a). I argue
that this statement is a practical integration of Appadurai?s theoretical conception of ?a
navigational capacity?. If a rural woman in one of the sites could plot her journey to work
each day, record the places around her as potential assets, resources or markets, she would
see herself in relationship to her environment. She would see her connectedness to her
community and her world. For instance, the funeral home she passes each day could
become a place to sell her handmade paper cards. She may see an opportunity to make
paper flowers as wreaths for funerals, if fresh flowers are unavailable. She could also take a
photograph and business cards to collage onto her map as new actions or leads to pursue.
When the site she passes every day is seen as an asset to her business, that possibility
could generate innovation or creative possibilities. Each day, coming into work, or mapping a
possibility, a new opportunity is identified and plotted in terms of distance, colour, texture or
shape, depending on what kind of relationship it could be for the group. This map, projected
as a mural on the wall of the community enterprise site could become a resource for the
whole community, providing knowledge and information about various opportunities or assets
within a geographic framework. The scope of her map could extend to the village or to an
international site of the home of a tourist who purchased products from the group. Aspiration
could be mapped out or visualized as a long line with possibilities radiating from its pathway.
The environment would enable positive social change.

When the individual transforms her experience and sees things differently other changes
occur. Mapping could help her define herself in relationship to the context in which she wants
change to happen. The relationships between people and their environments are highlighted,
which could change the focus to imagine new possibilities in the world and not only remain
focused on the day to day business of survival. Scarcity and victim thinking and a sense of
entitlement (or ?you owe me?) can be reversed into relationships of possibilities that can be
created by making different kinds of connections both physically on the map, and actually in
life, by engaging those opportunities. Amartya Sen has introduced a ?capabilities approach?
of placing matters of freedom, dignity, and moral well-being at the heart of economics and
251
welfare (Sen 1999a). The acquisition of renewed capabilities gained from creative expression
and a visual interpretation of the surrounding environment would support Sen?s theory in this
example. Visual expressions are able to both image and imagine the world in ways that
express aspirations.

The Cultural Action for Social Change initiative not only addresses one salient conclusion
from the AIDS Action for Change impact assessment, and that is the need for ongoing
communication and training, but will provide new creative challenges for all the participants
involved. This requires a multi-disciplinary and multi-skilled team to facilitate and prioritize
themes and actions that emerge from the Photovoice and Paper Prayers narratives. The
methodology will continue to develop the educational and new knowledge generating
potential of Participatory Action Research. Mapping as an activity and metaphor requires
spatial mobility and border crossing.

The lessons the research team takes forward into the next phase of Cultural Action for Social
Change is that, for cultural processes to be powerful, the use of visual arts approaches such
as printmaking, photography and mapping are tools that have the capacities to create
identities, narratives and practices. The AIDS Action Intervention has demonstrated that the
kind of positive social change that takes place within the groups and their individual members
as a result of the intervention is characterized by innovation, agency and restoration.
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CHAPTER SEVEN: FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

PART ONE: Navigating Possibilities Using Visual Voices

Reflections
Researching and writing this thesis has given me an opportunity to reflect on the value of
both arts activism and the process of academic analysis. The process of intellectual
interrogation has led me to collaborate, consult, read, reflect, clarify my theoretical approach
and design a coherent methodology that addresses some of the challenges I have
encountered as a practitioner. Working as a cultural activist, artist and educator, I have been
motivated by an underlying belief system informed by the ethics of human rights and
equality. Through writing this thesis I have learnt to analyse and articulate decisions that
were originally motivated by a gut response to injustice, for the fundamental rationale for
undertaking this academic research was to contribute to knowledge in such a way that my
findings would enhance existing methodologies for achieving social justice. This concluding
chapter constitutes a consolidation of some of the insights that recur throughout the case
studies; it is a reflection of the significance of the values arising from engaged, collaborative
learning as a viable method for creating new knowledge.

There are common elements running through each of the case studies that derive from the
fact that each intervention was based on the democratic values of human rights and equity.
Further, the methodology throughout is dialogical, consultative, and designed to facilitate
participants recognizing their own voices. The idea is that practice leads to understanding,
and stems from a fundamental ethical principle or ideal that all human beings have the
capacity to realize their potential in their own way. Each intervention is also driven by a core
belief in people?s potential, to believe in themselves and to take steps towards self-
actualization. This approach requires people to constantly address conflict and difficulty and
to find ways to shift lethargy, despair and denial.

The findings of this research process have shown that art can change lives, and can be used
to catalyse social transformation. Furthermore, in successful interventions, success is often
non-economic: it achieves personal empowerment, and there is an acknowledgement of a
breadth of different kinds of wealth and poverty. The successes of the projects discussed
reveal that they increase resilience, and that art-making provides a method. Further, these
case studies suggest that success is dependent on three interconnected attributes
demonstrated by the members of viable projects: self-reliance, creativity and self-creation.
The resilience and the belief that ?I can do? leads to self-reliance. Apart from the traumas
253
and tragic deaths suffered through fire, AIDS and suicide; loss has also been felt through
constant disappointment regarding funding and change of government policies. However,
many participants refused to become victims of their circumstances and gained remarkable
strength and resilience through these experiences. Artists are able to facilitate the capacity
of dreaming and imagination in others. If there is a belief in the capacity to dream, goals can
be achieved. Creative practice and art-making provide a methodology for transforming
aspirations into real and practical goals. The idea that people are not passive beneficiaries
but active participants in an ongoing process of self-creation is part of the hidden strength of
survival and can be offered as a valuable objective for development practice. In this context,
empowerment can be redefined as the ability to become an agent of one?s own life and to
achieve self-actualization. Agency cannot be given; the concept of ?I can do? has to be
internalized and expressed by each individual.

Such insights reveal a number of implications for development policy. First there is a need to
redefine the way poverty is understood, and to clarify the steps required to navigate new
possibilities arising from this new understanding. These case studies suggest that the use of
visual voices (expressed through Photovoice, Paper Prayers and visual mapping) together
with personal narratives is a tool to assist that process1
Art-making is fundamental in the process of integrating life skills. The Phumani Paper
intervention analysed in Chapter Four reveals the failure of the neo-liberal ideology adopted
Second, participatory, collaborative
and multi-modal research practice is effective as a methodology for action, assessment, and
generating new knowledge. Further, the interventions offer a range of insights that emerged
out of this thesis for participatory practice and the co-creation of knowledge with participants.
The overall challenge that confronts any project is that of finding ways to listen and to
integrate this knowledge in a non-prescriptive way. It is necessary to evolve fluid, creative,
dialogical and reflective intervention tools. In addition, there is a need to discover ways of re-
claiming such terms as ?empowerment? and ?agency? that have been over-used and
jargonized in the academy, in the practice of development, and in government and
international NGO rhetoric. It is essential to recognize that beneficiaries are not inert units
within a collective and that this misconception is one of the primary reasons why
development projects fail. An important antidote for this is the notion of dreaming and making
what is not there appear and become possible. Dreaming is fundamental to the activity of
art-making and I would argue, also to development projects.

1 Visual Voices is a term that refers to the three methodologies: Photovoice, Paper Prayers and visual mapping
(described in Chapter Six). The term refers to visual expressions that are linked to personal narratives.
254
from the West. This approach calls for the development of small and micro-enterprises with a
primary focus on improving economic indicators; it has imposed an entrepreneurial model
across the project interventions. Yet participants, through reclaiming their own voices, have
found other ways to adapt and re-interpret business practice. Phumani Paper groups, for
example, were forced to shift from a socialist to a neo-liberal model, and convert their
community cooperatives into creative and profit-driven enterprises. Various economic shocks
resulting from changing government policies and funding requirements have resulted in loss
of membership; yet the members who survived have assumed leadership roles and
demonstrate a new sense of responsibility to themselves and the group.

The Phumani Paper groups were initiated as part of government?s promise for ?a better life?
for the poor. Ironically, participants demonstrated that any success achieved from their
groups occurred in spite of government funding, not because of it. Prior to the business-
development model, the earlier paternalistic poverty relief approach of government funding
did little to encourage self-reliance. It appears that this situation is not unique to South Africa.
For instance Arjun Appadurai describes ?waiting for? government to deliver in India:
We may say that hope in this context is the force that converts the passive
condition of ?waiting for? to the active condition of ?waiting to?: waiting to
move, waiting to claim full rights, waiting to make the next move in the
process that will assure that the queue keeps moving and that the end of
rainbow is not a broken promise (Appadurai 2008).

I propose that art-making has inspired methodologies that were developed and tested in the
various projects discussed here, and are able to convert this passive condition of ?waiting
for,? into the agency of doing for oneself.

Capacities for Building Resilience
In reflecting on the various themes in this thesis such as resilience, agency and purpose,
dreaming and imagination, it is helpful to consider what Pieterse calls ?sensibilities for
practice?. Pieterse advocates five different sensibilities in the approach to development that
are required to achieve ?human flourishing?. He proposes that it is the ?way of being that
counts.? The development practitioner must be able to practice ?code-switching? between
knowledge systems; adopt a ?multi-focal perspective? in reading the political situation;
employ ?self-reflexivity? and ?empirically informed and symbolically attuned? knowledge. Last,
he emphasizes the importance of having ?curiosity? about what is going on (Pieterse 2004:
351-352). I agree with Pieterse that the practice in pursuit of human flourishing must be
constructed as a meaningful dialogue that is not about finding truths but can ?construct a new
grammar of thinking and doing development? (2004: 352). The sensibilities (that Pieterse
255
identifies are capacities familiar to art-making practice, and the case studies analysed here
endorse his recognition of the value of complexity. The methods that this research study
explores include: participatory practice and dialogue; creative and art practice as alternative
modes of knowledge-making; assessment methods that use interactive and multi-modal
processes to engage and mobilize communities rather than measuring business efficiency;
and the value of dreaming and imagination in transforming aspirations into goals for change.
These methods support the argument that social transformation requires creativity to
enhance agency, and that artists can add an important dimension to a development practice
that focuses on building resilience.

Other capacities that Pieterse asserts are required for effective community engagement
include passion, trust, inspiring confidence, being present, and practising humility (Pieterse
2004: 350). These qualities reinforce the values of developing human relationships as well as
enhancing interactions with wider networks. In South Africa, community development cannot
be separated from a past history marked by trauma and the presently unfolding need for
reconciliation and healing. Projects and processes should therefore be geared toward
restoring and enhancing capacities that support people in confronting the painful past and
the troubled present and that address distortions of race, gender and power imbalances. This
should be done by offering convincing experiences of transforming aspirations into practical
and creative possibilities, to celebrate commonalities and differences. The sensibilities of
development practice that have been explored in the range of case studies presented here
have succeeded in nurturing and supporting individuals and communities. One of the
fundamental purposes of the engagements was to give expression to the dreams and
aspirations of participants who had been silenced or excluded from social empowerment.
The process of discovering voice through creative and narrative expression deepens the
work of democracy in that people engage the civic and public arena through exhibitions and
markets, and are able to create their own economic and social participation. The type of
learning experience advocated here is multi-modal and multi-dimensional and not only
enhances the quality of skills training, but deepens an understanding of each participant?s
own strengths and agency in ways that expand each individual?s sense of possibilities.

The value of the arts in enhancing democratic practice
It is important to note that this research has drawn on the pioneering work in cultural activism
from the United States. There is compelling literature that makes a case for the arts in
development and community-driven arts (Goldbard 2006; Sommer 2006; Cleveland 2005,
2008). For instance New Creative Community by Arlene Goldbard (2006), outlines the
256
successes of community cultural development in the United States, and argues that arts
organizations need to develop the language and skills to make a case for their existence in a
funding and policy landscape that increasingly devalues the arts. In the academy, non-
governmental sector and in the craft sector, visual arts programs in particular struggle for
survival. In South Africa the role that art can play in community development is also
undervalued.

The revolutionary contribution by social economists and anthropologists such as Sen,
Appadurai, Pieterse and Rao and Walton discussed in previous chapters, has since
introduced creative and expressive concepts into the language of development, such as
aspiration, imagination, creativity, freedom of expression. They have extended the
understanding of economic poverty to the importance of the alleviation of poverty of the spirit
(Rao and Walton 2004; Pieterse 2004).

The position I present in this thesis is that creative practice is a core component of self-
actualization, and one of the fundamental purposes and outcomes of freedom and
democracy. South Africa is a young democracy going through an adolescent process of
exploring and rebelling against its hard-won freedoms. It is pushing the limits and is
experiencing moments of chaos and threat. According to systems theory, this is an optimal
time for change and adaptability, as long as communication and networks remain open and
porous. Introducing creative practice as part of education for rebellious teenagers has been
proved in many pedagogical texts as helpful for instilling a sense of identity, confidence and
purpose in the youth. There are numerous case studies of youth who have become involved
in arts activities and who derive a sense of pride of place and self as a result. For example
the activist mural artist Judy Baca in her great wall of Los Angeles project invited youth who
were in street gangs to participate in painting murals during their summer break from school.
The resulting claims of higher pass rates among youth and the reduction in crime are well
documented.2
I propose that the ability of arts education to provide a holistic and affirming learning
experience can be applied to the nation conceptualized as a rebellious and indigent
teenager. The American examples of activist projects by Judy Baca and Tim Rollins
(Raven 1989) make a strong case for enhancing citizenship through the arts. South Africans
are still learning to become citizens of a new democracy. An important question that must be

2 The outcomes of the Judy Baca project are discussed in Neumaier and Kahn (eds) (1985: 68). Other examples
of remedial activist art with youth include Tim Rollins cited by Arlene Raven (1989), and others by Lucy Lippard
(1984; 329) and Grant Kester (2004).
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raised is what is required to become a civic agent. A shift must occur from being passive
receivers in an unjust apartheid system to being active participants in a neo-liberal ANC-led
regime. Democracy demands individual agency for citizens, which is the capacity to
participate and make choices.

I propose that creative practice can function as a means to deepen agency and therefore
enhance democratic citizenship. Various methods for internalizing and owning that agency
as part of a sense of self have been explored in different case studies presented here. The
suggestion is that if meaningful change is to be sustained to achieve full expression of
human rights and freedom, members of our society require complete participation in that
freedom of expression.

The idea of ?developing the poor? is likely to fail because it starts with the wrong premise.
While applying theoretical and mechanical developmental tools may introduce programs and
opportunities, these are seldom sustained when the funding runs out, and many initiatives
and organizations collapse. The Government?s indicators of success are job creation, good
business practice, efficiency and profitability. I suggest that present definitions of successful
development initiatives should be re-evaluated. Rather, success should be measured in
terms of survival and resilience.3 Specifically I propose a change of the hierarchy of the goals
of development; that the focus on economic achievement as the primary or sole goal of a
development intervention be replaced by the facilitation of empowerment through self-
reliance, agency and resilience. While an important part of achieving empowerment and
resilience is through skills development, I would argue that being able to embark on creative
practice and aspiring towards change constitute more fundamental and long-lasting goals.
Artist Proof Studio, Paper Prayers and Phumani Paper can offer the development world
lessons from their relative organizational longevity. Artist Proof Studio has survived and
adapted itself since 1991, and Phumani Paper and Paper Prayers have existed for a decade.
In spite of inconsistency and instability in funding, and in many cases having the odds of
survival stacked against them, these organizations have refused to collapse. This I believe is
because they achieved significant levels of resilience and creative adaptability.4

3 Public Service Commission, October 2005, Report on the Evaluation of Government?s Poverty Reduction
Programme (http://www.info.gov.za/otherdocs/2007/poverty_reduction_eval.pdf).
4 It would be interesting to compare other post-apartheid community arts organizations that have survived since
the 1980s such as CAP (Community Arts Project), FUNDA Community Art Centre in Soweto, Windybrow Theatre,
Market Theatre Laboratory and many others to understand an analysis of their own resilience. However, this
would be the subject of further study.

258
The Challenges of transformative citizenship
The question must be addressed as to how development practitioners could arrive at a
renewed approach to enhance democratic practice and renew a sense of civic agency.
Transformative leadership is largely about shifting the frame of reference from old ways to a
new assessment. According to Dr Mamphela Ramphele, South Africans must deal with
stubborn ghosts that still haunt us and undermine the attainment of our envisaged self: ?to
transform a racist, sexist and authoritarian culture into one that is aligned to the ideals of our
national constitution entails a radical shift? (Ramphele 2008: 296). She identifies the need to
re-mobilize ordinary citizens to participate actively in transformation: ?People have to become
agents of their own development? (Ramphele 2008: 299). Moreover, she asserts that
government has a responsibility to create an enabling environment for citizens to contribute
to their own development. Ramphele asks how it is possible to address the deep psycho-
social dissonances in our society. In Chapter Two I explore ubuntu as a guiding philosophy
on which to build a society that recognizes the benefits of mutually empowering relationships.
I am in agreement with Ramphele when she asserts that if we do not bridge these divides,
the lack of voice among the poorest people is going to extract huge cost from the rest of the
society, as has been the case in Khutsong,5 as well as the xenophobic attacks, where
destructive protests create social instability that comes from a sense of betrayal.6

5 The service delivery protests, as they were known, comprised violent protests since May 2006 and a boycott of
the local elections. Khutsong, a township of 170 000, 90 kilometres from Johannesburg, was involved in some of
the worst trouble. The plan is to incorporate Khutsong back into Gauteng from the North West Province
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/22/southafrica.rorycarroll).
6 References to the violence and protests can be accessed in the online Mail and Guardian:
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/19/southafricashardthruths (Accessed 20 December 2008).

I further
concur that as citizens of a new democracy in South Africa, we all have the responsibility of
stewardship. Educating for democracy is essential to help us towards a shared
understanding of our Constitution. We can become agents of our own making. According to
Ramphele, a key factor for mobilizing energies to promote the kinds of value systems that
will work towards the common good, is the need for transformative leaders who are able to
transcend divisive categories. Ramphele asks if we have the courage to elect such
transformative leadership (2008: 308). I fear that the conflation of liberation movement
politics with democratic practice poses a serious risk to our democracy. South Africans seem
to lack that courage at present; the culture of fear seems to dominate the political and social
fabric of our society. The fears of many South Africans are dominated by HIV/AIDS, poverty,
crime, corruption, the Zimbabwean crisis, xenophobia, the credibility of a Zuma-led
government and the Mbeki legacy, although there are many other vital issues that need to be
dealt with in our society. In this neo-liberal phase of an economic growth in South Africa,
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many South Africans seem to operate from a place of emptiness or scarcity rather than
abundance. The case studies in this thesis have analysed how the visual arts have facilitated
change in individuals to overcome their fear (for example of HIV/AIDS) and make positive
choices (such as seeking VCT). The question that needs to be asked is how can South
Africa remain on the path of transformation as a primary goal toward enhancing democracy
in the conditions of heightening inequalities and uncertainty that will promote an ethos of
inclusiveness, humanity and freedom of expression?

This is Ramphele?s challenge:
The question each one of us must ask every day is whether we are giving
the best we can to enable our society to transcend the present and become
its envisaged self (2008: 311).

A response to this requires imagination, aspiration and resilience, and the process of self-
creation. The question I am asking in a political climate of intolerance and fear, is how can
the arts be integrated to creatively and productively engage citizens in dreaming and
participating in realizing a better future?

Linking democratic citizenship with self-creation and social transformation
The mandate of reconciliation and redress was the cornerstone of the first major post-
apartheid arts policy document, the 1996 White Paper on Arts, Culture and Heritage,
suggesting that ?arts and culture may play a leading role through promoting reconciliation.?
This important document underscores the ?potential of arts and culture in a period of national
regeneration and restoration? (Department of Arts Culture Science and Technology (DACST)
White Paper 1996).

However, under President Mbeki?s neo-liberal economic policy in South Africa, there grew an
increasing intolerance of multi-party democracy. Citizens who criticized the government were
labelled as unpatriotic. The policies of neo-liberalism seem to have eroded rather than
strengthened the agency of citizens. In fact, as David Bunn observes, political subjects are
seen more as stakeholders and less and less as active citizens, naturally rooted in the
country by reason of their ethnicity and birth (Bunn 2008: 8). The failure of present economic
policies to sufficiently address the plight of the poor, unemployment, AIDS and lack of social
security has produced a pattern of violence and increased ethnic hatred, so that in May 2008
over 62 people were killed and thousands displaced and temporarily and inadequately
housed in centres for displaced non-South African nationals and refugees. These shelters,
260
with little or no sanitation, were then dismantled with promises by the authorities of
reintegration and reparation.7 Nothing was done. A recent book, Go Home or Die Here:
Violence, xenophobia and the reinvention of difference in South Africa, considers the
consequences of how xenophobia affects the ideal of an equal, non-racial society as
symbolized by a democratic South Africa. The contributors to this collection of essays further
address the question of the ANC government?s economic and political choices and whether
they are the cause of new forms of exclusion that fuel such anger and distrust (Hassim, Kupe
and Worby (eds) 2008).8
Applying Theory to Practice to chart a way forward
A fundamental question asked is:
Wasn?t the most fundamental ethic underpinning the transition from
authoritarianism to democratic governance one of inclusion ? not merely the
demand to tolerate difference but to actively celebrate it? Isn?t that what the
globally admired ?rainbow nation? was intended to signify? In the wake of the
violence, this cheery multicoloured metaphor seems at best shallow and
incomplete, at worst hollow and insincere? (Hassim et al. 2008: 7).

A question that may be asked is what the arts have to do with these problems. Many would
say nothing, and, because arts organizations are so preoccupied with the business of
survival and competing for the thinner and thinner slices of cake distributed by the National
Arts Council, the politics and the rights of democratic citizenship have become a struggle of
past history. During the liberation struggle the South African cultural sector comprised
politically active ?cultural workers,? but in the climate of reconstruction ?the visibility of artists
as public intellectuals active in the making of culture and citizenship declined sharply? (Bunn
2008: 2). However, I argue that the arts still have a potentially fundamental role to play in
addressing the social dysfunctionality outlined above.

Throughout this thesis I have proposed a central role for the visual arts in deepening
democracy. I have addressed the work of scholars who have started to acknowledge the
value of culture in the process of development. Rao and Walton (2004) for example, link the
relationship of culture to poverty and economic growth, while, more specifically, theorists like
Amartya Sen (1999, 2004) and Arjun Appadurai (2004) have discussed culture as the
expression of attitudes and beliefs, which directly applies to my inquiry into the use of visual
arts as an effective strategy to deepen democratic practice. Sen presents a range of cultural

7 UNHCR rejects criticism over refugee crisis, Cape Town South Africa 19 September 2008
(http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-09-19-unhcr-rejects-criticism-over-refugee-crisis).
8 Go Home or Die Here: Violence, xenophobia and the reinvention of difference in South Africa is a collection of
twenty academic essays responding to the questions arising out of the xenophobic attacks that started in
Alexandra, Johannesburg in May 2008 and went on for three weeks. Another one of the questions the book
responds to is ?Of what profound social malaise is xenophobia ? and the violence that it inspires ? a symptom??
(Hassim et al. (eds) 2008).

261
connections as a constitutive part of development (Sen 2004: 39-43). His key point is that
what is needed is not the privileging of culture as something that works on its own, but the
integration of culture into society at large (Sen 2004: 56). So, too, Appadurai, in response to
the question: Why does culture matter? argues persuasively for strengthening ?the capacity
to aspire? as a navigational capacity and argues for ?deep democracy: self governance/ self-
mobilization and self articulation.? He states that development should define what actors can
do together to shift something in favour of particular aspirations in a community (2004: 84).
While Appadurai does not deny the broad humanistic implications of cultural form, freedom
and expression, his focus is on ?just one dimension of culture ? its orientation to the future?
(Appadurai 2004: 60). I draw on his idea of ?futurity as a cultural capacity? in a general way
throughout the interventions, and with a very specific application in the activity of visual
mapping described below.

Similarly, Edgar Pieterse argues that meaningful engagement towards social transformation
cannot be de-linked from individual work to achieve ?self-creation? and proposes the cross-
fertilization of cultural practice and creative expression with economic development practice.9

9 The term ?self creation? originates from Wayne Gabardi (2001) who builds on a Foucauldian understanding of
politics as creative struggle that cannot be separated from personal self-creation (Pieterse 2004: 341).

He states that dimensions of engagement and transformation are constitutively intertwined
(Pieterse 2004: 341). Alan Kaplan further proposes that development contexts should be
treated as a ?living process?, which means that it is important to anticipate non-linearity,
surprise, multi-dimensionality and especially pre-existing agency, and to ?facilitate processes
that are already in motion? (Kaplan 2000: 33).

I have built on the ideas of these scholars and have interpreted their arguments in relation to
my specific inquiry by applying their discussions of culture to the particular expression of
visual arts practice as a cultural form: I suggest how practically and experientially these
theoretical positions can be interpreted and applied. This is because it appears that there is
still a significant gap between the promise of these theories and their practical
implementation. As discussed in Chapter One, I agree with Taylor?s comment that ?theory
without practice is empty, practice without theory is blind? (Taylor 2003: 233). The
relationship between the two is particularly important in the arts: thinking and doing come
together in complex ways that are not predictable, but the practical dimensions of engaging
challenges on a day-to-day basis are what compel creative responses.

262
In this analysis I attempt to address the challenge of making the practical links between
?deep democracy? (Appadurai 2004) and the ?journey of self-creation? (Pieterse 2004), and I
make the case for creative practice as a means to forge such a link. In concluding this thesis
I now analyse three specific examples that link actual activities to existing theories. The
purpose is not only to use theory as a tool to deepen learning and skills development; and to
re-formulate practice to achieve agency and substantive social participation, but to enhance
the production of new knowledge on the ground and transfer this to the academy. The
intention is that these practical, interactive and visual methods of applying theories of
development will be useful to development practitioners and educators and contribute to
academic theoretical understanding.

Visual mapping: a process of navigating possibilities
In Chapter Six I describe Cultural Action for Change interventions as a direct interrogation of
the goals of my research project. The interventions are a result of seeking processes to
achieve meaningful social change through the arts. Visual mapping is the first example
intended as a practical methodological application of Appadurai?s concept of aspiration as a
navigational capacity and its orientation to the future:
This set of connected arguments about the capacity to aspire rested on the
view that for any durable change to occur in the distribution of resources,
the poor needed to be empowered to gain and exercise ?voice?, a fact that
has been widely recognized by development scholars and practitioners.
What has not been adequately recognized is that for ?voice? to be regularly
and effectively exercised by the poor, in conditions of radical inequalities in
power and dignity, required permanent enhancements of their collective
capacity to aspire (Appadurai 2008).

The accepted methodology of community resource mapping is a strategy to give visual
expression to Appadurai?s theory of navigating the group?s aspirations; or, in his words: ?the
map of aspirations ? is seen to consist of a dense combination of nodes and pathways?
(Appadurai 2004: 69).10
As discussed in Chapter Six, the team of artists and art students and researchers involved in
the intervention designed a process that links the art of mural painting with an artistic,
geographical and developmental application of mapping. The team developed a hybrid

10 Community resource mapping is sometimes referred to as asset mapping or environmental scanning, and is
best noted as a system-building process used by different groups at many stages in order to align resources and
policies in relation to specific system goals, strategies, and expected outcomes. (See additional websites listed in
Chapter Six, footnote 17). Available: http://www.ncset.org/publications/essentialtools/mapping/overview.asp
(Accessed 17 December 2008).
263
activity that is interactive and exciting to engage collaboratively with a community group.11
Using a logic model of resources, assets, needs, actions and goals, the participating group
members in the intervention identify and compile lists and then add them onto a mural map
through the use of different colours, lines, textures, photographs and collage.

What follows is a more detailed description of how the team applied visual mapping to
explore and give practical form to Appadurai?s concept of ?futurity as a cultural capacity?.

12
Cultural Sites: influencing the formation of values
The Cultural
Action Intervention team is the multi-skilled and multi-disciplinary team from APS and the
University of Johannesburg who facilitate the process with community-based groups (in
particular the Phumani Paper enterprises) to assist participants to develop their action lists
and plot each activity and goal onto a physical format of a map. They then plot navigational
routes and connections according to their goals. For example, if group members want to take
their product to a particular market, or develop public signage for the group, the actions are
plotted geographically in relation to where that activity happens. That activity is also identified
with a colour and key as to when it happens and which member of the group is responsible.
Goals that are planned but not yet implemented are plotted on a transparent sheet that is
layered over the physical map. The transparent sheet is a visual metaphor for aspirations.
When those aspirations have been achieved, they are included permanently in colour on the
map to represent accomplishments and physical evidence of growth. The map is a physical
part of the workplace. When each member walks into their space, they see a physical
expression of their hopes, dreams and aspirations as well as a dense network of their
connectivity to their environment and the world (See Figure 21 in Chapter Six). As a result
group members are able to operate from a place of possibility that radiates outward, and not
the scarcity of poverty and despair that surrounds them in their community.

A second methodological example applies Amartya Sen?s discussion of culture as ?a
constitutive part of development, cultural factors influencing economic behaviour, culture and
political participation, social solidarity and association, cultural sites and recollection of past
heritage and cultural influences on value formation and evolution? (Sen 2004: 39). A project

11 The Artist Proof Studio research and training team has since written about the process of Visual Mapping as a
method for training interventions. The processes will involve creative activities that may combine mural painting,
collage and Photovoice methods to construct a community resource map. Master?s student M.C. Hlasane will
analyse this project as an extended case study for his research project. Handbook/PAR Workshops: Cultural
Action for Change 2008 KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 7a).
12 In its simplest form, the logic model analyses work into four categories or steps: inputs, activities, outputs, and
outcomes. See W.K. Kellogg Foundation Logic Model Development Guide. Available:
http://www.wkkf.org/Pubs/Tools/Evaluation/Pub3669.pdf (accessed 17 December 2008).

264
at Artist Proof Studio that addresses a range of these possibilities is ?Men as Partners:
reframing gender stereotypes? that can be seen as a public expression of ?cultural influences
on value formation and evolution? (Sen 2004: 39). A mural on the Baragwanath Hospital wall
facing Diepkloof in Soweto, painted in 2006 by a class of young Artist Proof Studio male
students after attending an intensive gender equity workshop by Men as Partners, offers a
colourful articulation of men nursing, caretaking, ironing, cooking and carrying children on
their backs. In making the mural, a change in individual perception and personal
enlightenment became a political gesture and a creative representation of gender equity
advocacy. The project reflects ?social solidarity and association? and the wall has become a
?cultural site? (Sen 2004) for additional expressive painted murals on other issues such as
HIV and gender violence (See Figure 33 Chapter Two).

Transforming Leaders in Practice
The third example of an activity that links method to theory is illustrated in Ramphele?s call
for leadership in South Africa that will take us ?beyond aspirations towards a positive lived
experience of our democracy? (2008: 297). One of the critical elements for the process of
transformation that she identifies is to ensure implementation of our policies through a
?cultural change toward teamwork? and ?lifting the gaze of those mired in competing for
power at the expense of the common good?. Transformative leadership, she asserts, is
needed to lead a change in culture, ?replacing destructive competition with greater
collaborative approaches? (Ramphele 2008: 297). Paulo Freire calls this kind of learning
?conscientization,? which means breaking down mythologies to reach new levels of
awareness.13

13 The process of concientization involves identifying contradictions in experience through dialogue, thereby
becoming part of the process of changing the world (Goldbard 2006: 243).
A recent example of how this can be translated into practice is a project
conducted at Artist Proof Studio as part of a spontaneous response to the devastating
violence that gripped many South African communities through the xenophobic attacks in
May 2008. This project describes a journey from passive observer to concerned citizen to
activist. The students responded to the stories told by members of Artist Proof Studio who
are non-South African nationals and were personally affected by the wave of xenophobia.
The students collaboratively developed drawings and painted murals, attended a protest
march in the inner city, and volunteered to provide support to affected children with art
activities in the sites set up to shelter fleeing refugees and African ?migr?s (See John and
Gadi?s stories, Chapter Seven, Part 2).

265
These examples of mural painting, also discussed in Chapter Two, make a case for
organizations to be continually responsive to changing conditions and open enough to revise
old patterns. The ability to adapt to changing conditions is analogous to the underlying
premises of open systems theory described by Capra (1996), Taylor (2001), Kaplan (2000)
and others, and is discussed in Chapter Four, suggesting that development contexts should
be treated as a living process to anticipate non-linearity, surprise and multi-dimensionality.
The community arts approach to understanding ?culture? as Sen employs the term, stresses
participatory, self-directed strategies where members of communities determine their own
paths to reach their aims.

This philosophy finds its methodological approach in Participatory Action Research (PAR),
which challenges the way knowledge is produced through conventional social science
methods and disseminated by higher education institutions, and puts the gathering and
creation of knowledge into the hands of the people being studied. This thesis has argued for
the practical implementation of PAR through the practice of multi-modal and multi-disciplinary
networks, described in Chapter Six.

These three examples can assist the development practitioner to extend the ?cultural lens?
(Rao and Walton 2004: 361) of development from a way of seeing, to a methodological
approach of facilitating action that is integrated, engaged and fully participative.

Assesing Cultural Action: Beyond the Cultural Lens
Vijayendra Rao and Michael Walton acknowledge in their conclusion to the anthology of
essays in Culture and Public Action that a ?cultural lens? has many implications for the world
of action, especially when addressing problems of inequality and empowerment. This implies
that interventions need to be shaped according to an understanding of the context for
inequalities and the ?need to design public action in ways that foster greater ?equality of
agency??. They acknowledge that a diagnostic process could involve a range of mechanisms
including socio-economic assessments and participatory engagements. To understand local
conceptions of well-being and to incorporate ?common sense? and ?voice?, the recipients of
public action need to be engaged as central agents in the formation and implementation of
policy (Rao and Walton 2004: 361).

Another conclusion reached by Rao and Walton is that culturally informed public action is not
easy. The process argues against the idea of ?best practice? ? the notion that an intervention
that worked wonders in one context will do the same in another. A cultural lens thus teaches
266
us that public action, particularly when it is participatory, aspiration-building, and aware of
common sense, requires an element of experimentation and learning. Ironically the best
practice may be the recognition of ?the absence of best practice? (Rao and Walton
2004: 362).

In this view development at its core is a social and cultural activity that requires a slow
process of learning from the ground up in order to be effective and sustainable. A
development culture that forces projects to be completed in two or three years, which usually
results in their being either rapidly and meaninglessly scaled up, or abandoned, is not
conducive to meaningful social change or learning by doing. As the Cultural Action for
Change, the multi-modal case study described in Chapter Six has shown, four years would
be the minimum period required for donor support. Because of the value of multiple and
culturally diverse engagements, a short-term project would make it impossible to incorporate
what Rao and Walton refer to as ?a cultural lens?. Most interventions that attempt to build ?the
capacity to aspire? require sustained efforts spread over many years. This will require a
change in the cultures of donor organizations. For example the pilot project with the Ford
Foundation?s South Africa office, discussed in Chapter Six, has initiated a cross-disciplinary
approach within their own local office. Funding and support for this project is divided across
three representatives in three divisions (economic development, reproductive health and
higher education). The project has been extended from two years of support to four years, in
part because it is linked to a rigorous research study that can prove the value of sustained
creative interventions to enhance sustainability. This example of an engaged donor approach
can serve as a practical application of the change in the culture of donor organizations called
for by Rao and Walton.

In trying to implement such insights, I have extracted key concepts from the various
contributions in the anthology Culture and Public Action (Sen, Appadurai, Arizpe, Alkire and
Rao and Walton (eds) 2004) that support the use of an integrated approach for framing
development policy, and present them as possible criteria for assessing development
interventions. These include: design for ?equality of agency?; multidisciplinary and multi-modal
assessment tools; participatory approaches (bottom-up, and not best practice); long-term
intervention; futuristic or forward-looking in the ?capacity to aspire?; and training of project
facilitators to be context-sensitive leaders, trainers and researchers. More specifically the
anthology emphasises the value of anthropologists and sociologists to collaborate with a
practice-based research agenda that is focused on participatory action, shared knowledge-
making and creative engagement. Similarly, in the intervention described in the case study,
the education and research component includes multi-cultural and multi-linguistic design;
267
product development of existing cultural products that has enhanced market access and
income opportunities; inclusion of partnerships with influential institutions and agencies and
progressively-orientated research considerations. The case studies further suggest that the
use of these diverse approaches would support the goal of making development and public
action policies more effective and inclusive.

These kinds of recommendations are vital to shifting the paradigm and the language of
development and research. While it is commendable that a concept of ?culture? has infused
the discourse and widened the dimensions of the economic development debate, the authors
of the anthology of Culture and Public Action state very tentatively what cultural activists and
feminist practitioners and educators have been proposing for decades. A participatory
paradigm that foregrounds voice and agency has made significant inroads into areas of
multi-disciplinarity, multi-modality, participatory action research and development. Cultural
activists have understood these principles profoundly, but it is only recently that the concepts
cited in Culture and Public Action (2004) (edited by authors who are also economists at the
World Bank) of ?relationality, equality of agency and development?, have opened the door to
potential collaboration with cultural practitioners. The World Bank has been seen by some
critics (Escobar 1995) as one of the culprits of neo-colonial dominance that has led to a
system of control that creates and extends existing inequalities between rich and poor
countries (Rao and Walton 2004: 10). This book therefore is significant in reflecting on ways
for institutions like the World Bank to integrate notions of cultural and economic change to
design more effective public action. I have concluded from the findings of Rao and Walton,
who advocate for a group-based principle that they term ?equality of agency?, and agree that
cultural processes ?can be harnessed for positive social and economic transformation? (2004:
4); that some of the forward looking economists and social anthropologists would concur that
the visual arts have a valuable role to play in giving practical expression to this ?cultural lens?.

Furthermore, the Cultural Action for Change case study analysed in Chapter Six
demonstrates the volatile dynamism and creativity that emerges when a team of academics,
donors, health professionals, sociology and anthropology researchers, community activists,
rural project members, visual artists, crafters and art educators collaborate in a complex
development intervention. It links research and creative practice to the task of assessing
developmental effectiveness, and directs scholarship to a better informed, more
contextualized public action.

The key concepts that form an integrated approach for framing development policy,
presented as possible criteria for assessing development interventions and outlined in this
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chapter, have been adapted in large part over the course of the case studies analysed in this
thesis. These concepts have helped to provide alternative ways of responding to the key
questions asked by funding agencies and development institutions: What can be considered
a successful development intervention? How can one measure agency and empowerment?
How do we measure significant change? 14

14 Arlene Goldbard and William Cleveland, as discussed in Chapter Six, have proposed useful assessment criteria
that have also been integrated to measure the change in the Cultural Action for Change initiative from 2008-2010.
The ?measuring of impact? still remains a
challenge. Agencies continue to fund short-term projects requiring measurable results. The
Academy continues to judge the quality of research on the basis that verifiable and scientific
research procedures are being followed. It is the exclusive focus on quantifiable results that
leaves little room for the recognition of the qualitative findings that include the capacities of
agency, imagination and resilience. I argue that, for these values to become priorities in
community development practice; radical changes in assessment criteria are needed.

The change in assessment of scholarship is only part of the larger change vital in academic
institutions. Jonathan Jansen, a radical and forward-thinking South African educator has
written recently on ?bitter knowledge? a concept he borrows from Eva Hoffman?s After Such
Knowledge (2005). Hoffman writes about the indirect inter-generational transmission of
spoken and unspoken knowledge from the parents who lived through the horrors of the
Holocaust, to the children who were not there. He uses this explanation to try and
understand the racist attacks by white youth throughout the country. He asks what this
means for transformation, and asserts that we have failed white youth by not ?interrupting
their troubled knowledge.? The question Jansen asks is core to my profession as an
educator: young students, born around the time of Mandela?s release from prison in 1990,
still hold firm views about the past, and ?fatalistic views about the future? (Jansen 2008: 1).
Chapter Five explores a radical paradigm shift in the academy that proposes a
transformation of what should count as research and knowledge.

The stories that follow are testimonies of people who believe in change and express hope
and optimism about the future. Each story resonates with different themes throughout this
thesis providing yet another argument for using the arts to facilitate the imagination, to shift
oppression and despair and function as a pedagogical intervention to interrupt ?troubled? or
?bitter knowledge?.

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Shifting the Paradigm
This thesis intentionally concludes with open ends: possibilities that reach outwards. One of
the core themes of this rsearch is complexity, and the value of chaos and complexity that
provides a new language and an unfamiliar paradigm to approach development engagement.
Art is a mode of knowledge that welcomes diversity and the unexpected. It allows for the
interpretation of elements that do not fit into dominant theories or codes or a positivist
perspective of the world. In most chapters the argument positions art, creative participation
and dialogue as generative processes that are self-creating. It is surprise, uncertainty and
discovery rather than authority and definition that are the sensibilities associated with
dialogue and art-making. The complexity is in the multiple voices, the multi-modal
approaches and the collaborative multi-disciplinary partnerships. These networks of visual
and narrative voices provide the texture and colour to the circle of knowledge that is being
generated.

Futurity has been described as an explicit concern about the impact of current activity on
future generations (Dobson 1999: 26). In Appadurai?s words: ?by bringing the future back in,
by looking at aspirations as cultural capacities, we are surely in a better position to
understand how people actually navigate their social spaces? (2004: 84). To understand
creative expression of self, we need to be able to aspire and dream different possibilities for
our future. Futurity means the ability to continually grow and change; essentially it is about
sustainability. This is a concrete practical outcome of dreaming.

Given the argument for the importance of voice, and the need for the ownership of the
navigational process to reside with the participants, it is appropriate that the final words be
uttered by the people in the projects discussed in this thesis. Although I still retain authorial
control in the selection and editing of these narratives, the substantive contribution is, I
believe, best expressed by the participants. The following stories reflect the impact on lives
that have intersected with and been catalysed by art in different ways. Each of those
embarked on a journey to make a difference, experienced creative interaction with the visual
arts and have found ways to imagine their dreams as aspirations for a positive and
generative relationship within their worlds.

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PART TWO: Voices from the Field

Stories are one of the highest and most invisible forms of human creativity ?
Like water, stories are much taken for granted. They are seemingly ordinary and
neutral, but are one of humanity?s most powerful weapons for good or evil (Okri
1997: 120).

From this story to many stories

Eve Annecke and Mark Swilling highlight the value of storytelling and have found, as I have,
?the dialogical infrastructure? may be more reliable than ?ticks in the logframe report?
(2004:293)
There are few countries in the world where the conditions for innovation and
creativity are more favourable than those that exist in South Africa. It is easy
to blame the inaction of others on the worsening plight of the poor, but as
realism about the limits of state action sets in there are more local initiatives
that are grabbing the space and making it happen ? Over time, these local
initiatives will incubate new visions, new leaders, new networks and
eventually new multi-class social movements that will simultaneously
challenge and complement state action and articulate the linkages to similar
processes elsewhere in the world ?.

At the centre of this activity will be our ability to tell and hear the stories of
our changing times ?. An extraordinary and surprising South Africa is
becoming increasingly visible as the vast array of stories are being told. The
challenge will be to defend the space for these stories, or live with the
consequence of codifying a single official story (Anneke and Swilling
2004: 302).

By re-telling and recording the stories of the members of Artist Proof Studio, Paper Prayers,
Phumani Paper and the community engagement projects of the University of Johannesburg,
my hope is that their visibility will generate spaces for many other stories and voices to
emerge. The purpose of this concluding section is to reflect on stories of change as they
articulate the most compelling reasons for undertaking these interventions and writing this
thesis. I have tried to choose stories, extracts or anecdotes to link with some of the multiple
themes that pulse through the journey that this research traces. These are just a selection of
hundreds of voices. Many more interviews and personal statements are collated and filed in
the archive at the University of Johannesburg, with the hope that there may be opportunities
in the future to share many more of these narratives more publicly. For this final section, I am
retelling the stories as filtered through my own interaction with each individual, as their
achievements have provided sustenance and ongoing inspiration for me, as well as for the
groups of which they are a part.

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Pieterse describes self-reflexivity as a sensibility ?of being able to recognise yourself and
your own (projected) desires in the process? (Pieterse 2004: 351). My selections of the
stories are therefore of individuals that reflect my own projected desires of change, and who I
believe have achieved agency as a result of being receptive participants in the various
arenas of creative community engagement.

Themes
Agency: Thabang?s story

I met Thabang Lehoybe as a fifteen year old. He arrived at Artist Proof Studio in 2001, with
some drawings on the back of an old calendar. He came with Bafana Ndlovu, a slightly older
school friend, both from the informal settlement in Orange Farm. They wanted to apply to
attend the Saturday youth class at Artist Proof Studio while they completed high school, as
there were no art teachers in Orange Farm. Nhlanhla Xaba, my former APS partner and
teacher of the youth program, was insistent that we accept them even though they were the
youngest students ever to be registered. Thabang?s drawings were extraordinary, and
Nhlanhla and I agreed that we had never encountered such raw talent. Artist Proof Studio
subsidized Thabang and Bafana?s weekly transport to attend the Saturday youth program for
three years, until they completed their matric. On 9 March 2003, Artist Proof Studio burnt
down in a fire that also took Nhlanhla?s life. Thabang stayed away for months.. He had lost
Nhlanhla, his mentor and role model, and his studio-home, the place that held all his dreams.
At the beginning of 2008 I received a phone call from a
former student Thabang Lehoybe, he said:
Kim, I just received a job offer from Jupiter Drawing
Room, [a well-known advertising agency]. They
offered me a package as Art Director that I could not
refuse. I would like to invite you out for lunch with me.

Why is the invitation to lunch from a former student my
choice example to illustrate agency? On the face of it, it is not
an unusual phenomenon for a teacher to meet up with former
students to celebrate their achievements. This story however
is not common; the content of the invitation symbolized a
testament of economic, social and spiritual empowerment,
and the phone-call invitation to me encapsulated agency.
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It took him six months before he was able to come back to the temporary venue in the Bus
Factory.15
Nevertheless, as he entered his second year, Thabang found the university?s academic
structure to be daunting. He struggled with travelling two hours from Orange Farm each day
to be at class by 8 am. When he was late, some lecturers did not admit him into the lectures.
They accused him of laziness. At the end of the year he was failing his theory subjects. I was
extremely hard on him and warned him not to mess up on his one chance. As he struggled
with money, Artist Proof Studio employed him as teaching assistant for the Saturday classes,
so that he could earn extra funds for his daily travel. Despite the financial and academic
obstacles, Thabang survived his second year. In his third year, Thabang became interested
in animation. Inspired by William Kentridge, he made hundreds of drawings for a Kentridge-

However, Thabang subsequently passed his high school matric and shared his dream with
me: to go to university and study Fine Arts. During that period I met Patty Suzman, the
daughter of anti-apartheid veteran Helen Suzman. Patty lives in Boston and visits her mother
in Johannesburg regularly. A friend brought Patty to Artist Proof Studio. I showed her
Thabang?s artwork, and asked her if she would be willing to be his patron and sponsor him
for three years to study Fine Art at the (former) Technikon Witwatersrand. After meeting
Thabang and encountering this eighteen year old?s passion and determination, even though
he was painfully shy and could not make eye contact with her, Patty readily agreed to give
him a scholarship for three years. Thabang was able to register for his National Diploma in
Fine Art in 2004. Further, through a friend, I received an offer from a United States Arts
Education Youth Leadership Camp that was offering a place to a young South African artist
to attend for three weeks, fully paid. The candidate had to be under eighteen years old and
exceptionally talented. One of the Artist Proof Studio Board members agreed to assist with
some travel expenses and Thabang was chosen to go to Wyoming. This adventure took
place during the July holidays in his first year at university. Part of his neighbourhood and
extended family showed up at the airport to see him off. This was the first time he and his
family had ever been to the airport. He did not know anyone who had flown in a plane and
was exceptionally nervous. Yet, once there, Thabang had a wonderful time. The experience
with international youth at an American camp helped him to find his voice, stand up with
confidence and look into the eyes of another person when in conversation, despite the
discomfort of breaking a convention of cultural respect, central in his home culture.

15 After the Fire, in 2004 Brandeis University intern Darnisa Amante conducted an interview with Thabang in
which he describes in his own words the sense of loss that he felt at the time. This interview and 30 others by
Brandeis University interns are available in KB Archives (APS Draw 2: File 1a-c).
273
style animation about moral and environmental degradation in his Orange Farm
neighbourhood, where Thabang and his family lived in a shack with no electricity. Each
drawing frame had to be photographed with a hand-held camera. He had a friend who
occasionally lent him a laptop computer and digital camera that he could work on overnight
at home until the batteries ran out. These challenges notwithstanding, the resulting video
animation piece was powerful. He achieved the highest mark in his year for this extraordinary
work and, although he continued to struggle with theory subjects, with extra tuition (and with
the fear of letting me down), he passed his three-year Fine Art Diploma with a distinction in
art practice.

I once picked Thabang up at his home in Orange Farm. It took me an hour-and-a-half to
drive there. He did not want me to go inside as he was ashamed. The outside yard had a
half-built foundation and wall. His mother, a single parent, had started building a house for
herself and her three sons six years previously, and could not afford to develop it further. She
has a menial job in a factory. His brother pointed out a small corner of their shack to me
where Thabang worked every night, and sometimes through the night. Thabang told me the
first thing he will do when he gets a job is build the house for his mother.

For Thabang?s graduation present, Patty Suzman gave him a state-of-the-art laptop
computer of his own, and I took him to meet William Kentridge, the artist who inspired his
work. After seeing Thabang?s animation and recognizing his remarkable talent, William
Kentridge wrote a cheque to Artist Proof Studio for R20 000 to enable Thabang to further his
studies. Thabang wanted to go to Vega College, and was accepted to do his honours in
multi-media with a tuition bursary. Vega is an exclusive, private advertising and multi-media
school for ?rich kids?. Fees are up to R40 000 per year and normally out of range for poor
black students. I quote Thabang?s words in his letter of thanks to William Kentridge:
One of the greatest abilities we have at our disposal as human is to dream.
Dreams afford us wildest fantasies beyond present circumstances, but the
most powerful thing about dreams is that they can come true. The best thing
that can ever happen to an aspiring young artist is to be acknowledged by
your greatest inspiration. THANK YOU MR KENTRIDGE for seeing my work.

Artist Proof Studio disbursed the Kentridge grant as a monthly allowance for Thabang to
travel to the college, which is located in the suburb of Sandton. Travel sometimes took up to
three hours one way. He often needed help with extra money just to do his assignments.
However, mid-year 2007, he phoned me, beside himself with excitement. His work, a short
animation piece adapted from the work he made in his third year of Fine Arts, had won a gold
award in the student category at the Loerie Awards, the most prestigious advertising
274
competition in South Africa. This would open up all manner of doors to his future. On hearing
his exciting news, I invited Thabang out for lunch. I picked him up in town, and we went to a
restaurant. Over lunch, he told me of his embarrassment when his Vega classmates all went
out to McDonald?s. Thabang was too ashamed to tell them he could not afford it, so he used
his transport money to pay toward his meal, his first at a restaurant, and walked two hours to
a friend?s house in the city that night to ask for a loan to get home.

Two months after completing his honours at Vega College, Thabang?s appointment at the
Jupiter Drawing Room was a sign that he had reached his goal against all odds. He saw
himself as a dreamer and he made his dreams material. Moreover, an art gallery in
Johannesburg has offered him a solo exhibition for 2009.

The power of dreaming: Felicia?s story

Felicia Vukeya comes from a small village in the region formerly known as Venda in northern
Limpopo Province. Felicia joined the Phumani Papermaking group in Elim, because although
she had qualified as a teacher, there were no available jobs. She had been unemployed for
three years when Phumani Paper opened a small papermaking project near to where she
lived. Hearing the project advertised on the radio, she came to the Pfuxanani Youth Centre to
apply in 2000. Felicia was elected chair-person for the first two years, and Phumani Paper
subsequently employed her as a project leader. She attended a leadership training course
and learnt how to use a computer. Four years later she was promoted to regional manager of
three Limpopo-based Phumani Paper projects. She achieved her driving licence and saved
each month for a second-hand car. Seven years after she joined the project she had
acquired a car and got married. She has a new baby, a stable home, and mobility.

About a year ago, I received a text
message on my cell phone:

Kim, remember when you came
to our village in Elim and we all
dreamt where we will be in five
years time. Some of us said we
wanted a car and everyone
laughed. You said what colour
will your car be? Well today I
got my car, and it is blue.

275
Felicia?s ability to work towards her dreams and leadership within her community has been
an inspiration to many. She still talks about the value of that dreaming exercise I did with her
Khomenani group in 2001 using drawings to envision a better future out of poverty.

Artistic curiosity and creative adaptability: Aletta?s story

Aletta Legae worked sporadically as a model for life-drawing class at the University of
Johannesburg from 2001. At the end of each class, Shannin Antonopolou who was a
Master?s student and drawing teacher observed Aletta collecting the waste papers and
discarded art materials. After inquiring what she did with the paper, Aletta admitted to trying
to teach herself to draw and using the paper to make patterns to sew clothes. She was
inspired by the art classes. Shannin, who also taught drawing to the Paper Prayers group at
Artist Proof Studio, invited Aletta to assist her to teach sewing to a group that was starting at
CICI (Community Inner City Initiative), an inner-city poverty alleviation project for craft skills
development in Joubert Park. Aletta had taught herself to sew and had been putting weekly
down-payments on a second-hand sewing machine, as she saw sewing as a way to help
herself.

However, Aletta was in an abusive relationship at home and occasionally stayed away from
Artist Proof Studio when her beatings were so bad that the results were visible. The Artist
Proof Studio facilitators helped her to find counselling to give her the strength to temporarily
move out of her home when the violence threatened her three children. She had grown up
with an alcoholic father who beat his children. However, through support from her colleagues
and counselling, Aletta learnt that she had a choice, and became determined to become

??picking up drawing papers and
wanting to learn how to draw,
saved my life.?

Aletta

276
financially independent from her husband so that she could care for herself and children with
her own income.

Today Aletta is employed part-time by Artist Proof Studio as project leader and trainer for the
Paper Prayers craft groups; she also has her own small sewing business that she runs from
home. She also counsels battered and HIV-positive women in her church group in Everton
and has given two HIV-positive women, also in abusive relationships, her occasional
modelling job for life-drawing at the University of Johannesburg. The women embroiderers
who were graduates of the CICI training have formed the Ikageng group and meet weekly at
Artist Proof Studio to produce felt animals. The proceeds from the sale of these felt toys now
supports nine women.

Aletta is a highly skilled product designer and trainer; she has improved her qualifications
and skills, and has more power in her relationship at home. She also supports a large
extended community of vulnerable women.

Resilience and Agency: Roselina

Roselina Molefe was rescued from dire circumstances. She had been chased out of her
husband?s village in Mpumalanga because she was accused of bewitching him when he died
as a result of AIDS. Her husband?s family burnt her belongings, and starved and beat her. A
visiting doctor, Dr Carpenter, brought her and her child to the Sisters of Mercy convent in
Winterveld. They were not sure whether she would live. Filled with shame, Roselina rarely
spoke, and survived extreme poverty by collecting a weekly food parcel from the church.
There is a Sotho saying: ?a mother holds a knife at the
sharp end.?
I have learned to live with my challenges. Even if I don?t
have salt in my house, I can cook without salt.
As women, we should get up and do things for
ourselves. I am a Tsonga woman and Tsonga women
are oppressed, so they don?t have a say in whatever.
Their ideas are not taken into consideration. A Tsonga
woman cannot work, so I grew up knowing that a
woman is nothing. I thank God that I achieved so much
and I believe that women can move forward and
women are powerful. I know now what is good and
what is bad. I didn?t know how to speak before in front
of people because we are brought up that way. Now I
can speak.

Roselina Molefe, Women on Purpose Interview, J Hassinger,
translation by S Maphangwa 2 July 2008
277
When Sister Sheila Flynn, a Fine Art honours student of mine, brought Roselina to a
Papermaking workshop at the former Technikon, as part of the outreach program we had
with the Winterveld group, Roselina expressed (through a translator) to the group that she
was inspired and amazed that she could make paper from rubbish, turning waste into
something beautiful. That workshop took place in 1997. She is now the longest-standing
member of the Tswaraganang group. She has since expressed to me in an interview that
papermaking has kept her alive because it has given her life some worth. She is somebody
now, and before, ?her life was like waste.? 16
Artist as democratic citizen: ?One man can? ? an Artist Proof Story
She is one of the few hundred people in the
country who can make paper and support her family.

Roselina?s story suggests that the creative process was the catalyst that alleviated her
spiritual poverty and provided the hope and dignity and that have kept her alive for ten years.
The AIDS Action intervention however, was the catalyst to support her ability to make a
purposive choice to seek treatment, overcome her fear of rejection and to stay alive for her
children, herself and her group. Roselina?s resilience and survival against all odds is a
remarkable story, but her ability to finally choose treatment will ensure that she can share her
story of hope and inspiration with others for many years into her future.

During the 16 Days of Activism Against Women and Child Abuse in December of 2007, I was
driving in Newtown on my way to Artist Proof Studio. Someone came up to my window And I
recognized him as Thabo Motseki, a student from the Artist Proof Studio third-year class. He
was wearing a T-shirt that said ?one-man-can?. I then recognized eight or ten other young

16 Interviews with Grace Sicwebo and Kim Berman, April 2006, and Women on Purpose interview with Jane
Hassinger and Shonisani Maphangwa, July 2008. Available in KB Archives (FF Draw 6: File 1a and d).
278
men stopping cars and handing out brochures to support the campaign of men against
women abuse. I grinned as I took my brochure, and Thabo pointed to a colourful painted
mural outside the taxi rank that the student volunteers had painted to advertise the campaign
in one of the busiest commuter intersections of Bree Street in downtown Johannesburg.

Not knowing anything about this activity, as classes were over for the year, I asked the
administrative staff at the studio who had arranged this project. Thabo later told me that
Sonke Gender Justice, a project that is linked to Engender Health and Men as Partners, and
an organizational partner with Artist Proof Studio, was looking for volunteers. They had no
money to pay the students, but had invited interested people to sign up. Almost the whole
class independently volunteered as activists in the week-long campaign. They were the
graduating class of 2007. I felt very proud of these young men, and felt that Artist Proof
Studio had succeeded in training young people to be ?artist citizens?. This is becoming an
annual event, as it was repeated in 2008.

Economic agency and Aspiration: The Bosele Papermakers, Lehurutse

During a visit in April 2007 I asked the women at the Bosele Papermaking project in North
West Province about their goals for the future. Their leader, Jacobeth Lepedi, had just won
the provincial prize for the community builder of the year, and their group had won the Best
Project award for the second year running. The women saw themselves as proud
businesswomen, who are recognized as role models in the surrounding villages. They have
created jobs and earned prestige for their community. The Bosele papermakers also support
the local orphans and teach papermaking in schools.

Here in our community, we are the role models. Every time when
people open their new projects, they bring them here to encourage
them. They see how we survive as older women in the project ?
Maybe we don?t get enough money; but we motivate them that if you do
something, do it. Don?t hesitate. Even if there is a challenge, go on.
One day you will see. You will reap. I am proud about this project.
I don?t want to leave this project.

I make people comfortable and I listen to people and I care about them.
I want to help young kids that are not doing anything at home. At my
church I teach Sunday school. I am interested in building an
orphanage. I have been looking after a young boy. If I didn?t take care
of him he would have become a street kid.

Jacobeth Lepedi, Women on Purpose interview by J Hassinger
8 July 2008

279
Jacobeth said to me that what she would really like would be to be able to go out one day
and order a cappuccino just because she felt like it! Everybody laughed because it seemed
to be an outrageous and self-indulgent wish. Each rand Jacobeth makes is accounted for as
a single parent raising children who want to go to university. The idea of a rural woman, who
struggles to make ends meet, ordering a cappuccino was for me a sure indicator of
empowerment and aspiration out of poverty. A cappuccino is seen as a luxury item available
only to women of status and social position.

With the increasing successes of Bosele Papermakers, which was awarded a large
government tender by the North West Development Agency in August 2008, I would like to
believe that it will not be long before these businesswomen have the economic agency to
drive their own car to the Mmabana Mall for a cappuccino!

Self-creation: Nelson?s story

Nelson Makamo, a talented young artist who graduated from Artist Proof Studio in 2005, and
works in the Studio Gallery as an intern Gallery Manager, was returning home to say
goodbye to a family member who was dying of AIDS in the rural Limpopo province town of
Modimolle (previously Nylstroom). Nelson was devastated and I suggested that he talk to the
AIDS counsellor who works with Artist Proof Studio. The Studio had just completed a four-
month AIDS Action project called Reclaiming Lives, and Nelson as a recent graduate had
assumed the role of encouraging the younger students to participate in the voluntary
counselling and testing program (VCT). The counsellor informed Nelson of all the options
and possibilities of anti-retroviral medication and gave him the contact number of a doctor
who specializes in HIV and works in the region. Nelson went home armed with a little hope
and new knowledge about options for treatment. He also had just received a major public art
commission through his Artist Proof Studio patron, and had taken out health insurance for
?If one person is willing to
spend money on my work,
it gives me courage and
energy to continue
expressing myself freely.?

Nelson Makamo
Portrait of My Mother 2008
Monotype 2008

280
himself and his dependents. He was supporting his mother and younger siblings from the
income he earned from the sales of his artwork. Nelson was able to convince his family
about the importance of VCT and anti-retroviral drugs. His family member qualified for
treatment due to her minimal CD4 count and has since made an excellent recovery: she is
alive on treatment and living a productive and healthy life.

This success was the result of a long journey that started in 2002 when Nelson?s art teacher
recognized his talent in his rural high school and drove him into Johannesburg to apply for a
bursary to study at Artist Proof Studio. When he arrived at APS, he was very shy and
intimidated by the bustle of Johannesburg, as he had grown up in an impoverished rural
family.

Nelson has since become a role model and epitomises an APS success story. He is driven
and highly motivated. At 25 years old, he is the breadwinner for his family. He had a dream
of success when he arrived in the ?big city?, worked extremely hard and modelled himself on
successful black artists such as Sam Nthlengethwa. Nelson is an example of ?self-creation?
in which ?the two dimensions of engagement and transformation are constitutively
intertwined? (Pieterse 2004: 340). With his talent, dreams and a vivid imagination, he created
an image of himself as a successful artist and then fulfilled it. He has a corporate patron who
believes in his talent and offered him a solo exhibition in 2006 in Melrose Arch, an exclusive
enclave of Johannesburg?s affluent. The exhibition sold out.

Nelson sells his artwork steadily, and has bought himself a small townhouse in Pretoria with
his savings and a commission he received from the Limpopo local government worth
R100 000. In September 2007 he accompanied a group exhibition to Italy, and in July 2008,
had a solo exhibition in Amsterdam. Nelson is employed by Artist Proof Studio and earns an
incentive-based income from sales of artworks. He was listed in the Art South Africa journal
as the seventh ?bright young artist to look out for? (Sassen 2007: 78). His career as a young
printmaker is flourishing. Nelson claims his dream came true because of the inspiration and
opportunities offered by Artist Proof Studio, and his commitment to his belief that he can
succeed.

281
Narrative as an agent for citizen-activism and healing: Gadi: Creating hope for the
hopeless

The xenophobic attacks in May 2008 engaged Artist Proof Studio students for months. The
students participated in discussions and workshops facilitated by the NGO Sonke Gender
Justice Network. The views among students reflected the South African spectrum of
prejudice, discrimination, fear, compassion and tolerance. I invited APS members John
Taouss from Rwanda, Gadi Selemani, a refugee from Congo and Jemmiro Jemussi from
Mozambique to tell their stories and share their experience of xenophobic prejudice. Gadi?s
story brought tears and compassion to all who heard it. Separated from his family in the
chaos of fleeing their homes in the Congo, Gadi found himself as a street child in Kenya. He
survived on the streets for seven years, until an aid worker for refugees discovered his talent
for drawing and began the search for his mother. He was brought to Johannesburg as an
eighteen year old and re-united with his mother and two siblings he did not know.

An international aid worker brought Gadi to Artist Proof Studio where we accepted him into
our Saturday youth program. In his second year, Gadi disappeared for five months. Later he
told us that he been searching for his mother who had disappeared. She had left him with
two young children to care for. He was using his studio transport money to buy food for the
children, and he walked to classes. His mother has not yet been found; Gadi continues to
take care of one brother and has placed the little girl in an orphanage. He has found some
work with the CICI project as a technical assistant in silk-screening, and has an Artist Proof
Studio patron who provides him with a monthly allowance. He is working towards an
exhibition at Artist Proof Studio of his life story as a street child and ?parent? to his siblings.
Hi,

Kim is me, Gadi Selemani. I
would like to greet you and
every one at APS.
I wish to talk to you, but to
call international from this
side is too expensive.

I am in Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania with my family. I
have met up with my mother.
I would like to say that I will
never forget APS as my
greatest honour.

Please send my thanks to
everyone for their support.

Email message received:
15 December 2008
Gadi and Artist Proof Studio volunteers
at the Rifle-Range refugee centre,
Boksburg, August 2008
282

During the period that the refugee centres for displaced victims of violence were set up, APS
partner organizations, The Art Therapy Centre and the Curriculum Development Project
(CDP) were offering support programs for the children in the settlements. I asked for
volunteers who may be interested in working in two to three different camps outside of class
time. When I arrived the next day at Artist Proof Studio, 42 students had signed up to
volunteer to do art activities with the displaced children. I was amazed and pleased, and
convinced that it was the power of the narratives that catalysed this response among the
young APS artists who had seized an opportunity to make a difference. Gadi was one of
those volunteers. Months later Gadi disappeared. As I edit the conclusion to this thesis I
received an email dated 15 December 2008 that Gadi is in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with
his family.

Resilience and the power of the visual voice: John?s story

John Taouss survived the genocide in Rwanda. He and his sister managed to escape by
stepping over the dead bodies of his family and others in the killing fields. His sister went to
stay in Uganda with her husband and John crossed through the countries of Tanzania,
Malawi, and Mozambique and trekked through the Kruger National Park into Mpumalanga.
His dangerous journey took him over six months. He was working on a building crew in White
River, building the new Artist Press Print workshop, when he met the artist Judith Mason.
One day John found the courage to show Judy his sketches. She offered to help him with his
drawing, and every day after work, John worked with her. When the building contract was
complete Judy called me to let me know she wanted to sponsor John to study at Artist Proof
Studio. We admitted him into a bridging class on a Saturday to develop his printmaking skills
and Judy paid him a monthly allowance for his accommodation and food. John completed his
283
third year at Artist Proof Studio in 2007 with much of his work sold from his final-year
exhibition. He bought himself a car and operated a second-hand clothing business to support
his studies. John is also a story-teller; he tells the story of his struggle in his artwork. He is
deeply participative and presents his success as examples for others for overcoming
adversity through art. In an interview he asserted that art saved him and gave him life. He
readily shared his optimistic vision for his future in his chosen career of art with strength and
confidence.

Four months after this interview John became a victim of xenophobic attacks on his home in
Mamelodi in May 2008. He had just qualified from APS and bought himself new furniture, as
well as a computer and television set. All his belongings along with his stock for his clothing
business were destroyed in a fire that targeted foreign nationals. A local church housed the
refugees for two weeks before they were asked to leave. John was deeply shaken. Artist
Proof Studio assisted him to find other temporary accommodation. He came into the studio
each day in a daze and deeply fearful for his life. The newspapers were filled with images of
violent attacks on people like John. His dream was shattered. I invited John to share his story
with the incoming Artist Proof Studio students. As he narrated his journey, the students were
deeply shaken and moved. For the next two weeks I asked John to facilitate the making of a
communal visual narrative of his story. He worked with groups of students to produce eight
drawn panels that narrated his journey from Rwanda to Mamelodi. The plan was to realize
these powerful drawings as murals in the inner city. The day the drawing project was
complete, John fled Johannesburg back to White River where Judy Mason welcomed him,
and the Artist Press agreed to give him an internship as a lithographic printer. He stayed in
the safety of the country studio for four months.

With renewed strength and resilience, he came back to Artist Proof Studio in September to
resume his internship as a postgraduate printing assistant. On 10 December 2008, Human
Rights Day, the visual expression of John?s story was launched on a 40m long public mural
outside the Johannesburg Art Gallery in the busy Noord Street taxi rank. The mural paid
tribute to John and provided a visual honouring of the African nationals and refugees whose
rights were violated by the South African citizens who attacked them so brutally during the
months of May and June 2008 (See The Star article: Ho 2008: 12).17

17 In the article that appeared in The Star newspaper: ?Inner-city mural shows suffering of the violated: One man?s
story of terror ? and hope ? after xenophobic attack?, Molefe Thwala, a recent graduate of APS and training
facilitator who spoke at the mural?s launch is quoted as saying: ?We have always encouraged students to use
their art for social consciousness. After all, a picture can say a thousand words?. This young artist who assisted in
the facilitation of this project sees his role as an activist-artist making a difference. John Taouss attests to this
John plans to visit his

284
sister in Uganda in 2009 and is considering relocation in order to start a new chapter of his
life story.

A paradigm shift: Lilo

Lilo du Toit, a sociologist who was commissioned to conduct the Impact Assessment for the
Ford Foundation intervention, has reflected on how she has re-thought the value of art in her
own life and practice. Her career as a social science researcher has undergone a paradigm
shift as a result of her encounter with the arts as creative practice and as a tool for enriching
the depth of qualitative data. She speaks of the impact that the program has had on her own
methodological approach and within her Department of Development Studies and
Anthropology at the University of Johannesburg, and has registered to do her Master?s
research on economic agency and participation among the women of Phumani Paper. She
observes:
With regard to the changes in the people involved in the programme for
students and facilitators, the stakeholder interviews as well as the APS Aids
project, polls contain comments to the effect that young artists get a chance to
exhibit their work, that they gain confidence in showing their work to others,
that they gain a sense of being ?professional artists?, that it doesn?t matter
whether they are HIV-positive or not, they can still produce their art, that they
can contribute to the incomes of their families by getting income from their art.
Furthermore, many of the stakeholder interviews among students and
beneficiaries indicate that skills have been gained (from things that seem
simple, like getting a driver?s licence, using computers, to advanced degrees
and a chance to be professional artists) that enables greater choice among
these students in terms of their lives and career (this is development ...
greater choice to live a life that one deems to be ?the good?).

difference that the artists have contributed: ?I did lose my faith in South Africa, but when I see this mural I also see
that there are South Africans who are one with me are here to support me? (The Star 15 December 2008: 12).
I am interested in how involvement in the
AIDS Action program (described in
Chapter Six) led to personal change for the
many collaborators, trainers and
stakeholders. The paradigm shift among
collaborators previously unfamiliar with
working with the arts and artists is a
powerful indicator of the role of art in
activating change.
Lilo du Toit

285
My art is to come up with ways of measuring things that are immeasurable,
and to search for truth. It denotes a devotion and a skill which engages and
expresses the highest of human faculties: creating. Using what has come
before and making it better, by innovating and experimenting. This is what
drives the decent society. A society must be decent, for it to be able to
produce and protect that which is fragile: life, beauty, truth ... the good.
Aesthetics, and therefore visual and performing arts, is the ?soul? of a society,
if a society doesn?t have art, doesn?t produce beauty, its soul is dead.
Nietzsche said that we have art so as not to die of life (Kim Berman email
interview with L du Toit 25 January 2008c [her emphasis]).

Through Lilo?s involvement in the program, another outcome has been a new Honours
course for Development studies students introduced in 2008, designed by Dr Naude Malan
to engage with the arts and institutional democracy in collaboration with Phumani Paper.18

This interdisciplinary course is an interesting example of how personal change has led to
institutional change, which in turn can lead to social change.
Deep democracy: David

Appadurai identifies self governance, self-mobilization and self-articulation as vital to achieve
?deep democracy?, which is a concept emphasised throughout the thesis as a central theme.
There are numerous attempts at articulating the practice of ubuntu, such as the quest for an
ubuntu culture at Artist Proof Studio, capacity building for empowered and shared leadership,
as well as participative and dialogical practice. The concluding story leaves the door open for
new possibilities to self-create in the ongoing quest to apply the creative arts to deepen
democracy.

18 Malan course outline: ?Economic participation and democracy? for development studies honours module, 2008.
This collaboration with the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies and FADA has interestingly
developed into the appointment of Dr Malan to teach Research methods to postgraduate Art and Design students
for 2009.
286

The concluding narrative is a sequel to the story of David Tshabalala. His story is described
in a case study in Chapter Five to illustrate the struggle to introduce participatory action
research as a practice-based methodology in the Faculty of Art Design and Architecture.
After numerous rejections and institutional battles, David received his Master?s in Technology
and paved the way for a community-based arts Master?s degree option in Visual Arts.

After graduating, David continued working for Phumani Paper, co-developing the learning
materials and training program for the SETA-accredited qualification in papermaking. When
Frikkie Meintjes, the (relatively) highly paid Executive Director of Phumani Paper, left for a
new position in mid-2008, his resignation was followed by that of his secretary and weeks
later the finance administrator. There was insufficient funding to fully replace Meintje?s
salaried position, and as one of the two remaining Directors on the Phumani Board, I invited
David Tshabalala to step in as Program Manager. Together with Mandy Coppes, the
Creative Director who had also indicated her need to move on from Phumani within three
months, I offered to mentor David in his new position. The national community facilitator,
Grace Sicebo, was offered a modest promotion and invited to sit on a weekly management
team. The organization was experiencing extreme instability; moreover, these staff losses
came two weeks before the National Annual General Meeting (AGM), with representatives
from all fifteen sites ready to converge in Johannesburg for a week-long strategic planning
workshop. My own capacity was extremely limited at the time. I had two new Master?s
students to supervise, a report to write for the end of the two-year Ford Foundation program
and a new funding proposal due, no full-time manager at Artist Proof Studio (due to a
personal tragedy), a funding crisis in both organizations, and my doctorate to complete.
Phumani Paper was extremely vulnerable.
Phumani Paper (or Phumani, as it is commonly
known), a national organisation that works with 17
hand-papermaking groups in seven provinces, has
just appointed a new National Programme Manager,
David Tshabalala. We share the story of David?s rise
through the ranks in one of the most well-developed
organisations participating in the Legends
Programme.

David expands on what motivated him to work in the
area of paper making: ?Besides research activities,
what attracted me most to Phumani Paper is its way
of engaging poor communities to higher learning
through art and craft, as well as utilization of waste
paper and plant fibres to create sustainable jobs and
income?.

Extract from Legends News, Edition 5: October 2008

287

This situation provided yet another instance of the relevance of chaos theory and the need to
have faith in the adaptability and creative resilience of Phumani Paper. This situation
provided an extraordinary moment for the organization to re-invent itself. The concepts of
?self-governance, self-mobilization and self-articulation? (Appadurai 2004: 81) acquired
momentous significance.

Since this crisis in June 2008, Phumani Paper has since landed two funding contracts and a
number of high profile strategic opportunities, although delivery is yet to play itself out.
Furthermore, Lilo du Toit, a highly competent researcher, has joined the team to monitor and
report on contracts and manage strategic relations. Approximately five months into the re-
structured organization, growth and sales are at their highest peak, and delivery has never
been healthier. Agency, mobility, passion, empowerment ? in fact, all of the key words of this
thesis ? seem to bubble up from the bottom in the form of David Tshabalala; the small
village-artist, come-university student, come-trainer, come-community leader and now
National Programme Manager who has risen effectively to assume the challenge of
transformative leadership. Art as agency seems to have made its own case!

288
APPENDIX 1: MASTER OF TECHNOLOGY IN FINE ART
(M.Tech: Fine Art)

RESEARCH MODE: COMMUNITY-BASED RESEARCH (CBR) BY
DISSERTATION

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA FOR DISSERTATION (To be issued to the examiner)

In evaluating the candidate, please comment specifically on the following criteria including what
weighting/importance ascribed to each of the criteria as listed: (Explanatory notes are appended).

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

1 Field of study
1.1 Significance of research project to public good
Higher education claims three missions: research, teaching, and public engagement.
Excellent public scholarship may integrate all three within the economy of the collaborative
project or program. The public good is best served when knowledge is collaboratively
made. This criterion is particularly relevant to participatory action research.
Does this project make a useful contribution to the public good? Is it significant to
contributing to change in the lives of the participants it engages with? (see endnotes)
1.2. Relevance of Themes/Focus
Are these themes relevant to the social, economic and environmental objectives of
development in South Africa?
Are the purposes of the research project clearly stated?
Are the organizations, policies, programs, and collaborating partners affecting the issue in
the local context presented to establish the local context? (see endnotes)
2 Research design and methodology
2.1 Research methodology and its relationship to literature
Does the research project demonstrate an adequate understanding of the current
literature/research methodology in the field?
Does it describe the research paradigm and give details of research processes?
Does the report provide readers with details of the way the study was carried out, the role
of the research facilitator, the number and type of people who participate in the
investigation and data collection techniques and so on? (see endnote)
2.2. Research Design
Have the research methods, or equivalent intellectual work upon which the project is
based, been well considered to take into account values and ethics of community based
engagement?
289
Does the research project demonstrate adequate use of evidence, informational input or
other intellectual raw materials in support of its case?
Does it describe the type of information required and how it was recorded (e.g. interviews,
observations, documents, artefacts, recording information etc.) (see endnote)
2.3. Use of Information/evidence/ findings
Has the information been used effectively to advance the objectives that the project sets
out to address?
Had credibility been established by participants checking and verifying the information
recorded.
Has there been peer discussion to enable research facilitators to reflect on and share
findings?
Have the limitations that arose from the pragmatic realities of investigation been noted?
(see endnote)
2.4. Clarity of results of the projects
Results could also reveal the ways participants describe and interpret their own experience
of the objectives of the project?
Are events, activities and contexts described from the perspective of the participants? (see
endnote)
3. Literature Review/Use of Theory
3.1. Does the project yield efforts to build new theory, with theory understood as the critique of
the conditions of knowledge production?
3.2 Theory is a critique of the conditions of one?s own knowledge production. Is there a relation
of theory to other professional practices and to other dimensions of cultural work such as
the local, the everyday, and the material? (see endnote)
4. Presentation
4.1 Is there a logical structure and sequencing to the dissertation
4.2 Is the technical presentation (language, referencing, footnoting etc) acceptable
4.3 Clarity of Conclusions/contextualization
Are the conclusions of the project clearly stated and the outcomes summarized?
Are the stakeholders viewpoints in the broader social context represented?
Are the implications for policies programs, services and practices relating to the people and
the issue investigated presented?
Are there suggested actions that may be initiated that will improve existing programs or
services? (see endnote)
4.4 Quality of Communication
Does the report clearly express its case, measured against the technical language of the
field?
Does the voice of the research facilitator and participants remain in the forefront and
present the perspectives of the principal stakeholders?
Is the language accessible and user friendly to the community it collaborated with?
What is the standard of the writing, including spelling and grammar? (If English is a second
language, was there access to editorial support?) (see endnote)
290

5 Contribution to technology or knowledge
5.1 Focus on values of human dignity, care justice and interpersonal respect
Does the project demonstrate a critical self-awareness of the author?s own perspectives
and interests?
Does it show awareness of the possibility of alternative or competing perspectives: such as
other cultural, social, political, theoretical or intellectual perspectives?
Does it show an awareness and sensitivity of the practical implications of the ideas it is
advancing?
Are participants? personal voices and stories honoured? (see endnote)
5.2 Are those in the study active participants in collaborative research with claims over
any research material produced?
Have ethical steps been taken by the research facilitator to maintain the rights and privacy
of research participants, including procedures that guard against unwarranted intrusion,
and establish appropriate ownership and use of the products of investigation? (see
endnote)
5.3 Does the project use reflective or critical analysis of the production of artistic work
that leads to diverse outcomes or products?
These may include new technologies, the creation of new programs within the university
and in community settings; research into community cultural practices and scholarly writing
that conveys that research so that it has an impact on an academic readers and on other
constituencies beyond an academic readership. (see endnote)
5.4 Does the research endeavour provide the student with the knowledge skills and
values required for cultural, societal and economic development
Community based research recognizes that any research process has multiple outcomes
and takes into account the need to enact ways of working that protect or enhance the
dignity and identities of all people involved. It is orientated towards ways of organizing and
acting professional and community life that are democratic, equitable, liberating and life
enhancing. The following questions are indicators to the question above. (see endnote)Are
the processes collaborative?
Do they generate a sense of purpose and energy?
Do they provide the means for the accomplishment of goals to produce conditions that
enhance participant?s personal social and professional lives?
5.5 Community practice
Are the recommendations useful to community practice?

291
Endnotes:

ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR EVALUATION CRITERIA

The NOTES on each explanation are direct extracts from Marcia Hills and Jennifer Mullett, from the
Community Health Promotion Coalition in Canada; Community-Based Research: Creating Evidence-
Based Practice for Health and Social Change, Paper presented at the Qualitative Evidence-based
Practice Conference, Coventry University, 2000.1

1 For reference to this full document Available:

NOTE to 1.1
Community-Based Research Focuses on Societal Change.
Unlike conventional orthodox research which focuses on prediction or understanding alone,
community-based research seeks to bring about change. It is premised on the fact that engaging in a
participatory, collaborative research process, and being involved the decision-making about that
process is empowering and transforming. Engagement in the process allows people to develop new
ways of thinking, behaving and practising

NOTE to 1.2
Community-based research must have a high degree of relevance to the community. Community-
based research focuses the research endeavour in the context of daily work activities in order to solve
problems and help make those activities more effective and ultimately more satisfying. The research
should result in decision-making by the community (i.e. individuals, community agencies, health units,
program managers, etc.) or provide information which is in some other way directly useful to the
community in which it is initiated.

It involves asking questions such as:
What are the practical problems we are facing in our work in the community?
What are some questions and concerns regarding the community and health-related activities within
that community?
What issues are the focus of community attention?
Questions such as these guide the selection of meaningful research topics and provide for the
development of appropriate research questions for community-based research (Hills and Mullet
2000a).

NOTE to 2.1:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00001388.htm
(Accessed 12/12/2008).
292
The terms ?methodology? and ?methods? are often confused. For our purposes, we define methodology
as a conceptual framework for doing research that is grounded in theory. Methods are the techniques
and procedures we use for collecting data.

One methodology that is particularly well suited to community-based research is co-operative inquiry
(Heron 1996, Reason 1994). Co-operative inquiry is a participatory action methodology that does
research with people not on to or about them. This methodology engages people in a transformative
process of change by cycling through several iterations of action and reflection. Co-operative inquiry
consists of a series of logical steps including: identifying the issues/questions to be researched,
developing an explicit model/framework for practice, putting the model into practice and recording
what happens, reflecting on the experience and making sense out of the whole venture (Reason
1994). Therefore, evidence about what constitutes ?best practice? is generated by people examining
their practices in practice and reflecting on these practices. Community-based research is not and
cannot be method-driven. The methods used to collect information about people and the human
condition derive from and are contained by the principles of community-based research, the preferred
methodology (co-operative inquiry), and the research question.

NOTE to 2.2:
In community-based research, whichever method is chosen, it needs to accommodate the notion of
full participation of those involved. As a result, qualitative methods such as interviewing, journal
writing, taped interactions, critical incidents, narrative accounts and focus groups are likely to be used.

NOTE to 2.3:
To provide evidence for practice that involves people, those people themselves must be involved in
deciding what the appropriate methods are for collecting evidence and how the evidence can be
interpreted. ?To generate knowledge about persons without their full participation in deciding how to
generate it, is to misrepresent their personhood and to abuse by neglect their capacity for autonomous
intentionally. It is fundamentally unethical? (Heron 1996: 21, Hills and Mullet 2000a).

NOTE to 2.4:
By engaging all stakeholders in the research process it does not leave to chance the usefulness of the
outcomes of the research. By full involvement of community groups and policymakers, decisions can
be made throughout the process about how to use the information to bring about change.

NOTE to 3:
In contrast to orthodox science, community-based research does not see theory as something that is
known and that ?informs? practice. As van Manen (1990) suggests ?practice (or life) comes first and
theory comes later as a result of reflection.? In community-based research, it is the cycling through the
293
iterations of action and reflection in which experiential knowing and propositional knowing are
considered in relation to practical knowing that creates praxis and that generates evidence for future
practice. This process grounds practice in theory rather than applying theory to practice. It is through
this emancipatory dialogue that people are liberated to act in ways that enhance society.
Conceptualizing the relationship between theory and practice this way reorients our thinking about
research from searching for understanding and explanation to ethical action toward societal good

NOTE to 4.4:
Community-based research acknowledges the value of multiple ways of knowing but, even more
significantly, it recognizes the value of the knowledge that community members contribute to the co-
creation of new knowledge. Its focus on practical issues, problem-solving and change provides
evidence for practice that is immediately useful and relevant to communities.

NOTE to 4.5:
Stringer (1999) addresses the issue of clarity of writing style: ?The objective is to provide ways of
reporting that focus on the central objective of a report? ? the perspective of the stakeholder. The
intent is to provide ?clear and adequate representation of people?s experience?(1999: 184). ?The
principal purpose of the research is to extend people?s understanding of an issue by providing
detailed, richly described accounts that reveal the problematic, lived experience of stakeholders and
their interpretations of the issue investigated? (1999: 168). ?The researcher-writer takes a different
stance in the writing process. No longer ?experts? capable of defining, describing, and interpreting the
?facts? or ?truth?, the researcher-writers position themselves quite differently. They move toward writing
processes that assist others in describing and interpreting their own experience?(Stringer 1999: 208).
The products of the research include ?practice scripts? which are the plans, procedures, and models
derived from the final stages of action research that enable people to take direct action on the
problems they have investigated (Stringer 1999: 211).

NOTE to 5.1:
Rather than viewing participants as making ?equal? contributions, in the sense of doing the same thing,
community-based research emphasizes the unique strengths and contributions of the participants. It
goes beyond respect and trust for the person and includes valuing the work and perspectives of each
participant. It is a synergistic alliance that maximizes the contributions of each participant and it
focuses on shared responsibility for the research and research process.

NOTE to 5.2:
In community-based research, the community is actively involved in and understands the research
process. The research is driven by a partnership between the community and researchers, and tends
294
to be multi-disciplinary in nature. It is a collaborative effort involving the community at all stages of the
research process. The level of community and/or researcher involvement may vary at each stage of
the research, but community-based research involves joint responsibility and decision-making during
every step. It requires the researcher(s) and the community stakeholders to share power and control
of decision-making throughout the process. In a community-based research process, the distinction
between the researcher and the researched may be minimized or eliminated

NOTE to 5.3:
Community-Based Research is About Sustainability.
With orthodox research and many forms of qualitative research, as the research ends, so too does the
project. Community-based research makes a lasting contribution to the community. This may be in the
form of a new program that is ongoing, or a new service that is delivered. At times products such as
manuals or workbooks may be created. One of the most significant contributions is the enhanced
capacity of the community to continue to engage in future research or evaluation. The acquisition of
new skills and knowledge related to research and evaluation is an essential component of community-
based research.

NOTE to 5.4:
Human flourishing is viewed as a ?process of social participation in which there is a mutually enabling
balance, within and between people, of autonomy, co-operation and hierarchy? (Hills and Mullet
2000a). In this way, human flourishing is tied to practical knowing, knowing how to choose, how to be,
and how to practice in ways that are not only personally fulfilling but that also enhance and transform
the human condition. It means that in community-based research what is of interest is more than the
usual research outcome. The utility of the outcome is judged based on the difference it makes to
transforming the health and well-being of the community.

295
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