In rural South African villages, aging artists are running an after-school art club to train the next generation of textile makers before their knowledge disappears. The Keiskamma Art Project has employed 50 to 100 village women since 2001, producing internationally exhibited textile works rooted in Xhosa traditions. But the artists are growing older, and no younger cohort is ready to replace them. Government schools in the Eastern Cape do not prioritise art education—a legacy of apartheid, which repressed Black South African cultural traditions—and teachers themselves were never trained in art. At home, parents have no time for creative play due to work and domestic demands. This project establishes a weekly art club for 8- to 16-year-olds in Hamburg and Bodiam, led by Keiskamma artists and visiting facilitators. It provides training, lesson plans, and family engagement sessions to rebuild intergenerational creative practice. A funders pack and video will attract corporate investment to sustain the club beyond the start-up phase. If successful, the club will secure the creative economy in this rural area, improve arts education quality, and strengthen community wellbeing through shared creative play—directly addressing Sustainable Development Goals for education and health.
View original technical description
Guernica Remakings art club in South Africa, has a focus on the rural villages of Hamburg and Bodiam in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. These locations are the home of the Keiskamma Art Project. The Keiskamma Art Project has been running since 2001 and has consistently employed village women, a group ranging from 50 to 100. The Keiskamma Art Project is known for its large-scale textile artworks, which are internationally exhibited, they work with a personal and local iconography drawing upon Xhosa traditions. The artists in the project are now aging. There is collective concern regarding who will be the next generation of artists at the Keiskamma Art Project. This collective concern was articulated by Production Manager Cebo Mvubu and Artist Nozeti Makhubalo during the intergenerational art and peace painting workshop run during the AHRC funded project with the Keiskamma Art Project AH/W00612X/1-2021-2023. The challenge this project addresses is that art education and creative play are not prioritised in government funded schools in South Africa. During the apartheid era artistic and cultural traditions specific to Black South Africans were repressed. Consequently, current schoolteachers in this rural location had limited to no art education. Lack of art education persists and is exacerbated by the lack of creative play between primary carers and children at home, due to the demands of work and domestic life. This project aims to invest in the longevity of the creative economy in this rural area of South Africa, through developing an art based pedagogic practice. The objective is to co-develop a weekly after school art club for 8- to 16-year-olds to be delivered by artists from the Keiskamma Art Project and invited arts facilitators - growing a network of art educators bringing expertise to Hamburg/Bodiam. This art club will also incorporate moments for family engagement, to grow the capacity of families to see and experience the importance of shared intergenerational creative play. This project responds to the needs and the priorities of the Keiskamma Art Project facilitating the co-creation of a club ethos and mission statement; it will provide training and mentoring to lead and facilitate learning through creative play; co-deliver 6 days of art workshops for 8-16 year olds across two villages; develop a scaffolded sequence of lesson plans and teaching resources and make a video to encapsulate the art club's ethos and best practice. A second funders pack and video will be created to attract corporate social investment to sustain the club beyond this start-up phase. Actively investing in the development of the next generation of artists supports the longevity of the Keiskamma Art Project. This will have a significant impact on the rural creative economy in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. It will improve the quality of arts education (Sustainable Development Goal 4 Quality Education) and improve the community's wellbeing (Sustainable Development Goal 3 Good health and Well-being) through the cultivation of intergenerational creative play and connection.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know