Do You Speak VANSA?
by Gabi Ngcobo
The Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA) is an organisation established by and for South African artists and arts practitioners to represent and lobby in the interests of the visual arts. Focused on issues of art and social development, VANSA seeks to foreground existing historical imbalances and deal with concerns around access, opportunities and coherence within the visual arts sector.
Background
In 2002 the International Cultural Diversity Network (ICDN) conference took place in Cape Town and here it became apparent that the visual arts did not have representation on a national level. VANSA was formed in response to this need, to represent the interests of the visual arts sector and to systematically and constructively address the historical imbalances in access and opportunity that continue to characterise the sector.
The first meeting to set up VANSA was held at the Johannesburg Civic Centre in 2003. Here a national committee was elected and regional representatives were designated to spearhead the formation of regional steering committees in their areas, and bring on board provinces that were not represented at the initial meeting. These were the Eastern Cape, the Free State (allocated to KwaZulu-Natal), Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the North West Province (allocated to Gauteng) and the Northern Cape (allocated to Western Cape).
Modelled, to some degree, on the Performing Arts Network of South Africa (PANSA), VANSA was set up to make the voices of visual art practitioners heard and to promote and support their practice at every level. It is envisaged that the Network will also serve as a crucial advisory mechanism for government initiatives that have a bearing on the visual arts. Workshops and meetings with the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) have taken place and have proved fruitful in forging a strong working relationship between the two.
VANSA membership consists of and is open to individual visual arts practitioners, community arts practitioners, curators, gallerists, administrators, as well as organisations, institutions and service providers that participate in or serve the visual arts sector.
VANSA Conference
As no major collective meeting of the visual arts community has yet taken place at a national level, VANSA has undertaken to host a national conference for the visual arts. Also, to date, the visual arts has been largely absent from the DAC�s agenda: the bulk of research and policy development has occurred in craft, publishing, music, performing arts and film.
In preparation for the conference and in view of the lack of transformation within the visual arts sector, VANSA formed a partnership in 2004 with CAPE, which aims to organise an Africa-based showcase and a platform for discourse and cultural exchange with a long-term vision of building a more coherent and sustainable African cultural network.
Between October and December 2004, with the support of CAPE and through funding from the NAC and the Arts and Culture Trust (ACT) which CAPE raised for VANSA, I, as a member of the KZN steering committee and on behalf of VANSA, undertook a process of consultation on what the proposed VANSA conference should address. The consultation process took the form of one-day workshops, which were hosted in Limpopo, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.
These four meetings revealed a common desire for the transformation of the visual arts sector. As with many other areas within the creative industries, the process of transformation has been slow, with the majority of South Africans still finding entry into the sector problematic. However, transformation in the visual arts sector has been considerably unhurried when compared with the performing arts for example. The number of black students enrolling at tertiary level has shown no major increase over the years, and black women particularly are still invisible as active participants in the sector. Thembinkosi Goniwe, artist and History of Art Doctoral candidate at Cornel University, challenged this in 2003 during the 19th South African Art and Architecture Historians conference (SAAAH) held at Stellenbosch University. His statement, ''We' (art historians) should be ashamed because there are no black women as audience and presenters alike' was met with reactionary excitement from the conference delegates.
Such reactions highlight a refusal to take responsibility and acknowledge the problem for which 'we' must all take responsibility, rather than blaming apartheid for the invisibility of black role players. Without a doubt, there have been a number of initiatives and individuals who have taken up the challenges presented in this post-apartheid era in forums that promote dialogue and create space to confront the challenges.
Active Transformation
The upcoming VANSA conference is also aimed at foregrounding transformation, a concern that filters through all other VANSA activities at national and provincial levels. A membership drive taken up by John Smith of the KZN steering committee in 2003 took place in a form of a Road Show and managed to draw close to 150 new members. The KZN committee also intervened in the proposed closure of the sculpture and ceramics department at the Durban Institute of Technology's Fine Arts department, something that would have been detrimental to the whole KZN art community. DIT has since continued to offer classes in these disciplines to students and community organisations like the Velobala Group alike. In addition to this, VANSA lobbied the eThekwini municipality over their cultural policy. Such initiatives and interventions have ensured that VANSA's voice is heard.
In the Western Cape, a VANSA logo competition was run, attracting more than 50 entries. Amongst other things VANSA Western Cape organised a screening of Vuyile Voyiya and Julie McGee's controversial The Luggage is Still Labeled: Blackness in South African Art, and also made submissions to the city of Cape Town Arts Policy.
Partnerships with existing organisations have been integral to VANSA. These include VANSA Limpopo's partnership with PANSA, the Limpopo Arts and Culture Association (LACA), CAPE, DAC and various art galleries in different city centres. These include the AVA Gallery, KZNSA Gallery and the Johannesburg Art Gallery. These partnerships reflect the support that VANSA has gained and the cooperation it has received from the visual arts community.
The upcoming VANSA conference aims to consolidate these efforts into one national forum so as to reflect on and celebrate the achievements of the sector over the last decade. The conference will also identify critical issues facing the sector and debate and strategise around ways of effectively addressing these. A national forum like this will also enable networking, information-sharing and the development of partnerships between all role players within the sector, all of which are fundamental to the transformation, growth and opportunity the conference seeks to foster.
Gabi Ngcobo is Assistant Curator at Iziko South African National Gallery, National Vice Chair of VANSA and Co-chair of VANSA Western Cape
