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African Art repatriation
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An international foundation set up by the Ministry of Arts
and Culture to repatriate elements of South Africa's struggle-era heritage
received a substantial boost in London last week, writes Shaun Benton. Collectors of South African art brought along artworks to donate to the institution at a ceremony at the South African High Commission, situated prominently at a corner of Trafalgar Square in central London. |
24 Apr 2007 found at buanews.gov.za
A former UK ambassador to South Africa, Lord Robin Renwick, was brought on board
the Ifa Lethu Foundation at the ceremony.
He has a long association with southern Africa, having been the British
ambassador to South Africa from 1987 to 1991.
Lord Renwick is expected to play a key role in assisting the Ifa Lethu
Foundation to trace and repatriate tangible parts of South Africa's heritage.
Other members of the Ifa Lethu Global Advisory Council, include the United
States' former ambassador to South Africa, Princeton Lyman, and Malcolm Fraser,
a once-prominent figure in Australian politics.
Members of the Ifa Lethu Foundation and South African government officials were
reportedly surprised at the immediacy of the success of its UK launch.
This occurred when people walked through the doors of the South African High
Commission carrying South African struggle-era artworks to donate to the
foundation.
Lord Renwick was welcomed on to the Global Advisory Council of the Foundation by
the Foundation's chairperson, Dr Mamphela Ramphele.
"The goal of the Foundation is to define the universe of south African
heritage falling within its scope, identify their locations and repatriate
representative collections from across the globe and house them in suitable
repositories and institutions," Dr Ramphele said.
The Ifa Lethu Foundation was launched in November 2005 by the Minister of Arts
and Culture, Dr Pallo Jordan, to repatriate South Africa's "struggle
era" heritage, such as art, art objects, film, music and archival
documents.
The collections of the Ifa Lethu Foundation will, according Dr Ramphele,
"be introduced to the people of South Africa by generating imaginative
educational and other outreach activities and creating a living project
dedicated to the nation's healing process."
With Lord Renwick now on board the foundation in Britain, the success of the
foundation in collecting the vast array of materials that played a role in the
struggle against apartheid is substantially boosted.
Britain's anti-apartheid and struggle solidarity organisations were among the
most vocal and effective in the world.
Speaking at the South African High Commission last week, Lord Renwick said:
"More people in Britain were involved in the struggle against apartheid
than, probably, in any country except for South Africa itself and part of that
heritage resides here [in the UK].
"I hope that all those who do possess works of art, documents or other
mementos of that struggle will consider making them available to Ifa Lethu."
According to the South African High Commission, Lord Renwick "will also ask
for the support of people in the United Kingdom to assist the Foundation in
identifying tangible heritage material that may be held by individuals,
especially members of the diplomatic community who were posted to South Africa
in the apartheid era, business executives who may have purchased such material
and members of the former British anti-apartheid movement".
One of the central ambitions of the Ifa Lethu Foundation is to develop pride in
the country through its work on assembling the country's heritage, much of which
was produced outside the country during the decades of struggle against the
apartheid regime.
The vision of the Ifa Lethu Foundation, says the High Commission, is to be an
institution which fosters a culture of understanding and healing through South
African heritage and through the artistic material produced by South Africa's
"struggle-era" artists.
Also at the event last week, attended by around 100 people, were senior staff
from the British Museum and a wide array of UK media, according to the
Foundation's South African publicists, who described it as probably "the
best Ifa Lethu event held anywhere".
Ifa Lethu chief executive officer Narissa Ramdhani has reported that several
people brought South African paintings with them to the event last night to
donate to the Foundation.
These artworks were added to the almost 200 pieces of art already collected,
according to Ms Ramdhani, from Australia, the US, Switzerland, Canada, Holland,
Spain and India since the Ifa Lethu Foundation was launched in November 2005.
Also present last night were Mamphela Ramphele, the Ifa Lethu chairperson, and
Janet Boateng, the wife of Britain's High Commissioner to South Africa, Paul
Boateng.
Other efforts by the Foundation include the production of a coffee-table book,
"Walking Tall Without Fear", which showcases collections of South
African township art produced in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Ifa Lethu has also built a Mobile Heritage Gallery that will travel to rural
areas of South Africa, taking the country's struggle heritage to communities,
along with the crafting of educational and tourism programmes for these
communities.
The Foundation has launched a children's book on art and heritage for South
African schools and for inclusion in school curriculum; developed training
programmes in art and heritage for South African learners and implemented
projects to empower struggle-era artists.
"These artworks are the country's rare, tangible heritage which reflects
the socio-political situation of South Africa during apartheid," Ms
Ramdhani has said.
"They are our link to the past - a link that allows us to develop pride in
young South Africans in what belongs to them. After all, youth will be the
stewards of such heritage as they are the future of South Africa."
"At Ifa Lethu we want to use heritage such as artworks as a weapon, much as
before, but this time to inform, to empower all South Africans and to break down
those cultural barriers that have caused so much pain and finally to teach South
Africans to transcend adversity and heal the nation." - BuaNews
More news about African Art at www.african-antiques.com
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