Culture-Led Placemaking in Johannesburg
19 & 20 October 2019
Biographies of Speakers
Stephen Hobbs
Stephen is co-director of artist collaborative and arts consultancy – The Trinity Session - with Marcus Neustetter. Founded in 2001, The Trinity Session works in contemporary art production defined by exchanges with their home city Johannesburg, in relation to Africa and similar developed / developing contexts. Their practice includes temporary interventions and performances and the production and curation of large scale exhibitions and public art programs.
He graduated with a BAFA from Wits in 1994, and Johannesburg as a post-apartheid city has continued to serve as a critical reference point for his artistic and curatorial insights. He served as the curator of the Market Theatre Galleries (Newtown) from 1994 to 2000. In 2017 Hobbs joined the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg, as Unit Leader and resident critic. More information on his practice can be found on his website.
Tumi Moroeng
Tumi is a Creative Social Entrepreneur who is passionate about the creative arts and culture. He is an experienced artist manager, creative arts and culture facilitator, events and project manager, coordinator and arts administrator. He has training in dance choreography (Moving into Dance) and in business skills (Wits). He has worked in talent management and as a project coordinator for Assitej South Africa.
Tumi is the founder and director of the Makers Valley Collective, a community grouping who are working to make a positive change in the area to the west of Johannesburg - from Bez Valley to Troyeville. Its misson is to "promote and help create better access to information, markets, networks and maker spaces where people of all backgrounds come to learn how to work with their hands, to explore, experiment and where barriers are overcome inclusively and equally". It is committed to inclusivity and working towards overcoming spatial and economic inequalities.
Mariapaola Mcgurk
Mariapaola is the Managing Director of The Coloured Cube (formed in 2014). The organisation provides services to the arts sector, NGOs, government and the private sector - a ‘one stop creative shop’ for new approaches to content sharing and development, audience engagement and exhibitions. Through the Creative Co-Lab: a physical space in Benrose, Johannesburg, it offers workshops, collaborations, custom manufactures and projects, while furthering skills development, sharing and making.
She has her honours in Visual Arts - cum laude from UJ, and a Certificate in Business Management from Unisa. After completing her visual arts diploma in 2001 Mariapaola went on to being a full time artist/painter. Following her honours in 2010, Mariapaola was employed as the curator of FADA Gallery at UJ. She has opened a number of small businesses and developed skills and a passion for entrepreneurship. She is currently completing an MBA.
Molemo Moiloa
Molemo is an independent arts practitioner and researcher based in Johannesburg. She was previously director of the Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA), Manager of Public Programmes at Market Photo Workshop, and a sessional lecturer in Social Anthropology department at the University of the Witwatersrand. She is one half of the artist collaborative MADEYOULOOK, recently nominated for the Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics 2016/17. She is a Chevening Clore Fellow 2016/17, and winner of the Vita Basadi Award for 2017. She will speak on the Revolution Room project based in Cosmo City, a post-apartheid urban settlement in the north-west of Johannesburg. The participatory initiative, underpinned by intensive mapping, explored ways in which community residents and resident structures could determine an engagement with the public realm, through interventions in ‘common space’ developed out of collaborations between artists, citizens and museum professionals.
Biographies of Respondents and Chairs
Avril Joffe
Avril is a development economist and head of the Cultural Policy and Management Department, at the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand. Avril’s areas of focus are cultural policy design, implementation and evaluation; value, mapping and assessment of the cultural economy for evidence-based policy making; strategic planning for the arts; cultural entrepreneurship; and, foregrounding arts and culture in urban and city development. She has notably developed generic cultural policy frameworks and toolkits on fundraising for the arts in Africa and was recently part of the Ministerial-appointed review panel to rewrite South Africa’s cultural policy. She designed and facilitated training programmes. Further she has worked as a specialist researcher, policy analyst, evaluator and consultant on behalf of major internal bodies, and across Africa. She serves on the UNESCO expert facility on cultural policy and governance and on the International Advisory Committee for the UK's Cultural and Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Council.
Zayd Minty
Zayd is a cultural management professional and researcher. He has worked, primarily in South Africa: on local cultural governance initiatives; in post-apartheid museums, community arts centres, festivals and networks; and with public and contemporary arts projects. He has a special interest in understanding how culture could be better mobilised at localised levels to enable more sustainable, integrated and just cities in the global South. He is currently working on his doctorate looking at the Newtown Cultural Precinct and its implications for cultural governance, through the African Centre for Cities. He has been running Creative City South since 2017 – which serves as a platform for documenting and popularising urban cultural policies and practises for sustainable cities in the global South. He is a research associate at the University of Witwatersrand at the Cultural Policy and Management Department of the School of Arts.
Munyaradzi Chatikobo
Chati is a lecturer in Cultural Policy and Management and Drama for Life in the Wits School of Arts. He has interest and experience in culture and development, arts management, cultural leadership training, cultural and creative industries as well as cultural diplomacy. His research interest is in cultural policy implementation with particular focus on the interface between cultural policies and community arts. He is a board member for Nhimbe Trust and CHIPAWO Trust in Zimbabwe. Munyaradzi graduated from University of Zimbabwe in 1995 with Special Honours in Theatre Arts. In 2009 he attained a Master of Arts Degree in Applied Drama and Theatre under Drama for Life in Wits School of Arts- University of the Witwatersrand. He is a registered PhD candidate in the Wits School of Arts and his area of study is Cultural Policy and Community Theatre in South Africa.
Sizakele Angel Khumalo
Sizakele Angel is a community facilitator, art consultant and art photographer who is committed to the development of Johannesburg's young black community through her company Platinum Sketch - set up in 2013. She was trained at the Market Photo Workshop and worked as a freelance photographer, gallery attendant, and assistant curator on a number of photographic projects. Her artistic work explores and documents a range of social issues—gender and sexuality, urban space, ethnicity, as well as tensions between traditional and modern practices. In 2015, Khumalo co-founded the Jeppe Photo Club, which provided equipment, photography classes and mentorship for youth in Jeppestown with the aim of enabling young people to tell stories and engage their community through photography. She has also worked closely with organisations, such as Sticky Situations, Trinity Session and The Coloured Cube, to implement public art projects throughout Johannesburg and the surrounding areas. Her activities are rooted in deep community engagement, creating a network of local artists to implement site-specific public art pieces.
Myer Taub
Myer teaches in the Theatre and Performance Division (TAP) in the Wits School of the Arts, and was previously Senior Lecturer in the Drama Department at the University of Pretoria. His most recent works include a one-woman play, Florence, which premiered at the Market Theatre in August 2018, a multi-disciplinary performance Adore for the Bag Factory’s exhibition Trans (2018), and Birds of the Grove, commissioned by The Trinity Session and the Johannesburg Development Agency. He has been working on and walking the spruit in sections of Johannesburg as part of an ongoing embodied ecological investigation into narratives of the city and water.
KYLA DAVIS
Kyla is a director, producer, theatremaker, performer and Climate Justice activist. She is the Director of Well Worn Theatre Company, an independent physical theatre company. She won the Arts and Culture Trust ImpAct Award for Theatre in 2010 and was recognised as one of the Mail and Guardian’s 100 Women of 2010 and 200 Young People in 2011 for this work. She was selected for the NosadellaDue Residency for Public Art in Bologna. Kyla is passionate about theatre for young audiences and was part of the driving force behind the Theatre4Youth Project for ASSITEJ South Africa. She has produced three new touring eco-theatre productions funded by the National Lotteries Commission.