🚀 go-pugleaf

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 10:13:27 EDT
From: Sam Lanfranco <LANFRAN@VM1.YORKU.CA>
Subject: Ideas from a Window on South Africa

The recent democratic elections in South Africa represent a historic
turning point for South Africa and a re-entry on the global stage at
many levels. The following NOTICE OF CONFERENCE is posted to CANALC
to give CANALC readers an idea of the immediate response to changes
on the part of the Academic Community in South Africa. - ACADCOM Mgt.
------------------------ forwarded ---------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 20 May 1994 09:18:13 -0400
From:         TOMASELL <TOMASELL@SUPERBOWL.UND.AC.ZA>
Subject:      Visual Voice Conference, NATAL, South Africa

               Visual Voice Festival Conference

The VISUAL VOICE FESTIVAL CONFERENCE is a University of Natal
(Durban, South Africa) initiative launched by a Committee
comprising prominent faculty members from a variety of
departments and research centres.

Other interested parties drawn from a wide cultural spectrum
of civil society have joined the Committee. Commercial
organisations, civic groups, community associations and
foreign consulates are represented.

VISUAL VOICE will revolve around an Ethnographic Film Festival
screening South African and foreign films. International
filmmakers and experts in Visual Anthropology and Orality will
be specially invited, along with recognised Development
Communication Scholars.

Prospective delegates already approached have responded
enthusiastically. The French Embassy has agreed to sponsor a
visit by Professor Colette Piault, a leading authority based
in Paris. Other foreign governments (e.g Italy) have indicated
a willingness to participate.

Another dynamic aspect of VISUAL VOICE is the Roundtable on
Development Communication -- which will also be a first for
the University. Development Support Communication is the prime
activity of African communication scholars to the North of
South Africa but has yet to be systematically taken up by
academics in South Africa.

The link between ethnographic film and development
communication is a vital new area for debate.

The Centre for Oral Studies is perfectly placed to extend
these pioneering efforts by incorporating orality into the
field of ethnographic filmmaking and development
communication.

In the virtually unique blending of ethnographic film with
development communication and orality VISUAL VOICE will also
highlight the University as a potential leader in the
increasingly vital area of development in the post-apartheid
era..

This will encourage ongoing programmes in curriculum and
course development and interdisciplinary co-operation, for
example, an MA course in visual anthropology/sociology and a
Centre for Development Communication. Currently, a visual
anthropology Honours course option and MA by thesis work are
available.

VISUAL VOICE will encourage inter-institutional co-operation
and working relationships with film and video production
companies and NGO's like the Film and Allied Workers
Organisation (FAWO), the national broadcaster and other TV
stations which will develop after the airwaves have been
deregulated.

VISUAL VOICE will stress the possibilities of audio-visual
media for cross-cultural communication and act as a bridge
between African and international filmmakers. The Festival
will emphasise the use of TV and video as a communication tool
in the process of the development of under-represented and
marginalised peoples and encourage development issues to
appear on the agenda of TV programming. VISUAL VOICE will link
the University with those groups working to establish
community TV stations.

A special event will be the screening of films made by
students and films representing women's issues.

Proposed satellite events for the '94 festival include:

*    The Mobile Ethnographic Film Festival -- an outreach
     programme taking films to the townships, rural areas,
     schools and the Grahamstown Festival.

*    Storytelling, ethnic puppetry, oral poetry, dance, mime
     and music around the city and in the townships.

*    The Cultural Highway -- will include a specially
     commissioned African sourced structure -- cultural beacon
    to be erected at the University. The beacon will point
    towards Cairo where hopefully a similar beacon will be
    erected pointing towards the original University beacon
    in Durban.

     The structure will include a mini ethnographic museum and
     a performance area. It will be surrounded by the
     specially created Khangelani Africa Park.

     As an ongoing programme over the years cultural beacons
     will be erected in all the countries of Africa, echoing
     the University beacon but introducing elements of the
     particular cultures of the host country.

     The Cultural Highway will initiate a programme of
     introducing African themes on to the landscape of the
     campus. This will naturally provide a wonderful
     opportunity for University staff (eg Architecture,
     Quantity Surveying) and students (eg Fine Arts, Speech
     and Drama) to co-operate on a major cultural programme
     with artists drawn from various indigenous groups as well
     as anthropologists and urban designers concerned with the
     development of the Greater Durban Area. The design of the
     Khangelani Africa park is being co-ordinated by Vusi
     Mchunu of the Umzansi Art Centre in Claremont. The park
     and beacon will provide an exciting and appropriate
     landmark for visitors and tourists to the University.

*    Starting a film-museum which will help to encourage a new
     South African film culture

*    Establish an archive of ethnographic films for
     distribution to libraries, schools, universities, museums
     and industry.  The income generated could be used to
     extend the educational facilities of the museum.

Further points

VISUAL VOICE in intended as a regular biennial event, but will
also be held in 1995. It has the full support of the
Commission of Visual Anthropology (International Union of
Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences).

The Festival is directly linked to efforts to establish a
community TV station in Durban and to the education and
training of indigenous and marginalised peoples to make
videos/films about their own needs and concerns and to finally
be in a position to represent themselves.

A documentary video on VISUAL VOICE has been produced with
input from video trainees. It has already been broadcast on
South African TV.

A new popular journal titled THE VISUAL VOICE will be launched
to co-incide with the Festival. It will include visual
communication articles on topics ranging from storytelling to
the cutting edge of multi-media. Some of the articles will be
available on disc/floppy.

Life in the New South Africa after the Elections will be very
different -- full of new opportunity and uncertainty. It is
clear that people from different racial backgrounds will be
interacting far more frequently. The University has launched
VISUAL VOICE at an historically appropriate moment.

            For further information please contact

                        Mikhail Peppas
             Centre for Cultural and Media Studies
                      University of Natal
                     King George V Avenue
                          Durban 4001
                         South Africa

                       Tel +31 260-2505
                       Fax +31 260-3265

             E-mail:  tomasell@superbowl.und.ac.za