Afrika Cultural Centre: Phoenix under Apartheid and Burnt Ember under Democracy?

Abstract

The achievement of independence from colonial rule by African countries was often signified as marking processes that were analogous to symbolic and political forms of rebirth.1 Implicit in such acts of representation were intimations that oppression was synonymous with barrenness (and even death) and that freedom was the necessary catalyst for many forms of renewal. In South Africa, the inauguration of the first democratically elected government in 1994 was accompanied by the dissemination of social and political imaginaries - such as the 'rainbow nation' and the 'African Renaissance' - which were meant to encapsulate moves away from the divisions, alienation, and destruction associated with apartheid, to the desired new collective and life-affirming possibilities that democracy offered. At the provincial and local levels, a similar disposition is apparent in the attempts by the Greater Metropolitan Council of Johannesburg to remake the city's history of racial and social exclusion, halt its decay and associations with crime and being unsafe, and rejuvenate and 'rebrand' it as a 'world-class city' with 'world-class facilities'. Arguably, one of the terrains where both the national and provincial projects aimed at creating a sense of national unity and global belonging has been in the hosting of mega-events such as the 2010 FIFA World Cup.While the broad schemas of rebirth and renaissance can be useful in mapping change diachronically, they often fail to take into full account the synchronic layers and complexities that often underscore, and sometimes call into question, the seemingly uncomplicated forward-moving sense of temporality and social transformation. The latter possibility is sharply captured in the thorny status and histories of community art centres in South Africa. Since their emergence in the early twentieth century in urban areas, in the aftermath of the industrial revolution across the country following the discoveries of diamonds and gold, community art centres have been compelled to negotiate the contending interests and visions of the many social groups that have sought to develop and use them.Whether faced initially with the needs of migrants and workers or, later on, the wants of settled urban communities, community art centres were saddled with many-layered and complicated creative and social objectives, primarily organized around the need to provide education and recreation. Underlying such objectives, however, were significant socio-political imperatives and projects as well. Whether articulated by philanthropists, social workers, artists, or representatives of communities or government, a number of common concerns can be discerned. These included the wish to promote 'wholesome' values and conduct as an antidote to the alienation and crime associated with urbanization. Alternatively, the arts were championed as a crucial component of the rehearsal and performance of a black public sphere, facilitating and embedding progressive forms of consciousness and resistance in response to the marginalization and subjugation produced by oppression and exploitation. Lastly, community art centres provided much-needed training and imparted skills across a range of artistic forms, and they also served as crucial catalytic sites for the circulation of ideas and the fostering of local and group identities.This essay is an attempt to reflect on the complicated experiences of community art centres in South Africa between 1975 and the present as encapsulated in the rise and demise of the Afrika Cultural Centre (ACC). The impulse behind the essay is to acknowledge the important cultural and political role performed by community art centres in South Africa in the period 197094.The singular import and achievements of community art centres are not always acknowledged, and, if recognized, it is seldom with a deep appreciation of the various levels and interventions of radical possibilities that community cultural centres made possible during the period of apartheid. …