Social Cohesion and Nation Building
The arts play a significant role in contributing to nation building and social cohesion in South Africa. The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture asserts that social cohesion is the degree of social integration and inclusion in communities and society, and the extent to which mutual solidarity finds expression among individuals and communities. Therefore, from the perspective of this narrative, a community or society is cohesive to the extent that the inequalities, exclusions and disparities based on ethnicity, gender, class, nationality, age, disability or any other distinctions, which engender division and conflict, are reduced or eliminated in a planned and sustained manner.
It is important that funding requests are underpinned by equity, inclusivity, diversity and participation of various groups of people (women, youth, vulnerable people including those living with disabilities).
Some examples of these projects are those that have the sole aim of fostering social cohesion and nation building such as arts indabas, conferences, book fairs, art exhibitions, workshops, arts festivals, stage productions, performances, and creative writing.
Innovation, Design and Creation
This component focuses on driving content creation at both an individual and at an organisational level. Content creation lies at the heart of the creative industries. It aims to promote excellence and innovation in new works. New innovative designs and works must have intrinsic, economic value and incorporate the elements of dynamism and vibrancy to the arts.
Research and development are essential elements in the creation of new works. The modern meaning of Innovation is a new idea, creative thoughts, and new imagination in a form of device or method. Innovation is viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs. Design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object/artwork or system for the implementation of an activity or process. Creation is the act or process of bring something into existence.
An example of such a project, which demonstrated innovation, is called “African Robots meets SPACECRAFT. The artists used wire to build sculptures and breathed life into them using batteries to create mobility in the object. The artists assert that wire art is used for a range of subjects, however, the approach was to entertain and create a platform of wire art to be enjoyed by the public.
Platforms / showcases / exhibitions / festivals
Platforms enable the arts to be showcased and appreciated. It is important to develop and support the platforms required to showcase the arts. Arts content creation and distribution is important for the development of audiences, audience engagement and for the consumption of the arts. Platforms allow artists to showcase creativity, innovation, excellence and to enhance market access.
Applicants who wish to showcase artworks that have already been created or have passed the creative phase may apply. Applicants may want to organise music concerts, dance performances, poetry performances, craft fairs, exhibitions at galleries, public art or drama festivals, for example. In addition; visual artists and crafters who want to organise crafts fairs and exhibitions at Galleries for remote or online consumption can apply to this programme, as these projects meet the NAC’s objective to create market access and enrichment through arts and culture.
Strategic Initiatives
Strategic Initiatives help to raise the profile of the National Arts Council to develop and enable the promotion of the arts in South Africa. They include innovation, capacity building, the leveraging of finances, partnerships and focus on execution to deliver value in line with the National Arts Council’s overall mandate. Strategic Initiatives focus on working with partners to leverage available funding, build sustainable capacity and achieve real impact for the arts community.
These projects have the potential and capacity to attract, broaden public interest and involvement in the arts; they may include local and international collaborations. Projects with intent to grow the sector could be art events, festivals or capacity building projects and they assist the NAC in achieving its strategic objectives.
Innovation under this programme entails ground-breaking work and experimentation in various geographic regions, which grow and/or transform the sector by leveraging finances, and in-kind contributions.
Strategic partnerships would be with stakeholders such as the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), the Department of Basic Education and Foreign Funding Agencies for example. Projects may be formulated at the level of country-to-country partnerships, seasons programmes, performance circuits and so forth. These projects also tend to have a multiplier effect.
Budgets and funding requests for strategic initiatives tend require substantive partner support to be larger than those for ordinary arts projects because of their potential impact.
Capacity Building
Capacity building is an essential element for developing the arts to ensure excellence. Through high impact training and education programmes, strong well-rounded arts leaders are produced. The NAC supports formal education and informal training programs.
Capacity building entails the transfer of skills through programmes designed to empower art practitioners. This is done through formal education and training and informal education and training programmes.
A well-designed formal education and training programme in a particular area of knowledge and skills development is supported by a detailed training manual that has been improved over a period and tailor-made to address the current learning needs of students considering the needs of related industries. An example is a training course for theatre and drama for a duration of a year or more, which results in a qualification in the form of a certificate, diploma or degree. The attainment of the qualification is based on the excellent performance of a participant theoretically and practically.
AI has changed the playing field in the kind of jobs that are needed to compete in the global economy. An education programme that prepares students for an ever-evolving world, with a focus on innovation through creativity that leverages our indigenous knowledge systems, can change the narrative of artists dying as poppers.
An informal training programme entails capacity building for participants in the form of workshops or seminars and may take a short period to complete than a formal training programme. Most informal capacity building programmes are practical in nature. For example; script writing workshops may last for a week or more, and the result will be based on the practical assessment of participants in writing their own short stories, which may be showcased as a final product of the workshop with feedback from the audience noted for further development.
