“…The struggle of black people inevitably appear in an intensely cultural form because the social formation in which their distinct political traditions are now manifest has constructed the arena of politics on ground overshadowed by centuries of metropolitan capitalist development, thereby denying them recognition as legitimate politics. Blacks conduct a class struggle in and through race. The BC of race and class cannot be empirically separated, the class character of black struggles is not a result of the fact that blacks are predominantly proletarian, thought this is true…”- (Frank Talk Staff Writers in ‘Azania Salutes Tosh’ – circa 1981)
front cover:
Tosh by Steve Gordon
back cover:
Kippie by Basil Breakey
Autonomy? by Kabelo Malatsie (2018)
This Masters project by Kabelo Malatsie explores the notion of autonomy and the effect of external funders on self-organised art institutions. Institutional self-censorship and its resulting loss of autonomy are brought to the fore. Through textual sources and practice-based research, the limitations of current funding models are discussed with the intention of instigating experimentation on alternative funding and institutional models that may provide a greater degree of autonomy.
The study establishes the South African art context through one-to-one interviews with a selection of founders of local self-organised art institutions, in order to establish the limitations of their respective funding models. The practical component is presented as a book to be published on the PAN!C website.
The book includes five interviews with founders of self-organised institutions, two round-table discussions that question the notion of autonomy and an introductory text to the book.