While formal arts education was inaccessible to many during Apartheid, community-based centres played a significant role in the training of previously disadvantaged artists. By engaging in a socio-political critique of the history of South African art, this thesis argues that even though alternative art spaces are often marginalised, they remain essential to the diversification and democratisation of contemporary South African art today with its re-entry into the international art scene. According to Lize van Robbroeck (2004:52), “some of the fundamental ideals of community arts need to be revised to enrich, democratize and diversify [South Africa's] cultural practice.” The aim of my Thesis is to investigate this statement in relation to the contribution the Community Arts Project (CAP) in Cape Town (1977-2003). CAP and other art centres have played an indispensable role in the establishment of black artists and in producing a locally reflective artistic practice in South Africa, even into the 21st century. Through researching the changes the organisation underwent between the 1980s and 1990s, the ways in which such art centres constantly need to respond to the changing sociopolitical landscape around them become clear. Within South Africa these centres were seen to play a significant part in the liberation struggle and then later in nation building. While these centres were well supported by foreign donors in the late 1980s, such funding was withdrawn in 1991 and the majority of art centres collapsed, illustrating to some degree that the training of artist was not valued outside the context of the struggle against apartheid. By interviewing key people and by reading documentation stored at the Manuscripts and Archives department of UCT I have discovered some of the different benefits and hindrances of working in community art centres both during and after Apartheid. This thesis argues that these centres still play a vital role in contributing to the development of South Africa's local art practice and should not be relegated to the sideline.

This study looks at artists’ careers as paths defined by their relative position in a dynamic professional network where innovation and creativity are highly regarded. Today, the theoretical and empirical study of networks has demonstrated that in some professions the individuals’ position in the network can facilitate or constrain their success. In studies about diffusion of information, for instance, some authors have found that individuals connected to a greater variety of sources are more creative and perform better. I explored this idea by looking at a network of visual artists and art institutions in Miami, and found a positive correlation between position and success, though, not explained by variety exclusively. In the network, artistic success is a function of connecting both across artistic categories and a hierarchical system; therefore, in an art world, creativity and innovation are mediated by key members, who distribute information and resources through affiliation, prominence and brokerage. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Latin American telenovelas have been exported to more than a hundred countries across the globe. While they are popular in their country of production because their messages resonate with their audience’s everyday experiences, their popularity amongst global audiences with whom they share neither a social nor a cultural history is unexplained. Kenya has been importing and airing Latin American telenovelas since the early 1990s, and telenovelas have permeated many aspects of Kenyan daily life, when compared to other foreign globally-distributed media products that are aired on Kenyan television. As global media products, telenovelas remain open to criticisms from the media imperialism thesis. This research adopts an ethnographic approach to the study of audiences, and looks at the reception of a Mexican telenovela, Cuando Seas Mia, by a group of young Kenyan women in Nairobi. It reflects upon the media imperialism thesis from an African perspective by investigating the meanings that these women make from Cuando Seas Mia, and how these shape their changing local identities and cultures. The young women in this study, most of whom have moved to the city from the rural areas, are influenced by traditional, patriarchal Kenyan society and by the modern, Western influences of an urban environment. They experience a tension between their evolving rural and urban roles and identities and are drawn to telenovelas because their exploration of rural-urban themes holds a relevance to their own lives. They negotiate their contemporary African youth identities, gender roles and heterosexual relationships in relation to representations in the telenovela, questioning and destabilising African and Western definitions. These women select aspects from their traditional, African cultures and from their modern, Western experiences (and consumption of global media) and reconstruct them into a transitional youth identity which suits their day to day lives as young women living in an urban African environment.

The concepts "capital building" and 'Institutionalisation" are analysed and applied to community arts centres as instruments for socio-economic development (SED) in South Africa. Theories of neo-classicism, Marxism, development economics and socio-economic development show that building physical, financial, human, social and cultural capital in a complementary configuration is crucial to sustainable socio-economic development. The concept "capital building for SED" is formulated in this regard. New institutional economics and critical extensions of this theory show that institutions play a key role in capital building for SED, as they entail embeddedness, normativity, e-ntreprcneurship, partnership, structure and complementarity. The arts sector contributes considerably to capital building for SED, in particular arts centres in marginalized communities in the UK, USA and South Africa. Community arts centres built political, cultural and human capital in black townships during the South African democratic struggle (1950-92). In accordance with proposals from the arts sector, the post-1994 South African government developed 42 arts centres. However, the contribution of most old and new centres to socio-economic development appears to be insignificant and few are sustainable. The causes of failure are difficult to explain due to lack of information and theory. Through the application of a theoretical framework to the South African arts sector and three case studies the hypothesis is tested that community arts centres can contribute considerably to capital building for SED if they are appropriately institutionalised, while an appropriate focus on capital building for SED results in stronger institutions. An analysis of arts sector shows that strong institutions achieve high returns on investments in capital building, but that few benefit the poor. The application of an analytical matrix consisting of indicators of the above-mentioned five types of capital and six institutional components, shows significant positive correlations between the levels of inslitutionalisation and capital building for SED in the Community Arts Project, the Katlehong Art Centre and ArtsforAIl. The findings result in recommendations on policy and practice of community arts centre development in South Africa. / Development studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Development Studies)

The concepts "capital building" and 'Institutionalisation" are analysed and applied to community arts centres as instruments for socio-economic development (SED) in South Africa. Theories of neo-classicism, Marxism, development economics and socio-economic development show that building physical, financial, human, social and cultural capital in a complementary configuration is crucial to sustainable socio-economic development. The concept "capital building for SED" is formulated in this regard. New institutional economics and critical extensions of this theory show that institutions play a key role in capital building for SED, as they entail embeddedness, normativity, e-ntreprcneurship, partnership, structure and complementarity. The arts sector contributes considerably to capital building for SED, in particular arts centres in marginalized communities in the UK, USA and South Africa. Community arts centres built political, cultural and human capital in black townships during the South African democratic struggle (1950-92). In accordance with proposals from the arts sector, the post-1994 South African government developed 42 arts centres. However, the contribution of most old and new centres to socio-economic development appears to be insignificant and few are sustainable. The causes of failure are difficult to explain due to lack of information and theory. Through the application of a theoretical framework to the South African arts sector and three case studies the hypothesis is tested that community arts centres can contribute considerably to capital building for SED if they are appropriately institutionalised, while an appropriate focus on capital building for SED results in stronger institutions. An analysis of arts sector shows that strong institutions achieve high returns on investments in capital building, but that few benefit the poor. The application of an analytical matrix consisting of indicators of the above-mentioned five types of capital and six institutional components, shows significant positive correlations between the levels of inslitutionalisation and capital building for SED in the Community Arts Project, the Katlehong Art Centre and ArtsforAIl. The findings result in recommendations on policy and practice of community arts centre development in South Africa. / Development studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Development Studies)

Cette thèse analyse le profil culturel des visiteurs des musées d’art moderne et contemporain en Belgique dans le but de mieux comprendre ce que représente, pour eux, l’expérience muséale. Il s’agit de dépasser une certaine approche courante en sociologie qui limite l’étude des relations publics-musées à la mise à jour du rôle des déterminants socioéconomiques sur la fréquentation. Mon approche part d’un postulat de base selon lequel il faut inscrire la visite muséale dans un rapport plus large à la culture pour appréhender le sens et les usages des musées d’art moderne et contemporain. <p>La récolte des données a eu lieu au cours de deux phases principales :une première quantitative suivie par une seconde qualitative. Le design est séquentiel (en deux étapes successives) et non équivalent puisque la première étape quantitative a plus de poids (terminologie basée sur Leech et Onwuegbuzie). <p>Pour la première phase, a été réalisée une enquête par questionnaires auprès des visiteurs de six musées en Belgique âgés de 15 ans et plus. Au total, 1900 questionnaires ont été récoltés et encodés. A partir de ces données, une analyse en correspondances multiples a été effectuée pour évaluer de quelle manière les différentes dimensions des profils culturels (goûts pour la musique, l’art et la lecture, participation culturelle, loisirs ordinaires, créativité) s’agencent les unes aux autres. Cette méthode a été choisie pour ses qualités inductives et relationnelles. <p>Cette analyse montre que les profils culturels peuvent être perçus comme le résultat de bricolages entre répertoires culturels. Ceux-ci doivent être compris comme des principes qui classifient les goûts et les pratiques et leur donnent sens. Parmi ces répertoires, la distinction culture haute versus culture basse à la Bourdieu conserve une place primordiale mais cohabite avec d’autres, tels que les distinctions omnivores versus univores (Peterson), voraces versus inactifs (Sullivan & Katz-Gerro), culture jeune versus culture classique, goût pour la transgression versus conservatisme. Cette thèse appuie en conséquence l’idée selon laquelle il n’y a eu ni de transformation unidirectionnel des snobs vers les omnivores (thèse de l’omnivorité), ni un effondrement des hiérarchies culturelles (massification et postmodernisme). <p>L’utilisation de ces répertoires est principalement influencée par l’âge, l’éducation (sous diverses formes) et le statut socioprofessionnel (qui met l’accent sur les différences en termes de cultures professionnelles). Les profils culturels s’ancrent dès lors toujours dans des structures sociales, contrairement à ce que pensent certaines théories individualistes plus extrêmes (Bauman), et continuent d’être structurés par des mécanismes de distinction, puisque les répertoires sont socialement valorisés. <p>Une classification hiérarchique ascendante a suivi l’analyse en correspondances multiples pour mettre à jour une typologie qui reflète les principales configurations des profils culturels. Six classes ont été identifiées :les cultivés classiques, les cultivés en retrait, les cultivés progressistes, les hédonistes, les éloignés culturels et les amoureux de l’art. Pour conduire la deuxième phase qualitative, trois personnes par classe ont été interviewées pour approfondir les donnés quantitatives sur leur rapport à la culture, à l’art et au musée. Au regard de cette analyse de discours, il apparaît que les six classes ainsi constituées partagent en leur sein des grilles de lecture similaires du rôle de l’art et de la culture au sein de la société moderne mais aussi du musée et agissent, ce faisant, en « communautés interprétatives » (Fish; Hooper-Greenhill). Comprendre la diversité des profils culturels des visiteurs (tout en prenant en compte l’origine sociale) permet, dès lors, de concevoir la multiplicité des rapports au musée./<p><p>What do we know about art museums’ visitors? This question can appear very trivial. Visitors of art museums seem to belong to educated elite. At least, this is the image that cultural participation surveys rightly spread. Nevertheless, this perspective focuses mainly on the characteristics of the population who do not visit museums, rather than on the characteristics of the museums' visitors. These surveys help indeed to define the sociodemographic particularities of visitors, with regards to the general population but do not investigate a possible diversity within the visitor population. They show that cultural democratization did not really happen but can we really conclude that the audience constitutes a homogeneous mass of snobs defined by a precise relation to the culture?<p>This presentation aims to go beyond this traditional approach in sociology that focuses on sociodemographic criteria and to show how diverse can be the audience. It intends to illustrate that visitors have heterogeneous cultural profiles (described by their tastes, cultural and creative activities, and more ordinary leisure), even if they tend to be similar from a socioeconomic viewpoint, and to evaluate which impact these cultural profiles have on the way of visiting a museum.<p>With the use of a multiple correspondence analysis and an ascending hierarchical classification, six different classes were distinguished among the visitors of six museums of modern and contemporary art in Belgium (N: 1900) according to their cultural profiles. Each cultural profile is considered as a bricolage of different cultural repertoires: low versus high culture (Bourdieu), univores versus omnivores (Peterson), voraces versus non-voraces (Sullivan & Katz-Gerro), classical versus young culture and traditional versus modern values. Instead of observing an unidirectional change from snobs to omnivores, my results suggests indeed that several repertoires interact with one another to structure cultural profiles and to give meaning to them. Finally, with selected interviews among the different six classes, it will be demonstrated that people with an analogous cultural profile tend to share similar interpretations of museums and act as "interpretative communities" (Fish; Hooper-Greenhill). Therefore, the meaning of a museum visit for visitors requires taking into account their cultural profiles.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

My study is a theoretical intervention of the South African contemporary visual art of Mary Sibande. It focuses on the figure of Sophie representing the maid in three series; namely, Sophie-Elsie, Sophie-Merica, and Sophie-Velucia. The study applies Frantz Fanon’s thought to the understanding of the figure of Sophie while emphasising the themes of naming, the human subject, and presence-absence. The theoretical framework of this thesis is a decolonial epistemic theory, which is used as a lens to understand Fanon’s political thoughts. I argue that the themes of naming, human subject, and presenceabsence are inherent in Fanon’s thought. These thematic areas give a better understanding of the existential questions of the figure of Sophie in the antiblack Manichean world. It is important to unpack the figure of Sophie as a Manichean figure who represents the crossing of two different worlds – the white world and the black world, Africa and Europe. The study highlights the importance and relevance of reviving Fanon’s thought concerning decolonial contemporary African art and establishing other tools of interpretation necessary to understand decolonial aestheSis. The thrust of this thesis is to deploy decolonial epistemic theory as a theoretical framework to the Fanonian understanding of the figure of the three Sophies that embody the modern/colonial predicament of the figure of the maid and blackness. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / Ph. D (Art)