The notion of what constitutes a nation has been a subject of many debates. The nation, like individual is the culmination of a long past of endeavours, sacrifice and devotion. The post aprtheid project of reconciliation in South Africa is part of this desire to live together as citizens of one country irrespective of past differences. This desire transforms itself to cultural institutions like museums or rather cultural institutions represents this desire in a more systematic way in the post apartheid South Africa as they seek to transform.

In this dissertation Transformation, as understood in South Africa, is investigated in the ‘Natal Museum’ and the ‘Msunduzi Museum Incorporating the Voortrekker Complex’ in terms of socio-political structures, the museum as a place, its collections and displays. I have emphasised the ethnographical perspective and analysed it by using key concepts such as new museology, time, space and place. My research focuses on the perception and mediation by museum staff-members of Transformation which is compared and positioned against South African and international museological theoretical discourses. I further explore the political backdrop to Transformation of South African museums and discuss related problems and aspects such as reconciliation, nation-building and the African Renaissance. Socio-political structures, acts, reports and policy documents are analysed over a long temporal sequence, but focus on the period 1980-2007. The long temporal sequence is a tool to capture the development connected to the museums in space and time and aims to compare and present previous developments in order to investigate how Transformation positioned itself as against the past. I hold that Transformation should be treated as an ongoing process connected to other transformation processes across time. I also propose that Transformation started earlier than previously suggested and that it is not a question of one Transformation but of many transformation processes. The urban landscape and the concept of place and name are explored. My research examines the urban landscape from the establishment of Pietermaritzburg to study how the museums were positioned in the landscape and how this has contributed to associated meanings. The museums are treated as demarcated places in the urban landscape which are named and infused with meaning and ownership. The museums are constituted and acted out within specific socio-political structures. The dissertation suggests that the objectives of Transformation reveal themselves through negotiation and alteration of place and name. My research explores the history of the museum collections – how objects were acquired, classified and used to materialise the museums´ institutionalisation of time and what this brought about for heritage production. I investigate what did and did not change when the museums transformed and I deconstruct the new and old objectives and socio-political ideas of collections. I analyse displays as socio-political spaces, the agent’s appropriation, and the discrepancies within dominant socio-political structures. When Transformation materialises in displays it becomes visible for the public to see. The negotiated displays show how the museum tries to visualise Transformation to the public. The discussion analyses the discussed concepts of Transformation, the structures, place, name, display and collection, and relates these to the concept of time, and to how agents create time and make it visual. I also discuss how museological writing and political speeches shape and negotiate Transformation through their articulation and how they sometimes constrain and form discrepancies to actual reality. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

The notion of what constitutes a nation has been a subject of many debates. The nation, like individual is the culmination of a long past of endeavours, sacrifice and devotion. The post aprtheid project of reconciliation in South Africa is part of this desire to live together as citizens of one country irrespective of past differences. This desire transforms itself to cultural institutions like museums or rather cultural institutions represents this desire in a more systematic way in the post apartheid South Africa as they seek to transform.

The study examines the impact of communication on customer satisfaction at the Transvaal Museum. Customer satisfaction refers to customer's overall satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the organisation based on all encounters and experience with that particular organisation. Communication has an impact on both customer satisfaction and future behavioural actions of consumers. There are four sources of brand messages namely, planned, unplanned, product and service messages. In the quest for increased customer satisfaction, companies are moving away from the traditional 4Ps (product, price, place and promotion) of the marketing mix to the 8Ps. The other four Ps include physical assets, procedures, personnel and personalisation. Integration of all marketing communications to customers is seen as a key activity in companies' attempts to build long term-relationships. On the whole, the study has indicated that customers of the museum are satisfied with its products, services and messages. However, the research has also shown that customers are not happy with the way the museum handles its planned communication activities. / Communication Science / M.A. (Organisational Communication Research Practice)

This Dissertation is submitted in partial compliance with the requirements for the Masters Degree in Technology: Fine Art, Technikon Natal, 1999. / In this research paper I will examine the Durban based 'alternative/informal' art space, the FLAT Gallery, which operated from October 1993 to January 1995. I will begin by first defining what is meant by an 'alternative space' and by looking at the historical development of such spaces both in South Africa and the United States of America. This will include an investigation into the ideological motivations and socio-political influences behind such spaces, as well as an exploration of what is meant by 'alternative practice', which I will show as being inseparable from the mission of the 'alternative space.' This will by no means be a comprehensive survey of alternative spaces in South Africa or the United States, but rather a tracing of the phenomenon with relevant examples. Here, I will explore the similarities that existed between the FLAT and other contemporary artist initiatives in South Africa and the United States, drawing comparisons between the FLAT and other similar venues. I will examine the particular circumstances that catalyzed the FLAT Gallery in the specific cultural and historical context of Durban, South Africa in 1993 and 1994. I will then construct a chronological documentation of the FLAT Gallery' s programme including interviews and extensive visual and audio archives. With this archival information and with detailed descriptions of each event, exhibition or performance, I will create a comprehensive record of the FLAT Gallery's activities. This will include an investigation into the historical influences, with specific examples of linkages to other artist-motivated projects in the past. In this way, I will both identify important precedents for many of the FLAT projects. I will conclude with those 'FLAT activities' that continued beyond the operation of the 'alternative/informal' space. It is my intention to create a document that not only offers a comprehensive study of the FLAT Gallery's programme, but also offers students, recent graduates and emerging artists useful practical information. This document is an affirmation of the possibilities for working and exhibiting once one has left the 'comforts' of faculty guidance, peer support, studio facilities and venues for showing work that the institutional environment provides. My claim is that there rests in the artist the responsibility to actively build a place where his/her development as a creative individual can flourish; that one must not wait for 'permission' or for 'someone' to offer validation of one's work. With this document I intend to demonstrate that it is indeed possible here in Durban to do Something!. / M

The study examines the impact of communication on customer satisfaction at the Transvaal Museum. Customer satisfaction refers to customer's overall satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the organisation based on all encounters and experience with that particular organisation. Communication has an impact on both customer satisfaction and future behavioural actions of consumers. There are four sources of brand messages namely, planned, unplanned, product and service messages. In the quest for increased customer satisfaction, companies are moving away from the traditional 4Ps (product, price, place and promotion) of the marketing mix to the 8Ps. The other four Ps include physical assets, procedures, personnel and personalisation. Integration of all marketing communications to customers is seen as a key activity in companies' attempts to build long term-relationships. On the whole, the study has indicated that customers of the museum are satisfied with its products, services and messages. However, the research has also shown that customers are not happy with the way the museum handles its planned communication activities. / Communication Science / M.A. (Organisational Communication Research Practice)

A frame can be understood to act as something both complementary and even intrinsic to the work it houses. But the frame also acts as more than just a physical object. It serves as a guiding principle, perhaps even a controlling device, in the sense that it provides a context for the work as well as informing the way in which a work is read. Acting with the image it surrounds, it links the artwork to the surrounding space as well as the viewer. In this study, I explore these various functions and effects by providing an overview of framing devices that have been used by artists in the West as well as referring to guiding principles that some museums in South Africa have used when making choices about the ways in which they frame works in their collections. This examination provides a context for my paintings. Based on photographs of the walls of various small galleries in the Eastern Cape, my works take as their subject the notion of the ‘frame’ as both a physical object and the marker of a historically contextualized viewpoint.

Bibliography: pages 78-84. / The aim of this project was to assess the image of museums in Cape Town society in the context of the changing needs of South African people. A questionnaire examining museum-visiting habits and perceptions of the role of museums was distributed to parents via nine schools in Cape Town. Each school represented a different socioeconomic package so that the sample included parents with varying educational status and incomes. Parents of school-going children were sampled because they may be predisposed towards museums as institutions that offer their children educational and recreational opportunities and, therefore, represent a best-case scenario. The majority of the sample had visited a museum. A relationship exists between museum-visiting and higher socioeconomic status. Museum- visiting, though, was not limited to people with a higher level of education. Parents who were actively involved in a broad range of leisure activities were most likely to have visited museums. Although socioeconomic status and participation in leisure activities are related, museum-visitors appear to have leisure-lifestyles and not level of education in common. The results showed a contradiction in parents' attitudes towards museums; the image of museums was good but the image of the museum experience was often bad. This was particularly the case for infrequent museum-visitors. This group also experienced a feeling that 'museums are for a different type of person', which may explain why they do not visit despite believing that museums are worthwhile institutions. Museums appear to be perceived as institutions that offer children opportunities for learning and recreation. This could be the reason why young adults or seniors do not participate in museum programmes. This survey also showed that museums were associated with research on and preservation of the past. Black parents, though, were least likely to make this association and it is possible that the emphasis of most museums on the post-colonial past of South Africa is one reason why Black South Africans do not visit museums. There does, though, exist a generally positive image of the role of museums. The emphasis placed on leisure-learning or semi-leisure by young and old people in the townships does indicate that museums could meet an important need for constructive leisure opportunities.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Heritage Studies), 2017 / This research report is a critical analysis of the Free State1 art scene from 1950-1989, conducted primarily through an account of the Bloemfontein Group. It argues that this period is a significant indicator of a shift in the city’s art scene, from an earlier, formalist focus to a more conceptual orientation in the art scene in Bloemfontein. An important aspect of this research is the significance of the formation of the Bloemfontein Group, and the extent of their role and influence during this period, which together can be seen as a key catalyst in the shift to conceptual art. Through extensive archival research, I have constructed a visual timeline of the art scene in Bloemfontein, including significant events in the wider Free State region. The construction of the timeline is a crucial part of the unravelling and interrogation of undiscovered conceptual developments relating to museum practices in the Free State. This is in turn informed by conversations and debates about the history of exhibitions, the origins of an art collection, and more specifically, how an art phenomenon such as the Bloemfontein Group not only contributed to a contemporary artistic identity in the Free State, but was also the driver behind the establishment of the Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein. The methodology in this research report is based primarily on archival research and interviews:  The Free State archives (newspaper clippings from the Friend newspaper were the most useful);  Oliewenhuis Art Museum research library (where invaluable information was found on the Group itself, including more newspaper clippings, information on the individual artists, with specific emphasis on Professor Fred and Mrs Dora Scott);  William Humphrey’s Art Gallery’s research library where I found additional archival documents on the Group’s exhibition at the gallery in 1966.  The Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery archives at the University of the Free State 2 and  Louis, Willem and Fred Scott’s personal archives Interviews were conducted with the following individuals with the aim of gathering further insight into the timeline. The interviewees were selected on the basis of either their involvement during the timeframe under question, their being descendants of the Scott family, or a surviving member of the Bloemfontein Group:  Rina Lubbs (surviving member of the Free State Art Society, Social Committee and Volksblad art critic from 1969-1984);  Anna-Rosa Witthuhn (surviving member of the Free State Art Society and Social Committee);  Doctor Fred Scott and Professor Louis Scott (sons of the belated Doctor Frik and Dora Scott);  Eben van der Merwe (surviving member of the Bloemfontein Group);  Stefan Hundt (former curator of Oliewenhuis Art Museum from 1993-1997) and  Professor Suzanne Human (Head of Department of History of Art and Image Studies, University of the Free State). Throughout the Research Report I refer to different terminology that enabled me not only to construct a consistent discussion but also to demonstrate the systematic methodology I formulated to conduct the research. By using archival documentation such as newspaper clippings as primary resource to enable research on a time frame, which had never been researched before, I was prompted to apply the terminology to categorize and sort the archival material and also to explain to the reader the methodology to some extent. Visual map: I commenced the Research Report with a visual map of artworks made by the Bloemfontein Group. I used the word ‘map’ deliberately to outline/map/illustrate visual examples of the Bloemfontein Group’s artworks. The function of the visual map is to introduce the reader to artworks produced by the Bloemfontein Group on a whole without limiting the artworks to 24 pieces that were donated to Oliewenhuis Art Museum. The works are not placed in a particular order as the map merely serves to visually introduce the reader to the nature of the artworks of the Bloemfontein Group. Timeframe: Primary resources used to conduct the research were archival material. This mostly included newspaper clippings, photographs, letters, official museum records, exhibition invitations and press releases. Therefore my methodology included a large amount of ordering, numbering and systematising archival material sourced. This enabled me to order the research in different timeframes e.g. 1950, 1960, 1970 and 1980. The timeframe assisted me in examining the archival material intently and to uncover a narration of the Bloemfontein art scene within the specific timeframe. I realised that this specific timeframe indicated the majority of the art-related progression in Bloemfontein and was a crucial process as the ordering of the records lead me to design a chronological timeline within the timeframe. Chronological timeline: The methodology and my process further progressed as I ordered the timeframe into a chronological timeline that included exhibitions held in the timeframe, important progressions of art related events and important individuals that steered the mind-set of artists, art patrons and art supporters. By ordering and systematising the events and exhibitions within a specific timeframe, I was aided in my understanding of the narrative that emerged within the timeline I designed. The unravelling of the exhibitions and happenings held within a timeframe also assisted me to illustrate the timeline. Illustrated timeline and exhibition timeline: By illustrating the timeline I attempted to add imagery viz: artworks produced for specific exhibitions or illustrations of artworks produced that align with the timeframe, exhibitions or exhibition openings, exhibition invitations and photographs of leading societies or individuals. This was vital as the newspaper clippings very rarely offered imagery of artworks or exhibitions that took place. This extremely time consuming task was an essential part of the research as it enabled me to understand the timeline better and to initiate visual debates about the local art environment versus national art-related debates. Due to the lack of imagery available, some illustrations were repeatedly used also to emphasise a statement or to make the image emblematic of developments specific to the Bloemfontein region. / XL2018

This dissertation examines the history of the Durban Art Gallery from its founding in 1892 until 2004, a decade after the First Democratic Election. While the emphasis is on significant changes that were introduced in the post-1994 period, the earlier section of the study locates these initiatives within a broad historical framework. The collecting policies of the museum as well as its exhibitions and programmes are considered in the light of the institution 's changing social and political context as well as shifting imperatives within a local, regional and national art world. The Durban Art Gallery was established in order to promote a European, and particularly British, culture, and the acquisition and appreciation of art was considered an important element in the formation of a stable society. By providing a broad overview of the early years of the gallery, I identify reasons for the choice of acquisitions and explore the impact and reception of a selection of exhibitions. I investigate changes during the 1960s and 1970s through an examination of the Art South Africa Today exhibitions: in addition to opening up institutional spaces to a racially mixed community, these exhibitions marked the beginning of an imperative to show protest art. I argue that, during the political climate of the 1980s, there was a tension in the cultural arena between, on the one hand, a motivation to retain a Western ideal of 'high art' and, on the other, a drive to accommodate the new forms of people's art and to challenge the values and ideological standpoints that had been instrumental in shaping collecting and exhibiting policies in the South African art arena. I explore this tension through a discussion of the Cape Town Triennial exhibitions, organised jointly by all the official museums, which ran alongside more inclusive and independently curated exhibitions, such as Tributaries, which were shown mainly outside the country. The post-1994 period marked an opening up of spaces, both literally and conceptually. This openness was manifest in the revised strategies that were introduced to show the Durban Art Gallery 's permanent collection as well as in two key public projects that were started - Red Eye @rt and the AIDS 2000 ribbon. Through an examination of these strategies and initiatives, I argue that the central role of the Durban Art Gallery has shifted from being a repository to providing an interactive public space.