In 1998, the national Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology published a document aimed at the growth of culture industries in South Africa (DACST, "Creative South Africa", July 1998). Focussing on aspects of economic growth which this development could generate for South Africa, it nonetheless points to issues of cultural understanding which need to be addressed. Projects aimed at the development of arts and culture in South Africa have followed troubled paths. While projects aimed at establishing discourse for this development have succeeded on many levels, the imperatives of showcasing, rather than implementing cultural concepts appropriate to South African contexts, have tended to dominate. When the Dakawa Art and Craft Project was established by the ANC, in 1992, in Grahamstown, as the locus for the deve! opment of an arts and culture discourse in the liberated South Africa, all seemed set for success. Yet, less than four years after opening, the Project was closed. While speculatory reasons for closure tended to focus on financial and administrative problems, the basis for this closure had its roots in problems of cultural understanding manifesting themselves at the Project. These reflected a lack of cultural understanding on the part of the ANC and SIDA, the Swedish administrators sent to the Project, and the lack of clear cultural guidelines on the part of the trainees to the Project itself. These reasons for the Project's failure are integral to an understanding of arts add culture development and needs in South Africa today. As other projects, aimed at the same issues of development grow, an understanding of the history of the Project's failure is essential, for it poses questions still in need of answers. Part One examines the historical significance of the Dakawa Art and Craft Project between 1982 and 1994, recording the reasons for its establishment, the path of implementation it followed, and the cultural misunderstandings it posed to development. Part Two examines the cultural context of the trainees to the Project, followed by an account of the printmaking teaching practice, and the effects of cultural concepts on two printmakers trained during the Project's initial establishment, at the time of South Africa's political transformation.

M.Tech. / This research study examines ways in which the use of graphic imagery and printmaking in visual art may help to create social awareness and responsiveness to human rights. My study examines how a critical level of social awareness at higher education level, can lead to an ability to make choices as responsible citizens in terms of redress and social justice. My research focuses on two curricular interventions for first and second year Visual Art printmaking students who are introduced to issues of human rights through projects that require both personal and public engagement. This study is grounded in the history of printmaking as a democratic medium that proposes a function for inculcating social consciousness. The contextual framework for this study includes recent countrywide political developments and human rights abuses (such as the xenophobic attacks) as well as HIV/AIDS issues, which contrast with the lack of visibility of social-awareness campaigns at a higher education institution. Issues of human rights are introduced to incoming university Visual art students as part of the curriculum. I focus my research on a specific educational programme-intervention engaging social injustices as human rights violations. I use a mixed-method approach as well as aspects of Action research as methodologies to explore the curricular interventions and analyse visual solutions as a process to create awareness about these issues. I examine the extent to which a curriculum-based visual graphics programme may be used as a means to advocate human rights and social justice. In an educational environment, the means of addressing these social injustices are that these have to be participatory, non-invasive and empowering. These values should subscribe to a system of ethical standards which promote agency among respondents initially and thereafter, in the community at large. Human rights awareness also addresses the lack of social and political acumen and criticality among visual art students. Individual change impacts on citizenship by means of inculcating a broader social awareness through individual acts of civic engagement.