Towards a Safer Creative Community in South Africa

As a collaborative initiative of the National Arts Festival (NAF), GALA Queer Archive and the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender and Class (RGC) at the University of Johannesburg, our intention is to develop a charter for the arts community in South Africa, outlining a set of life- affirming, gender and identity-sensitive values and goals for creative practitioners and arts-related organisat [...] We ask that you join the National Arts Festival in this journey, as we seek to develop and collectively adopt a charter of values and goals for ourselves and the broader arts landscape, aimed at imagining, realising and sustaining a safer creative community in South Africa. [...] This will be a dynamic charter, not ‘set in stone’, but responsive to the evolving needs of individuals and communities affected by hetero-patriarchy. [...] Charter will be developed through a series of intensive workshop sessions and group consultations with invited artists, curators, technical professionals, arts organisers, educators, activists and institutional representatives from across the South African arts landscape. [...] Following this consultative process, a final draft of Charter will be officially launched as part of 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children (25 November-10 December 2021), and adopted by the NAF. [...] Charter is a collaborative initiative of the National Arts Festival (NAF), GALA Queer Archive and the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender and Class at the University of Johannesburg. [...] It was in this creative exchange that the idea of a charter for the Festival, and in time, the broader arts community in South Africa emerged, as a way of gathering collective support for safer, more empowering conditions for women, trans, intersex and nonbinary people working in the sector. [...] As organisers, it is our hope that once announced, Charter will be received and adopted in a similar spirit by the broader South African arts community. [...] Charter will be announced at the 2021 NAF as a collaborative project supported by the National Arts Festival, GALA Queer Archive and the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender and Class, University of Johannesburg. [...] Including contributions from a number of artist from the NAF programme, the conversation will centre on the pressing need for solidarity, transparency, accountability and collective will within the South African arts context, in seeking to address the normative conditions of GBV and rape culture.