First draft March 2018. Under review.

1. Context of the Policy

This policy arose out of the recommendations to Council by the Artwork Task Team set up in October 2015 post the events by the #RhodesMustFall movement at the University of Cape Town. It is therefore important to see the #RMF movement as an important catalyst that called into question a re-envisioning of artworks at UCT. Subsequently, the 2016 events around #Shackville were similarly significant and have reanimated new conversations and put a spotlight on the Works of Art Collection (the Collection). The many forms of student action at UCT have highlighted the important role that art plays in the learning environment as well as its value in contributing to transformative knowledge production.

While the Works of Art Collection Policy and its acquisition framework (Annexure 2) is considered progressive, it does however fall short in ensuring diversity and inclusivity of artists and artworks as it prioritises those affiliated to the UCT Art school, who are predominantly white. This policy extends the implementation of the Collection Policy by focusing specifically on the value of the Collection as it contributes to strategic objectives of the university with regards to transformation and inclusivity.

Around the five campuses (Medical campus, Hiddingh, Lower, Midddle and Upper) of UCT there are currently approximately 1364 artworks distributed in 70 buildings. The Collection of artworks encompasses works of all art forms including, but not limited to, paintings, photographs, drawings, fibre or textile art, prints, statues, sculptures. The artworks include works from 693 artists acquired by the University and formally accepted into the Collection.

2. Terms and Definitions

  • Accession: The process of accepting and recording all pertinent information of each acquisition into the university collection.
  • Artworks or art: Original creative work such as a painting, drawing, or sculpture. Can include decorative arts, design objects, or cultural artifacts
  • Curator: One who is responsible for maintaining, handling, and care of all objects in the university collection and their use
  • Deaccession: Permanent removal of a work of art from the University’s collection through sale, transfer, exchange, or disposal.
  • Decolonisation: A process that “sets out to change the order of the world, and is, obviously, a program of complete disorder” (Fanon, 1963:36) and made up of ‘everyday acts of resurgence’ that regenerate indigenous or local knowledges, epistemologies, and ways of life which are always adapting, creating and moving forward. (Corntassel, 2012)
  • Loan: A work that is temporarily borrowed within the university, by the university or by another institution for exhibition, display, or scholarship.
  • Public/public space: All exterior and interior spaces, enclosed or not, with the exception of personal office space. These include but are not limited to spaces such as sidewalks, plazas, green spaces, corridors and building walls as well as interior spaces including hallways, lobbies, stairways, parking garages, sports and recreational facilities.

3. Policy Statement

3.1 Mission

The WOAC recognises and promotes the value of the UCT Collection as being an inspiring and transformative intellectual repository of cultural, educational, scientific, and artistic research scholarship shared by academics, students, staff and cultural communities in and around the university. Located in a leading university in Africa, the Collection is an enriching asset that celebrates the cultural diversity of its location and people in the city, province and region by promoting a vibrant and dynamic visual arts presence. 

3.2. Interpretation of the Mission

Given such immense value and reach, works of art within the Collection that are deemed purely decorative are not without value-judgements. Thus, a necessary audit of artworks should ensure that works of art contribute to the future of the Collection and its role in the University. Upon regular review of this policy, the Works of Art Committee (WOAC), which is responsible for custodianship and administration of the collection, may choose to re-evaluate works in the Collections and recommend deaccessioning.

The Collection comprises works intended to support and contribute to the University’s vision, mission and strategy with respect to:

  • Contributing to an inclusive and diverse institutional culture, character and an inspiring future that offers a unique experience of the University.
  • Playing an important role in the discovery, study, understanding and creation of new knowledge that is distinctively African.
  • Developing an excellent art Collection that is made accessible to engage visitors and the wider university community through exhibitions, seminars, lectures and support for the university’s research mission.

3.3. The Curator/s

For the University to show its commitment to the Collection it is imperative that a dedicated art curator/s be appointed, as this will highlight the importance of art and culture at UCT. The art curator/s would be responsible for processing, presentation, acquisitions, de-accessions, loans, storing, conservation, documenting, security, management and maintaining records, as well as conceiving and guiding exhibitions while being attentive to transformation and social justice. This process would include identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the Collection, its breadth and diversity, going beyond the work initiated by the Artworks Task Team.

The Collection’s curator/s should be considered in relation to that of other curators (CAS gallery, Michaelis gallery and Irma Stern Museum) as the former’s role would be to examine the Collection across five university campuses. The curator/s, with diverse cultural background and academic plurality, should also foster collaborations with faculty and departments for scholarly, professional development and innovative pedagogical strategies. Thus the positioning of the curator/s and inclusion within the university’s structures and various hierarchies would have to be well considered.

3.4. The University Museum-Gallery

While discussions about a dedicated museum for the Collection have been ongoing since the late 1970s/early 1980s, persistent contestations about artworks at UCT have pressed on the demand for a dedicated space for art works. This is further articulated in the Artworks Task Team recommendation that an art museum be built and a curatorial team appointed for purposes of exhibiting artworks, as well as providing a space for various debates and discourses on all forms of art.

Envisioning a university museum as a dynamic learning space for research and teaching as well as safe-keeping of artworks, should not be foreclosed by limitations of funding and location. These discussions have been on going for 40 years at UCT, rehashing the same venues and funding strategies while changing committee members. The artworks remain hung without curatorial scope in some buildings and public spaces thus provoking deep affective responses.

A museum cannot stand in for surety against damage, destruction or loss of artworks. However, it can offer a space for processing and reflecting on the value of both creation and demise, as well as articulating positions and an enabling environment for social change. Events around works of art at UCT recur occasionally, seemingly with no lessons learnt.. This is counterintuitive within a learning and teaching environment such as UCT. In order for change to happen, the University needs to champion a new re-envisioned and transformative approach that promotes the process of decolonising the curatorial practice.  

4. Policy Principles

In developing, managing and using the Collection, the policy (as implemented by the WOAC and the Curator) adheres to these principles, which are consistent with the university’s mission, vision and strategic plan:

  • Provide public access (e.g. through curating campus tours that are guided by students; public exhibitions)
  • Demonstrate leadership in transformation, inclusivity and social justice (ensuring that issues of gender, race, sexuality, class, dis/ability are well-considered and promoted through the Collection and its public engagement)
  • Lead in education and researching platforms (organising with departments / faculties colloquia, seminars, lectures and other programmes of engagement)
  • Accountability –representative of the excellence of African and South African-focused fine and creative arts as in the display and enhancement of the built environment as well as transforming learning spaces. 

4.1 Policy Guidelines

The UCT collection should be developed, curated and managed as a resource to inspire, educate and inform the University and wider community, and to visualise new futures for the university while being cognisant of the present context (which is constantly revisiting the university’s past, history and heritage).

In support of UCT’s transformation mandate, it is important that an inclusive response to a curatorial approach be established to govern each functional area of the university. These areas are categorised into three sections, which promote the Collection’s relevance to the academic project.

4.1.1. Teaching and Learning

Collaborate with departments and faculties to ensure the Collection is used across undergraduate and postgraduate graduate curricula in different faculties, departments and programs beyond those that are art and archive-related.

Reassess the selection and arrangement of artworks as products of knowledge bearing meanings and significance. Understood in the context of curation, artworks in isolation may carry different meanings when placed in an appropriate context.

To enhance continual learning, the Collection shall foreground its unique African perspective by providing new frameworks for understanding and articulation of artworks, and the university’s location or place in the world.

Through the Curator/s the Collection shall propose new frameworks for decolonizing language, translation and art discourses and stepping away from homogenizing terms.

The Collection shall be made easily available for research and teaching and integrated into the university’s academic programme. It shall be searchable by artist, category, medium, value, location on campus, as well as African themes or an extensive index.

The Collection shall inspire and stimulate research and scholarship, resulting in significant publications and exhibitions, attracting research grants, cross-institutional collaborations and involvement of local communities who contribute to the Collection.

4.1.2. Community Engagement

Accessioned artworks will include those of local artists whose work can be accessible to communities, local and international visitors.

The Collection shall be accessible to visitors and attract more through, but not limited to, schools education programs; curriculum-based learning; and a range of public programs including exhibitions, talks, activities, lectures, campus and education tours.

4.1.3. Institutional Culture

The Collection shall be critical of acts that ‘unconsciously’ privilege certain media, forms, aesthetic approaches or cultures while devaluing others. Thus, the collection shall be culturally inclusive, always challenging normative and homogenizing frameworks that contribute to marginalizing some ideas, people and positions.

In maintaining an affirming institutional culture for all, the curatorial responsibility for the Collection shall extend to:

  • Curation of culturally resonant spaces and approaches
  • Validating local modes of thinking, understanding and being
  • Expanding views on contemporary art norms

5. Policy implementation

The Works of Art Committee (WOAC) shall be the entity responsible for oversight, consultation and approvals regarding the University’s Collection.

6. Related Documentation

  • Report by the Artworks Task Team, 2017
  • Works of Art Collection Policy, 2009
  • UCT Vision and Mission, 2016
  • UCT Strategic Planning Framework 2016-2010

In her MA thesis “Ethics of the Dust: On the Care of the University Art Collection” (2015), Jessica Natasha Brown explores the history of the Works of Art Committee and debates that ensured in relation to a museum-cum-art gallery (the Works of Art Committee Minutes, 9 May 1979, WOAC Archive.)

The current contestations around the Saartjie Baartman sculpture for example are a restaging of events of April 30, 2001 held at the Centre for African Studies (CAS) for the discussion ‘Celebration or Scandal?’ organised by the African Gender Institute, Centre for African Studies and the UCT Women’s Movement. Panelists included the artist, Willie Bester, feminist and historian Dr Yvette Abrahams who had been working on the life of Saartjie Baartman at the time, as well as the then chair of the WOAC. Professor Amina Mama, former Director of the African Gender Institute chaired the discussion (see University of Cape Town Works of Art Committee Minutes, 26 April 2001 as well as Brown’s (2015) MA dissertation.