Johannesburg - South African museums are getting much-needed promotion ahead of Aluta Nova Festival of Museums on Saturday.
The aim of the festival is to promote and market museums in the City of Joburg as places of attraction in order to provide creative SMMEs with opportunities for market access and industry exposure as well as revitalising the city through quality and impactful arts, culture and heritage programmes.
The event will take place at the iconic James Hall Museum of Transport and offer a variety of activities.
The festival also aims to contribute to the development of youth in creative industries through relevant public programmes.
Activities such as museum tours, food and craft markets and a live music line-up will keep visitors entertained. The line-up will include live performances by Urban Village, Ami Faku, The Charles Gene Suite, Bilal Da DJ, Uncle Partytime, Your Uncle Garry, Kat Upendi and The Dig Experience.
In light of the Covid-19 restrictions, interested parties must register online for admission.
“The aim is to resuscitate museum spaces by decentering the idea that heritage is a traditional and sacred concept that should not be touched by the unclean voices of contemporary culture,” said festival curator and chief curator of the James Hall Museum, Gaisang Sathekge.
“Aluta Nova simply means ‘a new struggle’. We are no longer fighting demons of dead traditions but are faced with new challenges to rewrite history and re-imagine our own place in the now.”
Educational and public programmes that are designed to promote a museum-going culture can inspire young people to rewrite their own narratives and to reclaim and re-imagine their own heritage at a time where culture is dynamic and constantly changing.
It’s anticipated that Aluta Nova will become one of the city’s signature programmes curated to offer the youth an opportunity to learn about and explore history and heritage through a decolonial cultural lens with the aim of breathing renewal into the city’s museums.
The festival also sets out to encourage a museum-going culture among the youth, especially as the Covid-19 pandemic has transformed the face of the creative and cultural industry, with many cultural institutions forced to close down.
“This museum programme will further contribute to supporting local talent and creative SMMEs during a difficult time where the pandemic has affected the creative industry economically,” said Sathekge.
The event gets under way on Saturday at noon.
Johannes