By:

Four speakers coming from different experiences, will address the complexities, contradictions and tensions that seem to be inherent in non-formal arts education – that is, differences in expectations and perceptions of value, between participant & facilitator & programme organiser & recipient, funder & beneficiary - especially in non-mainstream programmes working with participants that have no formal art-making or art-learning experience. In our experience there are especially telling discrepancies between perceptions around the purpose of such interventions, as well as around the initial and eventual benefits of the interventions. These speak to much wider, more complex, notions of value, intention and meaning. Four speakers representing non-mainstream art education and craft initiatives, all working with participants who have no prior art or craft background, will present their projects/initiatives with a focus on these differences in perception. These tensions, conflicts, and areas of congruence will all be outlined through a number of approaches including a visual presentation, and including a sufficiently descriptive element to allow audience to participate in interrogating the issues that arise. It is proposed that two art education children's projects and two craft projects be examined. They all have as their constituencies groups of people either excluded from mainstream education, conditions of educational poverty, or having experienced other forms of marginalisation. The two art education programmes will be the Imbali Visual Literacy Street Children Art programme (presented by Justine Olofsson) and The Imbali/World Bank water workshops in Kenya, Ivory Coast and Mozambique (presented by Ruth Sack). The two craft projects will be Biotumelo, an embroidery and mosaic project located in the very urban environment of Hillbrow and the Keiskama embroidery project from the rural town of Hamburg in the Eastern Cape Province.

Stream: Creative Arts and Learning

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

BA FA Rhodes University, Higher Diploma in Education, Wits University, Masters Of Fina Arts Wits University (focussed on arts education for streetchildren). Currently facilitator and Project Co-ordinator at Imbali.

Fine Art graduate, formed Boitumelo Sewing Project , in one of the poorest sections of the inner city, Hillbrow. Women sew and ebroider narrative panels of great subtlety.

Fine Art graduate, project manager for Keiskamma Project in Hamburg in the Eastern Cape, a rural area afflicted by the AIDS epidemic. The women are trained to “tell' their stories in the form of large-scale, extraordinary tapestries and embroideries.

BA FA Stellenbosch; Curriculum developer, art education consultant.