In celebration of women’s month, the Arts & Culture Trust (ACT) invited women in the arts to share with us their thoughts and ideas. ACT’s Chairperson, Melissa Goba, contributed ‘Soweto is an African Woman’. –
For most of my life, the Soweto Power Station was a familiar site beckoning the close proximity to home. During my childhood I gazed in wonder as we drove down Old Potchefstroom Road. I felt so lucky to live in a ‘city’ that had its own inland harbor and ship! Soweto, through my young impressionable eyes reflected many complex contrasts both in her acceptance of the State of Emergencies declared by the teargas wielding government as well as the strange majesty that such a sight brought to the landscape. Those were to say the least interesting times.
This past month when I learned of the collapse of the power station and the passing of our great literary stalwart and ACT Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Nadine Gordimer, in the same month that commemorated Nelson Mandela’s example of the great service of giving, the imagery of an absent ship signalled an eminent change. The past 20 years has arguably seen South African citizens witness tumultuous changes in our history – the happy and tormenting times in equal and jostling proportion. In the past we have often been resistant and reluctant to the many changes that have taken place, so what possible change do these events signal?
I believe the best place that can be utilitised to explore this change is the cultural sector. The arts have often engaged and interrogated the many phases that our society has experienced and I’d like to believe that ACT has played a significant and pivotal role in the support of both this interrogation as well as the arts development. In the coming year we are due to host our third installment of the UJ partnered conference and plan to look at the notion of entrepreneurship and how it resides in the various facets of the arts.
In a personal capacity I am contemplating the significance of the Soweto Power Station absence from both my physical and mental landscape. Perhaps this eminent change should not be met with anxiety but rather the hope and optimism that the harvest of spring and even 2015 brings with sturdy strength and longevity much like the extended landscape that is Soweto, The African Woman. Happy Women’s Month!