Southern Africa

Revolutionary heritage approach connecting cultural sites with contemporary audiences through artist collaborations. Heritage organisations work with interdisciplinary artist groups creating authentic narratives that demonstrate contemporary relevance while fostering intercultural dialogue across borders.

Heritage Narratives: Reimagining Cultural Storytelling

The Southern Africa Component pioneers a revolutionary approach to cultural heritage that moves far beyond preservation toward active, contemporary engagement. By connecting heritage organisations with interdisciplinary artist groups, we're creating new models for how cultural sites and practices speak to modern audiences and contribute to intercultural dialogue.

Traditional heritage funding often focuses on conservation or tourism promotion. We've flipped this approach, recognising that heritage becomes most powerful when it connects to contemporary human experiences through artistic interpretation. Our bottom-up methodology puts heritage organisations in control, supporting them to work with diverse artist groups to create narratives that make their cultural sites and practices relevant to today's communities.

The cluster approach is fundamental to our philosophy. Rather than supporting isolated projects, we create "narrative clusters"—collaborative groups where heritage organisations work with approximately nine artists from multiple countries and disciplines. These clusters become laboratories for interdisciplinary creativity, where traditional knowledge systems meet contemporary artistic practice to generate entirely new forms of cultural expression.

Each cluster develops its own vision for how heritage narratives should be told, supported by comprehensive capacity building that addresses everything from gender equality to environmental sustainability. We're not imposing external frameworks but providing tools and expertise that enable heritage communities to develop their own approaches to contemporary relevance.

The three-phase structure reflects our commitment to sustainable impact. Initial co-creation produces heritage narratives grounded in authentic cultural knowledge but expressed through contemporary artistic practices. Capacity building ensures participants develop lasting skills in collaboration, production, and cross-cultural engagement. Final audience development takes these narratives far beyond their origins, creating platforms for intercultural dialogue across Southern Africa and with global audiences.

European engagement happens through genuine partnership rather than cultural tourism. When European artists contribute to narrative clusters, they participate in collaborative learning processes that challenge conventional North-South cultural relationships. These partnerships generate new understandings of African cultural heritage while creating opportunities for European artists to engage with different creative traditions.

Our approach recognises that heritage is living culture. Rather than treating cultural sites and practices as museum pieces, we support heritage organisations to demonstrate their contemporary relevance through collaborative artistic projects. These narratives don't just preserve tradition—they show how traditional knowledge systems offer insights into contemporary challenges and universal human experiences.

The ultimate goal transcends individual artistic productions. We're building sustainable models for heritage engagement that heritage organisations can continue long after funding ends, creating lasting capacity for cultural communities to control their own narratives and engage with global audiences on their own terms.