The arts and culture constituency is soon to engage with a new umbrella body whose aim is to promote the resourcing of the arts and to ask hard questions of government now that democratic policies have been implemented.
Arts and culture consultant Mike van Graan is spearheading the establishment of the body known as the One Percent Campaign. His company, Article 27, issues The Cultural Weapon a critical journal for the arts and culture community.
A former adviser to Ben Ngubane, the first minister of arts, culture, science and technology, Van Graan believes there is considerable interest among practitioners to see how funding is used to promote arts and culture.
Fortuitously, a Unesco document accepted in Paris in April last year encouraged member states to channel one percent of total public resources to arts and culture. This document has spurred the establishment of a civil society body that could lobby and monitor the workings of formal arts and culture structures.
The proposal for the campaign will be published in the January edition of the Cultural Weapon, and interested parties are encouraged to get involved. It is hoped the campaign will be launched by June.