Socio-cultural Status of Albinism in Africa: Challenging Myths, Concepts, and Stereotypes

This article analyses the socio-cultural status of Albinism in Africa and the role unchallenged stereotypes, irrational concepts, and unfounded beliefs play in the lives of persons with albinism. Following some beliefs, persons with albinism” do not die but vanish” to later “return as ghosts to haunt the living.” The author discusses this paradox about persons with albinism identified as hunted victims and simultaneously haunting perpetrators. The research examines the concept of albinism being a curse from dead ancestors or theodicy and its association with supernatural powers. By a comparative and diachronic approach, the study challenges unsubstantiated stereotypes. This study aims at social awareness by demystifying established myths and discussing study cases and examples referring to media, art, performing arts, literature, photography, and motion pictures

The spiritual world, Christ, ancestors, angels, and demons in Hlungwani's art and theology

Jackson Hlungwani’s vision of a New Jerusalem is shaped by his unique African Christian theology teachings. They are expressed through his wooden sculptures in an “independent African Church which would echo the wish to Africanize Christianity and represent a new cultural and spiritual phenomenon through his art” (Rankin, 1998: 46; Steyn, 2019: 184). It is through this vision and his artworks that Hlungwani prophesied the coming of an Apocalypse, which would result in man's salvation, and signify an ultimate victory over evil. This article concerns the New Jerusalem (the ‘imagined’ and the ‘built’) and reveals Hlungwani’s Christian and traditional ideas around the spiritual world, Christ, the ancestors, angels, and demons. Hlungwani’s vision of a New Jerusalem should therefore be understood in the context of a unique African Christian theology created from the perspective of an African cultural context. The two altars for the New Jerusalem site and a number of wooden artworks are selected for their connection with both the artist’s vision and the supernatural world, angels, ancestors, and earthly warriors. The selected sculptures are the Crucifix IV, the sculpture God and Christ, and the panel Cain and Abel. They are discussed and analyzed as I believe that they reflect profound visual metaphors derived from spiritual visions, the visions of the Prophet Ezekiel, and of the Apocalypse of Saint John from the final book of the Christian Bible, the Book of Revelation.http://www.pharosjot.comam2022Humanities Educatio

The encounter of South African and Greek art and drama students behind common ideologies

In line with the aims of the Institution for Afro-Hellenic Studies (IAHS), a relevant project was set in motion in 20171 through a collaboration between two departments of two universities of two continents, separated by 7.652 miles one from the other, namely the University of Pretoria, UP, and the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, AUT.https://journals.co.za/journal/proc.epharos1am2022Humanities Educatio

Challenging vision in visual arts in the South African sociocultural context

This conceptual article is anchored on critical phenomenology to challenge the monopolisation of visual arts by the sense of vision, thus depriving visually impaired people of aesthetic value beyond ordinary cognitive faculties. In this study, we discuss the forms of painting, drawing and sculpting defined as Visual Arts referring to appreciation only by vision; thus, excluding the visually impaired as unable to appreciate or create by sight. This exclusiveness has dominated and directed art aesthetics and ethics, allowing aesthetic criteria research projects and educational curricula to be established and, conventionally, maintain their static existence unchallenged. Furthermore, vision exclusiveness limits creative thinking and artistic inspiration. This article demonstrates the need and importance of broadening students’ artistic conceptualisation of inclusiveness in Visual Arts by exploring three fields of humanities education, i.e., academic, educational and sociocultural. The article challenges established stereotypes by introducing innovative approaches and opening alternative channels of creative and critical thinking in higher art education. From a sociocultural viewpoint in the South African context, the analysis questions the validity of certain firmly rooted stereotypical concepts about art values and standards by encountering the visually unimpeded and impaired. While the research broadens students’ artistic conceptualisation of inclusiveness in Visual Arts, it simultaneously promotes the concept of hephapreneurship (hepha+preneurship), a neologism inspired by the Greek god, Hephaestus, protector of arts and crafts, himself handicapped. The term does not draw attention to the inabilities of persons with visual impairment, but their creative abilities through encouragement and motivation. By direct and open exposure to the problem, the research promotes the importance of arts education as a challenging platform for interaction between two, by definition, opposed realities

The spiritual world, Christ, ancestors, angels, and demons in Hlungwani's art and theology

Jackson Hlungwani’s vision of a New Jerusalem is shaped by his unique African Christian theology teachings. They are expressed through his wooden sculptures in an “independent African Church which would echo the wish to Africanize Christianity and represent a new cultural and spiritual phenomenon through his art” (Rankin, 1998: 46; Steyn, 2019: 184). It is through this vision and his artworks that Hlungwani prophesied the coming of an Apocalypse, which would result in man's salvation, and signify an ultimate victory over evil. This article concerns the New Jerusalem (the ‘imagined’ and the ‘built’) and reveals Hlungwani’s Christian and traditional ideas around the spiritual world, Christ, the ancestors, angels, and demons. Hlungwani’s vision of a New Jerusalem should therefore be understood in the context of a unique African Christian theology created from the perspective of an African cultural context. The two altars for the New Jerusalem site and a number of wooden artworks are selected for their connection with both the artist’s vision and the supernatural world, angels, ancestors, and earthly warriors. The selected sculptures are the Crucifix IV, the sculpture God and Christ, and the panel Cain and Abel. They are discussed and analyzed as I believe that they reflect profound visual metaphors derived from spiritual visions, the visions of the Prophet Ezekiel, and of the Apocalypse of Saint John from the final book of the Christian Bible, the Book of Revelation

The controversial Anoole and Haile Selassie monuments as reflecting the religious and political tensions between Christians and Muslim Ethiopians

Abstract: Statues referring to history are expressions of the collective conscience of nations or groups in a nation, and therefore their value is determined by the changing policies and altering concepts of such nations or groups. Ethiopia, the only African nation without a real colonial past sensu stricto, presents some characteristic examples. Crowned in the Orthodox Tewahedo Church’s Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Emperor Haile Selassie’s reign (1916/1930 - 1975), fall and murder are well known. He was the last of the so-called Solomonic line, beginning with Sheba and Menelik I, the son she had from King Solomon. Haile Selassie became anathema and was regarded as an outdated dictator, belonging to the colonial period. However, a statue of the emperor was erected outside the African Union’s headquarters in Addis Ababa, but it soon also became controversial. Another very controversial statue was erected in Hetosa, Oromo, in 2014 and is known as the Anoole statue. It was also a remembrance of the past and refers to the acts of one of the most glorious emperors of Modern Ethiopian history, Menelik II, who wished to restore Ethiopian unity by bringing all old territories back under the crown. The Oromo group, a non-Semitic, largely non-Christian-Orthodox ethnic group resisted such unification. The emperor reacted by persecuting the Oromos in 1886, using an old Ethiopian traditional way of punishment, i.e. to cut the right breasts of women and right hands of men

Challenging vision in visual arts in the South African sociocultural context

This conceptual article is anchored on critical phenomenology to challenge the monopolisation of visual arts by the sense of vision, thus depriving visually impaired people of aesthetic value beyond ordinary cognitive faculties. In this study, we discuss the forms of painting, drawing and sculpting defined as Visual Arts referring to appreciation only by vision; thus, excluding the visually impaired as unable to appreciate or create by sight. This exclusiveness has dominated and directed art aesthetics and ethics, allowing aesthetic criteria research projects and educational curricula to be established and, conventionally, maintain their static existence unchallenged. Furthermore, vision exclusiveness limits creative thinking and artistic inspiration. This article demonstrates the need and importance of broadening students’ artistic conceptualisation of inclusiveness in Visual Arts by exploring three fields of humanities education, i.e., academic, educational and sociocultural. The article challenges established stereotypes by introducing innovative approaches and opening alternative channels of creative and critical thinking in higher art education. From a sociocultural viewpoint in the South African context, the analysis questions the validity of certain firmly rooted stereotypical concepts about art values and standards by encountering the visually unimpeded and impaired. While the research broadens students’ artistic conceptualisation of inclusiveness in Visual Arts, it simultaneously promotes the concept of hephapreneurship (hepha+preneurship), a neologism inspired by the Greek god, Hephaestus, protector of arts and crafts, himself handicapped. The term does not draw attention to the inabilities of persons with visual impairment, but their creative abilities through encouragement and motivation. By direct and open exposure to the problem, the research promotes the importance of arts education as a challenging platform for interaction between two, by definition, opposed realities.http://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/pieam2022Humanities Educatio

Commitment to education for all? A case study Of Lushomo, an urban community school in Lusaka, Zambia

Based on an under-resourced urban community school case study in Zambia,1 this article explores how access to education can be extended and how efficient teaching and learning can effectively bridge the educational and economic imbalances at school level. The school’s responses to economic inequality are investigated through an open system approach. The study discovered that as a result of inadequate funding the school has exemplified its efficacy by attempting to fulfil its maximum educational potential at the lowest possible cost. Costs were lowered by using multiple-grade classes, crowding classrooms, and employing untrained teachers. The study also found that the school’s budget had an impact on teaching and learning. The Zambian Government’s promised commitment to education of the poor and the realities in community schools did not coincide. The Government's promised support for teacher professional development and the placement of mentor teachers in community schools was also not implemented. The paper concludes that while the school managed to extend education at a lower cost, the quality of teaching and learning was, and remains, questionable and this has implications for school continuity and the value of the education being provided.http://www.journals.co.za/content/journal/jedsam2022Humanities Educatio

The element of surprise : an innovative approach in art education

This article examines the role that the element of surprise plays in the implementation of the art curriculum at the Higher Education level. My critical analysis and evaluation of the subject matter are based on the outcomes of three case studies and the resulted exhibitions, organised and realised in the South African politico-economic and socio-cultural framework. Consequently, the research develops in the context of three most significant streams of policies in Education: socio-cultural inclusion policy, multiliteracies in education and the needs of the Fourth Industrial Revolution for soft skills. The aim of the study is twofold: to demonstrate an appropriate climate of interaction among students and educators in the Visual Arts and Design discipline and to propose different teaching strategies for the enhancement of skilful planning, accurate decision taking as well as analysing and synthesising creative ideas under unfamiliar and challenging circumstances.http://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/pieam2021Humanities Educatio

The element of surprise: An innovative approach in art education

This article examines the role that the element of surprise plays in the implementation of the art curriculum at the Higher Education level. My critical analysis and evaluation of the subject matter are based on the outcomes of three case studies, organised and realised in the South African politico-economic and socio-cultural framework. Consequently, the research develops in the context of three most significant streams of policies in Education: socio-cultural inclusion policy, multiliteracies in education and the needs of the Fourth Industrial Revolution for soft skills. The aim of the study is twofold: to demonstrate an appropriate climate of interaction among students and educators in Visual Arts and Design discipline, and to propose different teaching strategies for the enhancement of skilful planning, accurate decision taking, as well as analysing and synthesising creative ideas under unfamiliar and challenging circumstances