Integrated Power Talks Archive

A living, online repository of documentation and analysis from the Power Talks series, a research collaboration between Goethe-Institut South Africa and UCT’s African Centre for Cities 

Power Talks

WHO SPEAKS? WHO DECIDES? AND HOW DOES THIS SHAPE CULTURAL PRODUCTION?

With these and similar questions in mind, the Goethe-Institut South Africa and the African Centre for Cities set out in 2019 to examine the practices of European cultural institutions working in post-colonial contexts. The aim was to facilitate insight into 1.) how these institutions make sense of themselves within the spaces they occupy in sub-Saharan Africa, and 2.) how their influence is felt and perceived by local people.

In 2022, Power Talks shifted to become a broader investigation: contextual site installations in five cities across South Africa served as provocations for a series of public conversations on the forms and functions of power prevailing in each city’s cultural scene. A wide diversity of material has emerged, and this archive contains it all – from the planning and documentation of events to in-depth analysis and hard-won reflection.

How to navigate the archive
Five Cities
Website
Instagram
Project Overview
Principles

How to navigate the archive

Five Cities

The archive is divided into the five cities where the project was implemented. Select a city below to find material that is forward-looking (planning and promotional); documentational, and backward-looking (reflection and analysis); you will also find raw, sometimes unedited documentary materials.

Website

The Power Talks project has had its own dedicated website, housed within the larger Goethe-Institut site. Access that website here for an overview. Alternatively, you can be guided to specific information in each city’s section below.

Instagram

Power Talks was promoted and documented on Instagram. Explore that journey here @powertalksza (for a general view) and here @powertalksec (for a more focused view of Bhisho and Gqeberha).

Project Overview

The findings of any research project are shaped, at least in part, by its intellectual origins, team composition, and methods. While some of this information can be gleaned from the materials gathered below, you can also read a detailed account of the project’s journey, created by the African Centre for Cities, here.

Principles

From the outset, Power Talks aimed to privilege horizontality, complexity, intellectual honesty, and ‘perfect imperfection’. This archive has been organised, as far as possible, in line with these principles. We invite you to find your own way in: dig around, compare, draw parallels, make connections.

Power Talks In...

AFRICAN CENTRE FOR CITIES REPORT

The Power Talks project was conceived by the Cultural Programme of Goethe-Institut South Africa in collaboration with the African Centre for Cities (ACC), an interdisciplinary research hub based at the University of Cape Town. In November 2022, ACC researchers Khanya Mncwabe, Rike Sitas, and Vaughn Sadie compiled this overview of Power Talks to that point. It includes, among other things, an in-depth look at the project’s history, organisational structure, and research principles. The compilers also gathered key learnings and recommendations made by project implementers and participants.

Download the full report here.