Published January 31, 2023
January 2023 Note
JAVETT-UP CEO Welcome Message
By Lekgetho Makola
A great hopeful welcome to the year 2023.
2022 was the year that we continued to reinforce the foundation of this 3-year-old organisation - building a solid agile structure to transition us to a new future beyond the devastation of the Covid pandemic. Importantly, we continued to focus on what matters most: creating a welcoming, open space that allows us to gather with a sense of belonging, to share and establish authentic connections and relationships for our common good.
As we look ahead to the future, I want to take a moment to thank all our 26 000 visitors, partners, donors, clients, educators, the thousands of curious young learners with the majority entering an art gallery for the first time in their lives, students, artists, myriad communities of practice, our Board of Trustees, the University of Pretoria and the Javett Foundation for their continued engagement and support. 2022 has been an unprecedented year for us all as the world emerged out of lock-down, and I am deeply appreciative of our team’s dedication and resilience in navigating these uncertain times with great creativity and innovation.
It is safe to acknowledge that, today, our free country is going through a difficult phase in its 29 years of existence. It is the greatest threat to the fabric of our hard-earned democracy and liberties. Our collective resilience and restorative efforts are being tested. The opportune and critical question we must engage is on what progressive remedial role and value the arts and culture sector play when such threat is manifesting?
We have seen a shift from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, ART and Maths). The arts provide critical thinking skills, problem-solving ability, and methods of creating alternative solutions. In addition, entrepreneurial development is increasingly being added to the equation. As we continue to struggle with endemic unemployment, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial development become critical tools for the development of our society.
In 2023, we must remain focused on our mission to make an impact on society and continue to strive for excellence through transdisciplinary initiatives. We will continue to ensure that artistic education remains accessible to all, particularly to the many youths who find themselves in the ‘margins’ of our society. We will continue to invest in research and curation of probing exhibitions and public engagement programmes to expand the Art Centre’s visitor experience and, in that, attract new audiences into our galleries, while captivating our support base.
Our plan in this year is to implement a renewed Art Centre business model that will ensure that the art centre grows with sustainability at the heart of our strategy, while we feed into the local creative economies and social tourism. We will equip our teams with relevant capacity to be able take on the new tasks with diligence. We will bring closer our existing stakeholders and partners in ways that are mutually beneficial, build capacity to develop new friendships and support platforms beyond our immediate geography.
The University of Pretoria and the Javett Foundation, our founding partners, will continue to inspire confidence in our 'existence' in a manner that benefits the founding visions of this public facing transdisciplinary platform.
We invite you to join us and gather here at the heart of art in the city of Tshwane to probe, to co-create, to cultivate innovative ways of thinking and doing, to confront uncomfortable notions of our lives because we want to contribute to better quality of life for us all.
I am confident that together, we can make 2023 a successful year.
Thobela
END.