Celebrating the colourful life of art

Good evening

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is indeed a privilege to be here this evening.

First and foremost, I wish to pay tribute to all our fierce and wonderful women here, Happy Women’s day tomorrow.

The arts and humanities are more vital than ever before, to the endurance of our constitutional values of respect, tolerance, diversity and freedom. At a time when we are experiencing such tremendous change in the way we live, the way we connect to one another and the way we relate to the rest of the world.

Simply put, we would have no basic understanding of our past… We would have no imagination to envision the future and dreams without the arts and humanities.

Archbishop Tutu’s fight for peace was unremitting, pinnacle to him being awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 – 10 years before South Africa endured on its journey to becoming a democratic state. In his acceptance speech Tutu eloquently declared:

There is no peace in South Africa. There is no peace because there is no justice… When there is injustice, invariably, peace becomes a casualty.

The Archbishop has taught South Africa and individuals across the world to embrace the concepts of “human invaluableness” and interdependence inherent in the phrase “Umuntu ngamuntu ngabantu” – we derive our humanity by virtue of being members of the human tribe.

This phrase itself catches the interconnectedness between art and humanity, as art in any form or size is well known for being an expression of our physical, spiritual and emotional selfs. It is in arts purest form, where we are able to experience the colourfulness of being human.

The arts and humanities are crucial to any form of education because of their direct connection to our human experiences. The colourful life of arts grants us with the tools to develop critical thinking, witness others experience, understand how people from different culture lives and their own value. It broadens our perspective of life and society thus helps us to deal with everyday problem and brings us closer to one another. Arts and humanities are essential to every one of us, the consequence of generation without arts and humanities means generation without thoughts, experience and ability to deal with various problems that may be thrown at you in life, as well as, dealing with people around us.

The role of woman in arts ought to be taken for granted in the role they play ensuing, and at trouble times, restoring faith and hope in humanity.

In 1966 Susanne Langer, a piece called ‘the Cultural Importance of Arts’ that I could not agree with anymore. She Writes: “Every culture develops art as surely as it develops language. Some primitive cultures have no real mythology or religion, but all have some art- dance, song, design.”

What I personally love about the beauty and true nature of Art… It is cultural colourful ii that it sees no race, its sees no culture, gender or ethnicity. In that way, art is truly one of the few things left in the world, that is grandly awed and engulfed by all who live on earth.

Before I end off this evening, I would like to pay tribute to our Women in Art. I want to thank those who have through courage and perseverance, empowered our South African artist today.

I thank You