Artrave

Artlink goes to Soweto
A large box of copies of Artlink's South issue arrived at the Johannesburg home of South African artist Clifford Charles, co-ordinator of The South Project''s Soweto Gathering which took place 19 – 21 October 2007. Seeing these copies filtering gradually into the nooks and crannies of the Johannesburg alternative and mainstream art scene was a metaphor for the project itself. Designed to work like a series of branching streams rather than one full torrent, the ideas, like the copies of Artlink, turned up and were examined in contexts ranging from community centres, museums of the revolution, to city and university galleries, bookshops, craft centres and the breakfast tables of a range of B&Bs in Soweto. Seizing a special moment before an extraordinary performance by seven young actors in a run-down experimental theatre in the city, Magdalena Moreno, newly appointed interim Director of the South Project, while explaining the project to The First Lady of South Africa, Mrs Zanele Mbeki, pressed a copy of Artlink into her hands.