Africa Centre

The Africa Centre, in Cape Town, South Africa, is structured as a not-for-profit organisation whose purpose is to provide a platform for Pan-African arts and cultural practice to function as a catalyst for social change. All the projects it conducts, facilitates or supports have some social intention. These projects are supported by a variety of Pan-African artists.

History

The Africa Centre was formally established in 2004 as a Non-Profit Section 21 Corporation by Tanner Methvin, Ralph Freese and Adrian Enthoven in Cape Town, South Africa. This group became the original board of directors. The process began however in 2003, with the creation of a land development policy framework, a spatial planning analysis, a feasibility study and a financial model devised to determine possible directions and potential support for the initiative. At this time it was envisioned that the Africa Centre would be housed in an iconic building in South Africa as part of a broader housing development called the South Bank. This development was intended to created a model of sustainable living that combined mixed income, mixed use and was modelled on strict ecological principles. While the building planning was being developed, the Board appointed a reference group of internationally recognised visual and performance artists, scholars and curators to determine the philosophical goals of the Centre. The members of this group were: