Crafts Award Dinner at the South African Reserve Bank Conference Centre,
Pretoria
17 April 2009
Thank You, Mr Wakashe
Your Excellencies, members of the Diplomatic Corps
Salutations as appropriate
It is a great pleasure for me to be here this evening at this Crafts Awards
Dinner. This is indeed a very timeous occasion because the crafts are a sector
of the cultural industries we identified as possessed of a huge
potential.
We often speak of a second economy in South Africa. When the concept is
employed it is not intended to imply that there are two distinct, discreet
economies in our country. We accept that South Africa is a single economy, but
one that is stretched between two poles. The one pole is developed world of the
Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Merchant Banks, the trans-national
corporations like Anglo-American Corporation, De Beers Consolidated and
para-statals. At the opposite pole is the impoverished black rural woman,
trying to scrape a living from the inhospitable soil without the benefit of
modern machinery or even water with which to irrigate her crops.
At this opposite pole are also the thousands who are not working, who cannot
find work, who live off welfare grants or are engaged in marginal activities to
keep body and soul together. The crafts have long ago been driven to the
margins of the economy by machine made objects. In order to survive, the crafts
were compelled to carve out a niche market in the areas where the machine does
not find it worthwhile to tread. This market for the handmade object, invested
with the individual skill, dedication and eye of the crafter has the potential
of bridging the gap between the first and second economies because its products
are high value.
Tonight's awards are the outcomes of competitions we mounted in each of the
provinces as a way of stimulating the crafts. I trust we have either all walked
through the exhibition or plan to do so later. I am certain we can all testify
to the high calibre of products from our crafters. Over the years, the DAC has
sponsored a number of incubator projects in the crafts. Our officials, assisted
by the provinces, monitor very closely the project is rolled out, drawing
valuable lessons from both its successes and failures so that we can extend our
work further, applying the lessons we have learnt to others.
The purpose of our incubators is to impart new skills but also to adapt and
elaborate on the skills that already exist within communities so that such
communities are absorbed into the mainstream of the economy. Though small and
frequently they entail small production batches, these projects are nonetheless
producing objects that are attractive in both the national and the
international crafts markets. Their potential economic impact among the
communities where they are located is immense provided that the profits accrue
largely to the direct producers.
The forthcoming Confederations Cup and the 2010 World Cup offers all South
Africa's craft sector a unique opportunity. Literally thousands of football
fans will start arriving in our country as of 2009. Every visitor to a foreign
land usually wants to take away something to make their visit memorable.
Souvenirs of every type will be in great demand and the market will be coming
to our shores. I am certain that South Africa's crafters have and are preparing
themselves to take advantage of this once-off opportunity and are producing
souvenirs and other craft products that the visitors will find worth spending
their money on.
Our crafters must resist the temptations of palming off shoddy merchandise on
gullible foreigners.
Not only will that conspire to bring down the quality of our crafts, but it
can also be self-defeating. In the globalised markets of today, word will soon
spread about the shoddy quality of our goods, and the market will dry up. The
quality of what is marketed must be such that not only will those who have
visited again seek out South African crafts, their friends and neighbours, who
get to see and hear about their purchases, should also be inspired to want
them. Let us appreciate that satisfied customers can be our best ambassadors
and marketing agents.
The DAC developed a craft marketing strategy in collaboration with the
Department of Trade and Industry which has produced interesting result. We have
broken into high value markets in Europe, including the Conran chain of shops.
South Africa has unique and innovative products with considerable product
diversity. The crafters themselves have expanded and extended the range of
products they are producing. The work of South African crafters has made a
splash in the capitals of the world. Tonightâs awardees will make sure it does
even better.
The exploitation of crafters is a well known scandal which needs to be
addressed. The principal method of this exploitation is by unregulated
middle-persons buying cheap from crafters and selling dear to retailers and to
buyers. During the Football World Cup in Germany in 2006, we mounted a small
but very successful crafts market in Cologne. At the end of that year, we
launched our distinctly South African crafts brand, "Beautiful Things", at the
Presidential guest house, in Pretoria. On both those occasions, we made sure
that the crafters benefited from the sale of their work.
That was relatively easy because the DAC dealt directly with crafters in the
one instance and through a reliable service provider in the second. It must
become an accepted mode of operation for crafters to deal with retailers and
buyers who are not out to take advantage of those already disadvantaged.
Tonight's craft awards are a good example of what becomes possible when the
interventions we make are well-timed and appropriate.
The crafters who have won prizes tonight are drawn from every part of South
Africa. The high level of quality control combined with knowledge of the market
performance of various products, has ensured that what we are rewarding here
tonight is work that will stand up to scrutiny aesthetic or otherwise â that
even the most critical eye could devise.
I want especially to thank the regional and provincial co-ordinators, who
performed an excellent job in bringing this project to fruition. We also thank
the Reserve Bank for lending their premises to mount our exhibition and host
this dinner. But most of all, I want to thank you all for coming.
I congratulate all the winners and want to encourage those have not fared so
well to keep at it. There will be a next time.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Arts and Culture
17 April 2009
