Wits Fine Arts Postgraduate Guide

OF FINE

Refiloe Namise, Segopotso sa Gomora. MAFA Exhibition Installation, 2022

1. MANIFESTO

With the ongoing call for us as Institutions of Higher Learning to re-imagine and re-position ourselves, the question that most, if not all institutions should be asking is “WHAT ARE WE DOING?

WHAT are we doing?

• Developing the identity of a Pan-African University whose geographical location is central to affirming a position within the larger global South decolonial programme.

• Growing towards an Afrocentric curriculum that will include our own histories and carry a social justice agenda.

• We are physically located in Johannesburg, a contemporary African City that is also home to multiple Pan-African and global identities.

what ARE we doing?

• Expanding a field of art, where the role of an artist is questioned and contested, and at the same time, understood as being an embodied experience.

• Producing knowledge and cultural producers that are not limited to the University.

• Teaching through creative practices, and as a form of research.

what are WE doing?

• A group of specialized artists, thinkers, cultural workers, and researchers with experience in artistic practices across a variety of disciplines; ranging from traditional art mediums to the ephemeral.

• We offer a range of teaching methodologies; ways of thinking that allow students a series of conceptual tools and modes of expression.

• The specialisation of staff includes but is not limited to painting, photography, printmaking, performance, video, installation, sculpture, drawing, and curatorial practices.

• Linked to the WAM and broader Braamfontein area, with a network of galleries and project spaces, including our own: The Point of Order (TPO).

what are we DOING?

• Inhabiting theory as practice and practice as theory.

• Imagining ways of responding to and interpreting the world through creative practice.

• Accommodating a variety of positions, including the active role of students in decision making, planning, and curriculum design.

The manifesto is a living document, an ongoing questioning of our program, our practices, processes, thinking, ideas.

It is a document to be engaged on an ongoing basis by students and staff so that it is responsive to the needs and ambitions of the division in the historical, political and social contexts we find ourselves in.

Adrian Fortuin, The Readymade, Made Ready, moulded plastic and granite, WYAA19 winner, 2019

2. Introduction

Welcome to the Department of Fine Arts at the Wits School of the Arts!

We hope that your postgraduate studies with us will be an exciting time of creative discovery, self-reflexivity and critical engagement in an interdisciplinary arts school.

The Department of Fine Art offers the following postgraduate programmes:

BA of Arts Honours in the field of Fine Arts (BA Hons Fine Arts) Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE)

Masters of Arts in Fine Arts (MAFA)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Our postgraduate programmes are based on a practice-centred approach to research. Students will be exposed to exciting new models and thinking around practice-led research, research-led practice and artistic research. The Masters by Dissertation and PhD degrees consists of students producing a body of work and a dissertation and thesis respectively. The programmes are structured around a complementary approach between research and studio practice. The outcome of the degree is an original body of artistic work and a written component, which is set to meet the requirements of the University and standards of academic rigour as expected in any Masters and Doctoral programme. It is, however, important to position the written and traditional research component of the degree within the specificities of our diverse practices as artists and cultural producers. Honours students not only have structured courses that they need to attend, they will also produce a long essay around a focused research question, which could be done to engage their body of creative work as well.

As the Department of Fine Art, we aim to position ourselves as a University that speaks from the Global or Near South, orienting ourselves both from and towards our context, as South African and African. We understand the South as a complex arrangement of ideas and positions that derive from different locations, histories, flows and trajectories that form our contemporary. From here we position ourselves as a critical programme that speaks to this complexity.

Artistic Research

The Hons, MAFA and PhD programmes work through, and experiment with, different models of artistic research, and we work from the positionality that practice remains at the centre of the research process. Throughout the year, the programmes invite a range of creatives who are critical thinkers to run seminars and workshops that will help students think through what it means to do ‘creative research’ or to research creativity: what does it mean to make a body of creative work as part of a focused research and assessment process and what does it mean to have a studio as part of a discursive environment? Student-led sessions and peer reading-groups focus on the needs of particular postgrad groups. These sessions are voluntary (for MAFA and PhD students) but are aimed to help you think critically and support you formulating your critical research question, which underpins your practice and your dissertation. Each student is allocated a supervisor(s) and, with the guidance of a supervisor(s), formulates an unique articulation of their practice and research. Here your independently directed reading, engagement with your peers and practitioners in the field, as well as perhaps writing groups, are also essential to formulating this position. You are expected to attend exhibitions within the school and the city and keep abreast of developments in contemporary South African art, but also internationally. As this is a practice-led degree, open studios for Hons, MAFA and PhD students are an opportunity for fellow students and staff to view your ongoing practice and to critically engage and give feedback on your work. These are usually invaluable sessions and students are expected to partake in at least one per semester.

We hope that this journey with us will be a personal and professionally rewarding one among staff and peers.

Please read this Postgraduate Handbook in conjunction with the Faculty of Humanities ‘Application to Graduation’ Document that should have been sent to you by the postgrad coordinator.

3. Course Structure

3.1 Bachelor of Arts Honours in the field of Fine Art

The Bachelor of Arts Honours in the field of Fine Art is a one year fulltime or two years part-time degree.

Programme Code: AHA00 / Plan Code: AFAFIN40

NQF Level exit: 8 / NQF Credits: 122

The BA Hons in the field of Fine Art is made up of the following courses:

• Professional Practice in Fine Arts (FINA 4018A) (first semester)

• Critical Theories and Visual Cultures (FINA4019A) (first semester)

• Fine Arts IVA (FINA 4020A) (first semester)

• Fine Arts IVB (FINA 4021A) (second semester)

• Research Project (FINA4022A) (second semester)

With the permission of Senate, students may choose a cognate Honours level course offered by another discipline as an alternative to the Professional Practice in Fine Arts.

The BA Hons in the Field of Fine Art programme also includes a Research Project (FINA 4022A) in the second semester.

Students coming into the BA Hons in the field of Fine Art degree degree will have completed a three-year Fine Arts or equivalent programme at another institution or will have the necessary professional experience to be considered for admission through the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).

Critical Theories and Visual Cultures (FINA 4019A)

The course engages with visual arts, film, curatorial practice, ethnography, the book, narrative forms and popular culture through a range of theories drawn from aesthetics, Marxism, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, performance studies, feminism and intersectional studies of race and gender. These will serve as a basis to refine your critical thinking applied to both your written research and studio practice. You will gain a solid understanding of different trajectories and histories of critical theory through an emphasis on the close reading of primary and original texts. In a similar way, students will be introduced to contemporary practices and cultural forms that traverse disciplinary boundaries and media allowing them to become familiar with ways of articulating positions in both theory and practice.

The course will strengthen your capacity to conceptualise and formulate your own research projects and to apply this as a methodology in the studio. Ideas and practices are engaged with from the perspective of the postcolonial South African and African contexts and a Global South positioning. We ground our approach to contemporary questions and problems of representation from a point of view embedded in our own context, and also critically engage the very categories of West, NonWest and Global South and Global North. The course focuses not only on visual art, but on an expanded field of visual, aural, and spatial practices that respond to current social, political and cultural issues.

Professional Practice (FINA 4018A)

This course looks to further equip professionals with necessary skills for the visual arts industries, as well as providing academic support for those professionals who are upgrading their professional degree status through postgraduate study. As such, the course will aim to share knowledge on basic application writing as well as writing funding proposals/residency and portfolio requirements for the arts sector in particular. As many students who are part of this course are already professionals, peer knowledge sharing is considered an invaluable resource during these classes. The course will also look at the particularities of different types of art writing, including art reviewing, art historical and art criticism, visiting exhibitions to develop critical dialogue around notions of ‘aesthetics’. The course will also actively offer support to students for their Critical Theories and Visual Culture course as well as their Research Paper throughout the year.

with a particular question in mind, i.e. to formulate a position or thesis that you want to prove or disprove with regards to the practice (the more focused the question, the better). If you are addressing questions around the production of a mode of visual culture, make sure you have concrete instances and examples to analyse and discuss, and that you are able to contextualise these.

Honours Research Paper (FINA4022A)

The Critical Theories and Visual Culture Seminar Course aims to prepare you for the independent research project. As part of the Critical Theories and Visual Culture course, it is important that you begin to identify areas of interest for your research paper and then develop a focused research question out of these. The course provides a theoretical framework via a survey of the ideas that informs art critical writing, however it is up to you to pursue further independent research and reading using our discussions and readings as a starting point.

The research paper (6000-7000 words) that forms the main outcome of the Critical Theories and Visual Cultures course is an Honours-level submission. You are required to present an original argument which attempts to answer the main research question and sub-questions you have identified and to substantiate and justify this position in relation to other research and writing in the field on which you have chosen to write.

The course requires you to locate an area of art practice or visual culture that you would research within a particular theoretical framework and orientation. You are required to research this practice or cultural form

Alongside your discussion of practice, the paper requires you to select an appropriate set of theoretical ideas and concepts for the analysis of this practice. You are required to demonstrate a sound understanding and depth of reading in the relevant theory and to apply this to the practice you have chosen to discuss. Theories covered in our coursework serve as a starting point for this, but further reading and research is required on those ideas and thinkers. Think carefully through the methodology of presentation of the research paper –does it fit your mode of analysis (e.g. if your work is dealing with oral histories, could you research paper perhaps be presented with audio or as a video documentary component or as a video documentary or sound archive?). Before engaging any human participants, Honours students need to apply for ethics clearance please see the relevant section in this Handbook.

The research paper is evaluated on various levels, but mainly on your ability to focus on a specific question in relationship to a field of art or cultural practice; to demonstrate a depth of reading in the relevant theory and writing; to formulate your own argument and to situate this discussion within the contemporary, postcolonial context. The paper also requires you to engage with the form of the work that you engage with what is the materiality, medium, affect of the work.

It must be noted that the paper is an independent research project and it is very important to take ownership of this aspect of the project, to do drafts and develop your research and argument, which requires time and consistent work over the year. This is not a project you can rush at the end. You will each have an individual supervisor who works with you on your prac, and the same kind of sustained engagement with your prac supervision must be maintained in your research paper.

Open Studios

BA Hons in the field of Fine Art students occupy the space between both undergraduate and postgraduate studies so while you will be doing the same practical and theoretical classes with the fourth-year students, some of you will already be mature industry professionals. As such, even though you will be engaged in the same crit and assessment sessions with Fine Arts IV students, we would also like to you to engage in the postgraduate open studios . Open studios are an opportunity each term for postgraduate students to present their ongoing creative ideas/work to their peers, supervisor(s), staffing body and other invited guests. Students book with the postgraduate coordinator (Sharlene Khan) in advance and each student is allocated up tp an hour to present work for engagement. Such sessions are crucial to artistic development and should be welcomed both in terms of getting and giving critical feedback.

Timetable

Timeline

One Year BA Hons (Full Time)

If you are planning to finish your BA (Hons) in one-year full-time registration, then you will do the following:

First Semester:

• Professional Practice in Fine Arts (FINA 4018A)

• Critical Theories and Visual Cultures (FINA4019A)

• Fine Arts IVA (FINA 4020A)

• Open Studios

• PG Seminars and Workshop Series

Second Semester:

• Fine Arts IVB (FINA 4021A)

• Research Project (FINA4022A)

• Open Studios

• PG Seminars and Workshop Series

Two Year BA Hons (Part Time)

If you are planning to finish your BA (Hons) over two-years part-time registration, then you will do the following:

Year One:

First Semester:

• Professional Practice in Fine Arts (FINA 4018A)

• Fine Arts IVA (FINA 4020A)

• Open Studios

• PG Seminars and Workshop Series

Second Semester:

• Fine Arts IVB (FINA 4021A)

• Open Studios

• PG Seminars and Workshop Series

Year Two:

First Semester:

• Critical Theories and Visual Cultures (FINA4019A)

• PG Seminars and Workshop Series

Second Semester:

• Research Project (FINA4022A)

• PG Seminars and Workshop Series

3.2 Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE)

NQF Level: 8

Level: 500

Semester: One and two

Prerequisites: A BAFA degree or equivalent by permission of Head of School

Coordinator: Prof David Andrew david.andrew@wits.ac.za

Tel. 011 717 4636 Room 320, 3rd Floor, WSOA

Courses

• Visual Arts - Methodology (FINA 5019A)

• Visual Arts Teaching Experience (FINA 5020A)

• Learning Area Studies: Arts and Culture (EDUC 5093A)

• Learning Area Teaching Experience: Arts and Culture

(EDUC 5011A)

Contact Periods

There are two sessions per week of two hours duration for the Visual Arts Methodology course. Students meet twice a week for the Learning Area Studies: Arts and Culture course (two hours for each session). The Teaching Experience course takes place for one week in the first quarter, three weeks in the second quarter and six weeks in the third quarter.

Reshma Chhiba in collaboration with Shanti Govender, States of being?, MAFA Exhibition Installation, 2019

Outcome of Course

This Art Education course, incorporating FINA 5019 (Visual Arts Methodology), EDUC 5093 (Learning Area Studies: Arts and Culture), FINA 5020 and EDUC 5011 (Teaching Experience), will enable the student to demonstrate conceptual and creative practical and art historical teaching skills, knowledge and values in a range of different art/s education situations. The course aims to enable teachers to act as critical agents for Arts and Culture education in various teaching and learning situations, including the public sphere.

Students will demonstrate the ability to teach and learn as critically reflective practitioners while working in increasingly creative and innovative ways. The course seeks to extend the participant’s subject knowledge base and range of pedagogical strategies for teaching and learning.

Course Format

The first two quarters will concentrate on establishing the necessary platform upon which each artist-educator will be required to position themselves with respect to their role in art/s education. This part of the course will involve interactive sessions within the Department of Visual Arts (DIVA) at the Wits School of Arts and Wits School of Education, and with other institutions and individuals. While drawing on a great deal of international literature, the primary focus of the course will be to locate us within a Southern African context. To this end, students will be required to engage in primary research and materials development and to engage critically with recent National and Provincial Department policy decisions.

The nature of the lectures during the course will model, as far as possible, the interactive and experiential approaches recommended for the teaching Arts and Culture and the subject, Visual Art.

At all times during the course there will be an emphasis on theory informing, and being embedded, in practice.

This will be promoted as a teaching and learning methodology in which the reciprocity of “making” and “reading” is foregrounded. The course aims to develop art/s educators capable of contributing to and leading a radically transformed art/s education practice that challenges current orthodoxies and reconceptualises what art/s education might become in the twenty-first century.

The outline refers generally to Visual Arts Education. This should be seen in the context of a broader, integrated Arts and Culture Education approach.

Students will be placed in positions where they are able to test that which they have explored in “lecture-type” situations by establishing ties with the Wits Art Museum, the Origins Centre, Johannesburg Art Gallery, other galleries, and school and non-governmental organisations, such as the FUNDA Community College.

The FINA 5019 course is complemented and informed by the EDUC 5093 (Learning Area Studies: Arts and Culture) and the two teaching experience courses FINA 5020 and EDUC 5101. You will receive a detailed course outline for the Arts and Culture Methodology course during week one of the academic year. Students are encouraged to use material covered in their other Methodology and Education courses to support their Art Education studies.

Satisfactory Performance Requirements

Students are required to attend 80% of the timetabled sessions in the first, second and fourth quarters. During the Teaching Experience courses you are required to be present for the entire teaching programme in your designated school/s (100%). Students who are absent will be excused if they produce a doctor’s certificate. Similarly, students who fail to hand in written assignments on time, or who request extensions must produce a doctor’s certificate or an equivalent.

Expectations

Records of student attendance at timetabled sessions will be kept. The course will be examined on the assumption that students have been attending lectures regularly.

Reading matter is made available for each area of the course. The onus is on students to read all material, and the course will be assessed on the assumption that students have engaged with the literature.

Students will be expected to be familiar with the material presented in lectures and workshops and to be able to discuss issues that have been raised. You will be expected to have both a specific and a broad knowledge of the material covered in the course and to be able to apply theoretical frameworks to a discussion of that material.

Students will be required to do particular readings for some discussion groups, and to be able to enter debate on these readings and on issues raised in the lectures and workshops within the discussion groups.

Students are expected to arrive on time for classes.

The expectations for written work are the same as for the fourth year Critical Theories and Visual Cultures course. Please consult this section of the course guide for referencing requirements.

Please be aware that any form of plagiarism will not be tolerated. Where plagiarism is suspected, the case will be referred to the Wits School of Arts Plagiarism committee. If you are unsure as to what constitutes plagiarism, please consult your lecturer at the beginning of the course.

You will be required to sign a covering document accompanying each of your assignments that states that the work being submitted is your own and is free of any plagiarised material.

Assessment and Assignments

The following serves as a guideline to the Art Methodology assignments for the year:

• An essay paper in the first and second terms chosen from topics provided Deadline: Last Wednesday of each quarter. Length of paper: 3000 words, typed (2 x 50=100)

• A major research paper submitted in mid-October. Length of paper: 5000 words, typed (300)

• A learning programme (grades 10-12) submitted early in October (100)

• A portfolio/reflective journal demonstrating your growth as an arts educator through the course (Deadline: to be announced) (100)

• Two major materials development projects

Deadlines: late March and mid-June, one project in each of the first two quarters (2 x 50=100)

• A project that is part of one of the community-based or public art programmes in Johannesburg (100)

• A range of shorter exercises (4 x 25=100)

• A teaching experience file Deadline: on completion of Teaching Experience in the third quarter (50)

The above constitutes a coursework mark of 50%. Your final exam equivalent, which you will receive in February, will make up the other 50% of your Visual Art Methodology mark.

You will receive a separate breakdown for the Learning Area Methodology: Arts and Culture course. Similarly, the assessment of the Teaching Experience courses will be discussed with you at the beginning of the PGCE course.

Course Outline

A detailed course outline will be given to you at the start of the Semester.

Venue

The Visual Arts Methodology lectures will take place at a time and venue as agreed upon between staff and students. The venue for these lectures will be in either the Fine Arts Teaching Room, third floor, Wits School of Arts Building or in Room B7, Bohlaleng Block, WSOE campus (first, second and fourth quarters).

Lee Jardine in collaboration with Shanti Govender, States of being? MAFA Exhibition Installation, 2019

3.3 Masters of Arts in Fine Arts

Programme Code: ARA09 / Plan Code: APRAFIA60

NQF Level: 9 / NQF Credits: 180

Courses: FINA8003A

The Masters of Arts in Fine Arts by Research is a practice-based creative programme in which you will be required to produce both a body of creative work and a dissertation.

During the course of the MAFA there are will be three outputs as part of your studies:

• A research proposal (2 000-3 000 words) presented with your practice-in-progress after 6 months of registration for students registered full-time and 12 months for students registered parttime. Please see below for more details on the MAFA research proposal process.

• A body of creative work: The creative work can be staged as one final iteration or as a series of iterations and inquiries across a year that are documented and presented for assessment. Originality of creative expression and sustained critical enquiry as proposed by the research topic.

• A written dissertation (20 000-25 000 words): We are open to experimentation with forms of the written research, as long as this meets the academic requirements of the Masters degree.

The final assessment of the degree is based on the integrity of the body of creative work and the written dissertation as a sustained focused research inquiry and is assessed by an internal and external assessor. We emphasize that the MAFA experience, however, should not just focus on the final exhibition and dissertation produced at the end of the degree but, instead, there should be a consistent commitment to making, research, writing and reading as process, producing iterative outcomes for both research and practice over the course of the oneor two-year degree.

Research proposals should be submitted to the external reader by no later than within six months of registration for feedback. Regular meetings and submissions to supervisors are important steps in this process. Open studios are organised in each term over two days for students to engage peers and staff in critical feedback. Even if a student is not producing traditional studio-based work there should be some sense of development and regular showing of work-in-progress within open studios to peers and supervisors.

MAFA Research Proposal Process

The Faculty Graduate Studies Committee or a panel, formally appointed by the Faculty Graduate Studies Committee, must consider the recommendations regarding worthiness of Masters of Arts by Fine Arts candidate of the School, after an initial period of registration (6 months full-time or 12 months part-time) in order to decide whether to allow their registration to continue. A candidate is required to submit their research documents, from this initial registration period, demonstrating a focused and well researched topic that is elucidated in both practice and written form. For the proposal submission process, candidates can choose from three presentation options to present to one identified proposal reader:

Option 1:

• Present a body of practical work that embodies/speaks to / elucidates the trajectory of their research this may be presented in physical form or in documentation;

• Present one draft chapter of the dissertation (approximately 20003000 words). This chapter can be written as historical, content, textual or visual analysis or a creative / performative response to your practice (and research focus) but must amply demonstrate the manner in which literature reviews are incorporated into writing in our field, while attending to the following: title of research; identifying a focused research question; stating the aims and rationale of the research; problems and gaps identified that the research is responding to; research methods employed (this includes creative research); ethical considerations of the research;

• A comprehensive bibliography of sources identified on the research area;

• An abstract of no more than 250 words, including 5-6 keywords;

• Chapter outlines: Summary of what each chapter in the dissertation will cover (approximately 250 words for each chapter).

Option 2:

• Present a body of practical work that embodies/speaks to / elucidates the trajectory of their research this may be presented in physical form or in documentation;

• Present one experimental draft of one chapter or piece of writing that exemplifies the writing style of the dissertation (approximately 2000-3000 words);

• Present a two-page document detailing the following clearly: title of research; state the focused research question; the aims and rationale of the research; problems and gaps identified that the research is responding to; research methods employed (this includes creative research); ethical considerations of the research;

• A comprehensive bibliography of sources identified on the research area;

• An abstract of no more than 250 words, including 5-6 keywords;

• Chapter outlines: Summary of what each chapter in the dissertation will cover (approximately 250 words for each chapter).

knowledge in their discipline or inter-disciplinary field. The major theories employed should be drawn from primary texts, rather than a reliance on just secondary sources. Research Methods: Dissertation students should show an understanding of the history and development of their chosen methods. Theoretical Orientation and Theoretical Framework: Proposals should contain a theoretical framework and state its theoretical orientation. Data and ethical considerations need to align with your theoretical framework.

•A comprehensive bibliography of sources identified on the research area;

• An abstract of no more than 250 words, including 5-6 keywords;

• Chapter outlines: Summary of what each chapter in the dissertation will cover (approximately 250 words for each chapter).

*If a student chooses to hand in an experimental chapter that does not conform to academic writing, then the following is proposed: the student hands in addition to the above 2000-3000 chapter, chapter outlines, abstract, bibliography, a two page document detailing the following clearly: title of research; identifying a focused research question; stating the aims/rationale of the research; problems and gaps identified that the research is responding to; research methods employed in the research.

Ethics Consideration: MAFA students will supply the abstract and chapter (and if necessary the two page document) as part of their individual ethics application via the University Ethics system.

Option 3:

• Present a body of practical work that embodies/speaks to / elucidates the trajectory of their research – this may be presented in physical form or in documentation;

• Present one a research proposal (approximately 2000-3000 words); Research Question/Problem: Should have a central focused thorough question, with a larger number of subsidiary questions. Literature Review (‘literature’ here is defined broadly as a different format texts including visual, audio, etc.): Complex, rich literature review that is in dialogue and supports the student’s questioning. Students should show an understanding of the epistemological roots of the material under examination, engaging consciously with the foundational

NOTE: Within the first 3 months of registration, all candidates will be required by the Department to present their research topic and initial creative investigations to their peers and staff through the open studio process so that they are given feedback on their developing ideas. Candidates are also required by Faculty to present their proposals to the staff and student body to solicit feedback on their ideas in a public presentation – it is part of the Department’s process that the proposal reader(s) be present to give verbal feedback on the proposal presentation, which should be taken into account by the candidate before final submission of the proposal is made by the candidate through their student portal and the proposal is then sent via Faculty officially to the proposal reader(s).

Reading Groups and Writing Circles

The postgraduate community have developed their own peer-led reading groups. Students are encouraged to continue attending and forming their own focused reading groups to attend to their research needs, including that of writing where necessary. The Wits Writing Centre runs writing circles, which postgraduate students can attend, as an individual or as a writing group. Please contact the Writing Centre should you be interested.

research proposal has been accepted (usually within a month of being submitted), the student is given formal notification to continue with the degree you would have continued working on practice and written research while awaiting the external’s feedback and will incorporate such feedback going forward.

Timeline

One Year MAFA (Full Time)

If you are planning to finish your MAFA in one-year full-time registration, then consider the following schedule:

Seminars and Workshops

Attend first term seminars and workshops and use opportunities to present your proposal ideas, chapter plans, abstracts, etc. Look over the year’s seminar and group programme, paying particular attention to methodology and academic writing workshops that you feel may be helpful to your research interest and choose to attend those, as well as reading and writing groups within and outside the Department that can assist and support you throughout the year and commit to those on a regular basis.

Research Proposal and Open Studios

Aim to submit your research proposal within 3-4 months of your registration. This is done in consultation with your supervisor(s). You will be required to present your research ideas in a public presentation to staff and students to receive feedback and, thereafter, you will be able to submit your written proposal to Faculty, which is then passed to an external reader. As part of this process, you would also have been expected to show your research ideas begun in your practice work in open studios, and presented to your reader(s) at the public presentation as either an exhibition or as documentation. After the

Open studios are an opportunity each term for students to present their ongoing creative ideas/work to their peers, supervisor, staffing body and other invited guests. Students book with the postgraduate coordinator in advance and each student is allocated an hour to present work to their peer and staff body for engagement. Such sessions are crucial to artistic development and should be welcomed both in terms of getting and giving critical feedback. Students can also use this opportunity to present their MAFA proposals which is a requirement by Faculty to the student and staff cohort to gain feedback before final submission to their readers.

Final Exhibition and Dissertation

After the research proposal has been accepted (usually within a month of being submitted), the student is given formal notification to continue with the degree you would have continued working on practice and written research while awaiting the external’s feedback and will incorporate such feedback going forward.

It is encouraged that the final exhibition take place before the dissertation submitted, so that work can be reflected on in the writing. Alternatively, the exhibition can take place after the hand-in of the written paper, but preferably not more than one month later. Aim to hand in the dissertation around November/December of the year of registration. At the end of the year (December), you and your supervisor will be sent a report directly by Faculty to fill on your progress, noting any difficulties you’ve had thus far it is important to fill this form out honestly.

The dissertation should be handed in by no later than 15 February of the following year following registration (any later and you might liable for registration fees).

Change of Supervisor and Submission without Supervisor’s Consent

While it is not advisable for students to submit without their supervisor’s consent, sometimes relations between a supervisor and student may break down. While in the first instance the Departmental postgraduate coordinator should be approached well in advance to intervene where possible in assisting both supervisors and students (or alternatively where this is not ideal the Head of the Fine Art Department can be approached), where there is an irrevocable breakdown in a relationship, a change of supervisor can be requested. Where this happens close to submission for examination and there is contestation over the submission for examination itself, students who intend to submit without their supervisor’s consent are required by the Faculty to submit a motivation THREE MONTHS prior to submission date if submitting to the Senior Faculty officer (Phillimon.Mnisi@wits.ac.za).

to staff and students to receive feedback and, thereafter, you will be able to submit your written proposal to Faculty, which is then passed to an external reader. As part of this process, you would also have been expected to show your research ideas begun in your practice work in open studios, and presented to your reader(s) at the public presentation as either an exhibition or as documentation. After the research proposal has been accepted (usually within a month of being submitted), the student is given formal notification to continue with the degree you would have continued working on practice and written research while awaiting the external’s feedback and will incorporate such feedback going forward.

Two Years MAFA (Part Time)

If you are planning to finish your MAFA in two years part-time registration, then consider the following schedule:

Open studios are an opportunity each term for students to present their ongoing creative ideas/work to their peers, supervisor, staffing body and other invited guests. Students book with the postgraduate coordinator in advance and each student is allocated an hour to present work to their peer and staff body for engagement. Such sessions are crucial to artistic development and should be welcomed both in terms of getting and giving critical feedback. Students can also use this opportunity to present their MAFA proposals as is a requirement by Faculty to the student and staff cohort to gain feedback before final submission to their readers.

Year 1:

Seminars and Workshops

Attend seminars and workshops and use opportunities to present your proposal ideas, chapter plans, abstracts, etc. Look over the year’s seminar and group programme, attend as many methodology and academic writing workshops that you feel may be helpful to your research, as well as reading and writing groups within and outside the Department that can assist and support you throughout the year and commit to those on a regular basis.

Research Proposal and Open Studios

Aim to submit your research proposal within 6 months of your registration (although you have up to 12 months to do so of your registration). The proposal is done in consultation with your supervisor(s). You will be required to present your research ideas in a public presentation

Year 2: Final Exhibition and Dissertation

The second year of the MA is a self-directed year in which students focus on producing a body of work and writing their dissertation. It is encouraged that the final exhibition take place before the dissertation submitted, so that work can be reflected on in the writing. Alternatively, the exhibition can take place after the hand-in of the dissertation, but preferably not more than 1 month later. Aim to hand in the dissertation around November/December of the year of registration. At the end of the year (December), you and your supervisor will be sent a MA report directly by Faculty to fill on your progress, noting any difficulties you’ve had thus far it is important to fill this form out honestly. The dissertation should be handed in by no later than 15 February of the following year following registration.

3.4 Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

NQF

Course: FINA9001A

The Wits School of Arts offers a Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Fine Art. The following points are taken from the Faculty Standing Orders for Wits School of Arts and a PhD in Creative Work:

The PhD in Creative Work thesis may take the form of performance and/or a body of creative work plus a written text which contextualises the work critically and defends its originality.

There must be a coherent relationship between the creative work and the thesis, in such a way that the two components can be assessed as an integrated whole. This does not necessarily mean that the thesis must be a direct commentary on the creative work. It must, however, serve to contextualise the creative work critically and enable the examiners to assess its originality.

The creative work ‘must be the equivalent of a year’s full-time work’. This may take the form of one major project or a number of smaller and related or diverse projects.

The length of the thesis should normally be between 30 000 and 40 000 words.

The thesis must fulfil the central criterion for the award of the PhD, that it must be a ‘substantial contribution to the advancement of knowledge in the subject chosen’. In addition, the following criteria have been approved by the University:

a) The creative work must be the equivalent of a year’s full-time work.

b) The thesis (i.e. the creative work/performance plus written text) must make an original and intellectually articulate contribution to the

understanding of contemporary performing and/or visual arts.

c) The creative work must be contextualised in relation to other forms of cultural production and contribute to the advancement of the discipline and critical debate in the field.

d) The creative work must exemplify and locate the ideas in conjunction with the written text.

As such, the PhD is a practice-based creative programme in which you will be required to produce both a body of creative work and a thesis of between 30 000 and 40 000 words. The PhD is marked by both an awareness of the historical framework in which the study is located, as well offering an original contribution to knowledge production.

During the course of the PhD there will be three outputs as part of your studies:

• A research proposal (4 000-5 000 words): The research proposal is presented with your practice-in-progress after 6 months of registration for students registered full-time and 12 months for students registered part-time. Please see below for more details on the PhD research proposal process.

• A body of creative work: The creative work can be staged as one final iteration or as a series of iterations and inquiries across three years that are documented and presented for assessment. Originality of creative expression and sustained critical enquiry as proposed by the research topic are assessed by one internal and two external examiners.

• A written thesis (30 000-40 000 words): While the PhD thesis can present more typical formats and structures associated with academic writing, and sound research and argumentation are demanded at this level of scholarship, both form of writing and presentation are open to experimentation in the field of visual arts. You have until the 15th of February after the third year after your registration to submit your thesis to Faculty.

The final assessment of the degree, done by 2 local assessors and one international assessor, is based on the originality of the body of creative work and the written thesis as original contributions to knowledge. We emphasize that the PhD experience, however, should not only focus on the final exhibition and thesis, but also on the long journey of making, research, writing and reading as a continuous reflexive and critical process for both research and practice over the course of the three year degree.

Research proposals should be submitted to two external readers within 6 months of registration for feedback. Regular meetings and written submissions to supervisors are important steps in this process. Open studios are organised in each term over two days for students to engage peers and staff in critical feedback and PhD students are encouraged to show work regularly, or at least discuss their ongoing ideas in these sessions.

5000 words). This chapter can be written as historical, content, textual or visual analysis or a creative / performative response to your practice (and research focus) but must amply demonstrate the manner in which literature reviews are incorporated into writing in our field, while attending to the following: title of research; identifying a focused research question; stating the aims and rationale of the research; problems and gaps identified that the research is responding to; research methods employed (this includes creative research); ethical considerations of the research;

• A comprehensive bibliography of sources identified on the research area;

• An abstract of no more than 250 words, including 5-6 keywords;

• Chapter outlines: Summary of what each chapter in the dissertation will cover (approximately 500 words for each chapter).

Option 2:

PhD Research Proposal Process

The Faculty Graduate Studies Committee or a panel, formally appointed by the Faculty Graduate Studies Committee, must consider the recommendations regarding worthiness of Doctor of Philosophy by creative research by Fine Arts candidate of the School, after an initial period of registration (6 months full-time or 12 months parttime) in order to decide whether to allow their registration to continue. A candidate is required to submit their research documents, from this initial registration period, demonstrating a focused and well researched topic that is elucidated in both practice and written form. For the proposal submission process, candidates can choose from three presentation options to present to one identified proposal reader:

Option 1:

• Present a body of practical work that embodies/speaks to / elucidates the trajectory of their research – this may be presented in physical form or in documentation;

• Present one draft chapter of the dissertation (approximately 4000-

• Present a body of practical work that embodies/speaks to / elucidates the trajectory of their research – this may be presented in physical form or in documentation;

• Present one experimental draft of one chapter or piece of writing that exemplifies the writing style of the dissertation (approximately 4000-5000 words);

• Present a two-page document detailing the following clearly: title of research; state the focused research question; the aims and rationale of the research; problems and gaps identified that the research is responding to; research methods employed (this includes creative research); ethical considerations of the research;

• A comprehensive bibliography of sources identified on the research area;

• An abstract of no more than 250 words, including 5-6 keywords;

• Chapter outlines: Summary of what each chapter in the dissertation will cover (approximately 500 words for each chapter).

Option 3:

• Present a body of practical work that embodies/speaks to / elucidates the trajectory of their research – this may be presented in physical form or in documentation;

• Present a research proposal (approximately 4000-5000 words);

Research Question/Problem: Should have a central focused thorough question, with a larger number of subsidiary questions. The proposal should discuss the practice as a centrality and the research question needs to encompass all aspects of the research. Literature Review (‘literature’ here is defined broadly as a different format texts including visual, audio, etc.): Complex, rich literature review that is in dialogue and supports the student’s questioning. Students should show an understanding of the epistemological roots of the material under examination, engaging consciously with the foundational knowledge in their discipline or inter-disciplinary field. The major theories employed should be drawn from primary texts, rather than a reliance on just secondary sources. Research Methods: Dissertation students should show an understanding of the history and development of their chosen methods. Theoretical Orientation and Theoretical Framework: Proposals should contain a theoretical framework and state its theoretical orientation. Data and ethical considerations need to align with your theoretical framework.

• A comprehensive bibliography of sources identified on the research area;

• An abstract of no more than 250 words, including 5-6 keywords; • Chapter outlines: Summary of what each chapter in the dissertation will cover (approximately 500 words for each chapter).

*If a student chooses to hand in an experimental chapter that does not conform to academic writing, then the following is proposed: the student hands in addition to the above 4000-5000 chapter, chapter outlines, abstract, bibliography, a two page document detailing the following clearly: title of research; identifying a focused research question; stating the aims/rationale of the research; problems and gaps identified that the research is responding to; research methods employed in the research.

Ethics Consideration: PhD students will supply the abstract and chapter (and if necessary the two page document) as part of their individual ethics application via the University Ethics system.

NOTE: Within the first 3 months of registration, all candidates will be required by the Department to present their research topic and initial

creative investigations to their peers and staff through the open studio process so that they are given feedback on their developing ideas. Candidates are also required by Faculty to present their proposals to the staff and student body to solicit feedback on their ideas in a public presentation it is part of the Department’s process that the proposal reader(s) be present to give verbal feedback on the proposal presentation, which should be taken into account by the candidate before final submission of the proposal is made by the candidate through their student portal and the proposal is then sent via Faculty officially to the proposal reader(s).

Change of Supervisor and Submission without Supervisor’s Consent:

While it is not advisable for students to submit without their supervisor’s consent, sometimes relations between a supervisor and student may break down. While in the first instance the Departmental postgraduate coordinator should be approached well in advance to intervene where possible in assisting both supervisors and students (or alternatively where this is not ideal the Head of the Fine Art Department can be approached), where there is an irrevocable breakdown in a relationship, a change of supervisor can be requested. Where this happens close to submission for examination and there is contestation over the submission for examination itself, students who intend to submit without their supervisor’s consent are required by the Faculty to submit a motivation THREE MONTHS prior to submission date if submitting to the Senior Faculty officer (Phillimon.Mnisi@wits.ac.za).

Seminars and Workshops

The postgraduate seminar programme is aimed at all postgraduate students in the Department of Fine Arts. However, there will be focused doctoral methodology and practice-based workshops run specifically for PhD students throughout the year. Provisional dates have been set, but these will be negotiated with the group directly by the postgraduate coordinator at beginning of each semester as many

of the PhD students are employed full-time and some are based in other provinces.

Attend as many postgraduate seminars and workshops as possible and use opportunities to present your proposal and chapter ideas, chapter plans, publications, etc. Look over the year’s seminar and group programme, paying particular attention to methodology and academic writing workshops that you feel may be helpful to your research interest.

Open Studios

PhD students are expected to present their work as part of the open studio days. Each student is allocated an hour to present work to their peer and staff body for engagement. Such sessions are crucial to artistic development and should be welcomed both in terms of getting and giving critical feedback. Try to present at least once a semester. These sessions also help us think through presentation possibilities each time and so presentation itself becomes a discursive, reflexive exercise. Students can also use this opportunity to present their PhD proposals – as is a requirement by Faculty – to the student and staff cohort to gain feedback before final submission to their readers.

Reading Groups and Writing Circles

The postgraduate community have developed their own peer-led reading groups. Students are encouraged to continue attending and forming their own focused reading groups to attend to their research needs, including that of writing where necessary. The Wits Writing Centre runs writing circles, which postgraduate students can attend, as an individual or as a writing group. Please contact the Writing Centre should you be interested.

Andréa Hygino (2022) Exposição Cadeiraço (Barricada) Wits Arthouse Installation, 2022

4. The Research Proposal Process for MAFA and PhD Students

The research proposal (which includes the practice-in-progress) needs to be presented firstly to the postgraduate student and staff cohort, as well as the proposal reader(s) in a public presentation. Students should take on board the proposal reader(s) verbal feedback.

The finalised research proposal is then submitted via the supervisor to the WSOA Graduate Studies Chair with the following docs:

• Turnitin report of the research proposal;

• statement of principals form signed by both student and supervisor;

• the proposal submission form.

The WSOA Graduate Studies Chair checks the proposal submission form is filled correctly, all docs are submitted and signs off and forwards to the WSOA PG Administrator: Sibusisiwe (Busi) Ndlovu: sibusisiwe.ndlovu@wits.ac.za

Proposal feedback from Faculty should be expected in 6 weeks.

Once the proposal has been submitted, an application for ethics clearance can be submitted to the University HREC.

5. Postgraduate Open Studios, Workshop and Student-Led Conference Dates 2022

Bev Butkow, embodied entanglements / entangled embodiements

MAFA Exhibition Installation, 2021

Slots should be booked with the postgraduate coordinator Sharlene Khan (Sharlene.Khan@wits.ac.za) at least a week in advance. Each student is allocated up to an hour for presentation and discussion of work/ideas/proposals students, supervisors, staff and invited guests are welcome to join the discussions. Proposals should be emailed a week in advance to the pg coordinator so it can be sent out with the invite to staff, students and guests for engagement.

• Open Studios and Orientation: Wednesday, 2nd March, Thursday and 3rd March 2022 (orientation programme for all new PG students, introductions to practice by all new PG students and studio reviews/proposal presentations for returning students only)

• Open Studios: Tuesday, 24th May and Wednesday, 25th May 2022

(Open to all Hons, MA and PhD students)

• WSOA Student-Led Creative Conference: Wednesday, 31th August, Thursday, 1 September and Friday, 2 September 2022

(Open to all WSOA Postgraduate Students)

• Open Studios: Wednesday, 12th October and Thursday, 13th October 2022

(Open to all Hons, MA and PhD students)

Oupa Sibeko, Black is Blue, MAFA Exhibition Installation, 2019

6. Department of Fine Art and Wits School of the Arts Creative Methodologies Postgraduate Seminar, Workshop and Open Studio Series 2022

Weekly, Thursdays, 9:00-12:00 during contact teaching: Venue SHB4

WSOA Creative Research Methodologies Series link:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3a49P1MSH60Dv2-J_ MgrI8LKDonnfZekVHgP6QdJU7vLk1%40thread.tacv2/conversations?groupId=2f3cfb5a-dbb449f4-8c47-34e2095717fb&tenantId=4b1b908c-5582-4377-ba07-a36d65e34934

Department-specific meetings, MS Teams link (time change to 10:00-11:30 if COVID remote online teaching dictates): https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3a615f45d57c654a4fad78cf33c861ec00%40thread. tacv2/conversations?groupId=b7ef7408-3c53-48fa-b44c-7ad3902f6a1e&tenantId=4b1b908c5582-4377-ba07-a36d65e34934

Seminars and workshops are directed at supporting students’ research, writing and critical thinking around artistic practice. They are voluntary and student-centred. WSOA staff and invited guests run staff-led seminars and workshops. The seminar, workshop and open studio programme is devoted to methodologies and aspects of postgraduate academic and creative research and writing, including the writing of abstracts, proposals, literature reviews, research questions, chapter outlines/mind-mapping and ethics protocols. Seminars and workshops, run by members of staff within the School and in the wider University, draw strongly on their practices within the field of arts and are oriented towards practice and its relationship to artistic research, as well as field conversations. Students are expected to read prescribed texts and participate in the discussion. From the second term onwards, staff-led seminars and workshops alternate with student-led seminars and reading groups, and in 2022, the Department will host its second student-led conference.

There are also seminars and workshops run by various other centres on campus aimed at supporting Humanities and postgraduate students (including Faculty writing retreats and writing groups) – these are announced via email and online services so please keep abreast of your Wits mails.

Term 1

Wednesday, 2 March and Thursday, 3 March 2022: Welcome and Orientation

Prof Sharlene Khan (Fine Arts)

Student-Centred Approach

Postgraduate studies are important moments of actualisation in a student’s experience, and it requires a new independence in research and self- articulation. It is up to you as students to shape your own course over the 1, 2 or 3 years of the Hons, MA or PhD degree and to self-organise and take ownership of the program and shared resources. The postgraduate programmes provide opportunities for the development of a shared culture amongst postgraduate students through not only its formal programme, but also its other programming like the TPO and Art House exhibitions, DIVA Talks series, etc. Staffled seminars are based on the individual practices of staff and invited guests. Workshops allow for smaller groups of students to be workshopped individually with their peers on specific focused areas of their research. Student-led sessions are opportunities for peer engagement, lateral learning and information sharing (many of your peers are already established industry professionals and knowledge producers). Thus, peer learning and knowledge sharing is considered equally valuable and students should take ownership of these sessions and mould them for the needs of their particular groups. Postgraduate sessions aim to be student-centred and focused (please refer to the Code of Conduct begun by the 2019 MA group as a code of practice for seminar sessions).

Please self-enrol on the following websites in order to get the latest information:

Fine Art Department General (HMN-WSoA-Fine Art PG-2022): https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/enroll/6HJBP3

WSOA General PG (WSOA-POSTGRAD-2022): https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/enroll/EY9NAR

Departmental Welcome to postgraduate students, explanation of requirements of the Hons, MA and PhD Fine Arts degrees, COVID Occupational Health and Safety Protocols, as well as an opportunity for students to ask questions about the degree and programme. New students will introduce themselves and their creative practice and research ideas in a 10 min presentation. Returning MA and PhD students can sign up for proposal presentations and open studios.

Thursday, 10 March 2022: Aesthetic Distance and the Knowledge it Enables: An Exploration of the Kinds of Knowledge Gained from Practise-led Research

Dr Petro Janse Van Vuuren and Nondumiso Msimanga

This session looks at the value and status of the knowledge that can be gained from practise-led research. It also explores the kind of knowledge generated by the frame of the artist as maker vs. the artist as witness of the making and how this is different from the researcher’s gaze. This session therefore explores the attitude of the participant observer and how this attitude can promote or hinder rigorous research processes and outcomes.

Outcomes:

• An understanding of the kinds of knowledge gained from practiseled research.

• Embodied knowledge of the attitude that is required to turn practise into research.

• Insight into the difference between the knowledge gained by maker, and the knowledge gained by observer or researcher.

• An understanding of the power of aesthetic distance to enable knowing and the status of such knowing in relation to the kind of knowing that constitutes research,

• An opportunity to debate the nature and status of the knowledge they hope to generate through their own projects.

Thursday, 17 March 2022: Elements of Academic Research Writing

Prof Sharlene Khan (Fine Arts)

This seminar looks at the key elements of academic writing (long essays, dissertations and theses) in order to aid students to understand the various components that is usually required from such writing. This includes abstracts, research question, literature review, chapter outlines and bibliography as well as a short introduction to academic referencing.

Thursday, 7 April 2022: How to Write Abstracts

Dr Catherine Duncan (Interdisciplinary Arts and Culture)

Thursday, 24 March 2022: Developing a Novel Question: Considerations Towards Writing a Research Proposal Kamogelo Molobye and Gavin Matthys (Theatre and Performance)

Research projects begin with a proposal. Candidates in pursuit of a higher postgraduate degree, such as a Masters or Doctoral Degree, are required to write a proposal for their research. A research proposal is a written document that convinces institutions of higher learning, supervisors, and/or funding bodies that your research is worthwhile. The seminar engages with matters of research preparedness to review and reinforce student learning with respect to the research process. Students will review components of research proposals. Students will be exposed to tools on developing and framing a research question. Furthermore, the seminar will discuss considerations towards the importance of context and position in research, conceptualizing realistic aims, synthesising existing scholarship, approaches to literature review, harnessing analytic strategies and referencing. Students will develop critical thinking skills in the assessment of the validity of the published literature, evidence syntheses and gap analyses.

Writing an abstract does not need to be limited to the final step of a research process. This applied workshop will be based on Kamler and Thompson’s “tiny text” approach. They argue that, while a strong abstract is essential to publishing and submission success, we can also think about it as a tool to plan and articulate ideas for a chapter or paper in the early stages of writing. The workshop is for students at any phase of the writing process. Participants will gain the most from the session by bringing current drafts with the intention to develop an abstract by the end of the morning.

Excerpts from: Thomson, P. and Kamler, B., 2012. Writing for peer reviewed journals: Strategies for getting published. Routledge, will be provided before the workshop.

Thursday, 31 March 2022: The Need for a Research Question

Neka da Costa (Theatre and Performance) and Prof Sharlene Khan (Fine Arts)

This is a workshop session, which looks at the need for a focused research question in academic study and workshops each participant’s own research ideas and questions. As this is a workshop space is limited and participants need to book by no later than 21st March 2022.

Term 2

Thursday, 21 April 2022: Research Ethics

Dr Tanja Sakota-Kokot

What does it mean to ensure and maintain good ethics practice? This seminar will discuss key concepts relating to ethics and research as well as provide a detailed overview of how to apply for Ethics Clearance within the school and faculty. The workshop will focus on terminology such as risk categories, vulnerability, consent, assent, confidentiality and anonymity as well as consider how you can apply them to your own research.

Thursday, 28 April 2022: Literature Reviews for Artistic Research

Prof David Andrew

“‘Artistic research’ is an awful term” (Chus Martinez 2012). In this seminar/ workshop an overview of some of the literature on artistic research from the last three decades will be discussed. In addition, examples of literature that do not foreground artistic research will be considered for their relevance to postgraduate creative degree practices.

Thursday, 5 May 2022: Oral History Methodology and Artistic Practice

Dr Arianna Lissoni and Dr Ali Hlongwane (History Workshop)

This workshop will provide an introduction to doing oral history and its development as a research methodology to document the lived experiences and struggles of “ordinary people” in the context of South African history. We will discuss the importance of memory and remembering in oral history, and reflect on questions of power/ positionality, ‘voice’ and other practical and ethical considerations surrounding the interpretation and public use of oral testimonies by historians as well as artists, who are increasingly incorporating oral methods in their creative practice.

are not based on previously known objects or artworks, therefore encouraging curators to rely on collective processes of creation as a curatorial practice.

Tuesday, 24 May and Wednesday, 25 May 2022 Fine Art Open Studios

Open to all Hons, MA and PhD students

Thursday, 12 May 2022: Writing as Thinking

Dr Pam Nicols (Wits Writing Centre)

If writing is thinking, how can one craft and write research in a way which is true to one’s vision, creativity, and intellectual and imaginative engagement with a topic?

This session will consider:

• how to craft an independent voice and frame writing in order to join academic discussions in the particular field;

• how to promote a self-sustaining culture of writing through habits of peer consultation and review and the development, support, and sustainability of writing groups;

• our current intellectual circumstances, both local and global, and the need to find creative ways to think independently, and to participate as a global citizen in an increasingly divided and troubled world.

Thursday, 19 May 2022: Creating the Curatorial Together

Clarissa Diniz (Visiting Brazilian Curator and Scholar)

Departing from the experience of the exhibition “Dja Guata Porã indigenous Rio de Janeiro” (Brazil, 2017), the workshop intends to instigate thoughts and ideas on methodologies for the curatorial that

Thursday, 26 May 2022

Student-Led Session

Postgraduate Students

Thursday, 2 June 2022: Considering the Gaze

Dr Dee Marco (Media Studies

Popular culture and ways of looking / watching have long been the focus of the visual arts and of media studies. They differ but they also intersect in a multitude of ways. This session will focus on the gaze used and imposed, by motion images, and the disguise provided by these images in our contemporary era. We will use bell hooks critical interjection and expansion on race and the gaze (as written about by Mulvey). We will then ask questions about how the gaze changes, is altered or contorted, to invoke powerful or meaningful images and visual sequences.

We ask questions like:

• Whose gaze matters?

• Why does the gaze matter?

• How is (the) gaze constructed?

• What does the gaze mean in our ‘everyday’ lives?

Next pages:

Bev Butkow, embodied entanglements / entangled embodiements

MAFA Exhibition Installation, 2021

Term 3

Thursday, 28 July 2022: Performativity and Positionality

Neka da Costa (Theatre and Performance)

Judith Butler’s explication of ‘performativity’ in her renowned publication Gender Trouble (1990) suggests that gender is sequence of repeated, socially constructed ‘acts’ both performed onto and by a subject within a heavily regulated environment. This discourse challenges the taken-for-granted notion of gender as an ontological way of being, proposing instead that gender is a series of actions, a continuous doing. Performativity thus provides a very useful lens through which to unpick and critique ingrained normative assumptions and practices, both personally and within the academy, encouraging the researcher to explore their own identity and positionality in relation to their research.

Thursday, 25 August 2022 Student-Led Conference Preparation

WSOA Postgraduate Students and Prof Sharlene Khan (Fine Arts)

Wednesday, 31 August, Thursday, 1 September and Friday, 2 September 2022

WSOA Student-Led Creative Conference

WSOA Postgraduate Students

Thursday, 4 August 2022 Student-Led Session

Postgraduate Students

Thursday, 11 August 2022: Researching With Communities

Mocke Janse van Veuren (Film and Television) with participants of the Kliptown Film Project

In this dialogue we explore the complexities surrounding research projects linked to institutions such as universities in a community context, discussing strategies for the subversion of institutional epistemic power relations, and the “public” potential of “public” universities.

Thursday, 8 September 2022: Working Towards an Understanding of Practice-based Research

Dr Tanja Sakota-Kokot

During this seminar we will unravel the elements that constitute practicebased research. We will focus on how process becomes essential to understanding research and how artists (in the broadest sense) are also scientists, scholars, researchers and sources of knowledge production.

Thursday, 18 August 2022

Student-Led Session

Postgraduate Students

Term 4

Thursday, 22 September 2022: NFTs and the Digital Space/ Marketplace

Dr Tegan Bristow (Digital Arts), Devin Pearson (MyMonero) and Frederick Clarke

Frederick Clarke will be discussing the concept of value in the art world and world in general, within the context of the history of art dating back to early cave paintings, and exploring examples of value being warped, manipulated and pre-determined by systems of power (so as to better understand the mechanism of currency and how it pertains to art-making in our current context). Clarke will unpack the defining of NFS’s in context, specifically focusing on them as a problematic and potentially dangerous vessel for art, and the hydra of evolving digital currency.

Tegan Bristow will discuss how the creative economy and the digital are more closely entwined following the pandemic its physical restrictions. Do we however fully understand the digital ecosystems and markets that are beginning to dominate digital spaces? Bristow will speak to her work on digital creative economy intermediaries in Africa, this will include views on emergent markets such as NFT’s and the Metaverse. Devin Pearson looks at the question why NFTs are the gifts that keep on giving. A closer look at the art of collecting.

Wednesday, 12 October and Thursday, 13 October 2022 Open Studios

Open to all Hons, MA and PhD students

Thursday, 29 September 2022 Student-Led Session

Postgraduate Students

Thursday, 6 October 2022: Mining the Archive for Creative Research Purposes

Dr Nicola Dean (Artist and Creative Scholar)

I will discuss my particular research journey engaging and subverting a cultural archive, in this case, the Documentation Centre for Music (DOMUS) at Stellenbosch University, by destabilising rigid taxonomies and artificially constructed separations foundational to the archival process, I opened up the DOMUS to provide a site for creative production and reflection. I enacted a decolonial option by cutting up and rearranging image, text and sound from the archive, and fusing this material with existing creative practices that explore domesticity through filmmaking, calligraphy on eggshells, and écriture féminine. In the process of transferring the creative outcomes and dissertation onto a digital platform for my final presentation, I designed a virtual archive of the research project as four alternative passages through the DOMUS archive. I will navigate this outcome on the herri platform during my discussion: https://herri.org.za/5/nicola-deane-decentering-archive/

Thursday, 20 October 2022: Who is Speaking? Finding your Voice/s Bettina Malcolmess

A workshop on different approaches to research and writing, exploring an intersectional approach to the MA between artistic research, field work and embodied material investigation. We will look at some examples of MA proposals and finished theses to explore possibilities of unconventional and conventional writing formats. We will discuss how studio processes and forms of site collection can be put in conversation with writing, resisting the case study model of social science research to argue for an affective modality of writing research.

Thursday, 27 October 2022 End-of-year Session

PG coordinator, Staff and Postgraduate Students

6. Supervision

Supervision is a key aspect of your postgraduate experience. Usually students work with one supervisor from the Department over the course of their MA and PhD studies, but in some cases, there is a second supervisor (this is usually on request when there is a specialist research area need). Supervision is usually structured by twice a month or monthly meetings or, in some cases, scheduled according to need and availability of students and lecturers. As some staff members are employed on a 50 % basis, it is important to work around this and schedule at least online meetings or independent working times when lecturers are away. All supervisors on the program have active art and curatorial practices and this is a huge advantage to students, but timing of meetings and commitments need to be managed accordingly.

We would like to emphasize the dialogical nature of the postgraduate programmes, as one where you, as much as your supervisors, lead the process of your degree. You are expected to work independently on your practice and research. You need to keep up with deadlines and manage your time between seminars/workshops, your studio, research and writing as well as your life and work commitments.

Supervision meetings and regular feedback on both your practice and your writing is a Faculty expectation should you feel that you are not getting adequate assistance in this regard, you should speak to your supervisor in the first instance, or, thereafter, to the postgraduate coordinator. This can also be reported on in the yearly MA/PhD reports (which are confidential and sent directly to the Faculty administration). Your supervisor also has expectations of meeting with you regularly and seeing work set timeframes and expectations and deadlines and attempt to meet these. When you feel you are not able to, revisit these with your supervisor and renegotiate when, as they say, ‘life happens’. Be realistic around your goals while you may feel you are ready to hand in, your creative work or writing may be saying something else. Your supervisor is there to act as a first critical response they are not there to hamper you, but they pre-empt queries that your external readers/examiners may have that may prevent you from

completing your degree. It is, thus, necessary for you not to ignore your supervisor’s feedback as simply opinion or commentary but the first critical external voice that you need to take note of as critical

interrogation. Your supervisor will also fill in a yearly MA/PhD report on your progress – in most cases they try to give objective feedback on how your progress went that year, and if there were any delays that warranted, or if they pre-empt any warranting, extensions, then they try to explain. They are also expected to notify Faculty if there has not been sufficient engagement or progress from a student.

To make the most out of supervision meetings, you might want to consider writing a report on the meeting, what was discussed (major points) and the outcomes decided as well as the next scheduled date of meeting and email that to your supervisor for both theirs and your records. Another helpful method is to audio record if your supervisor permits this – your consultation sessions with them so that you can hear the feedback more than once. You may be surprised how much you don’t hear the first time around. Most importantly, find a relationship that best works for you and your supervisor remember, your supervisor wants you to succeed, but you are not their only student! You cannot expect feedback on a chapter in under two weeks (four weeks if it’s a huge chapter or chunks of a thesis, and particularly during undergraduate exams). You also cannot expect supervisors to be chasing after postgraduate students for work for senior students with busy professional and home lives we try to graft a programme of support while leaving as much room for you to work, study and live. The onus is, thus, on you to remain in contact with your supervisor. The postgraduate coordinator will be in contact, however, should you begin missing important timeframes (participation in at least one open studio per semester; research not presented publicly within four months of registration; research proposal not submitted within 6 months of registration; being alerted by supervisors that no contact has been established since registration for a semester; no end-of-year report submitted) to check-in with you.

7. Studios, Equipment, Safety & School Facilities

The Department of Fine Arts is housed in various buildings and spaces across the Wits School of Arts and off main campus. The Administration and staff offices are located in the main WSOA building situated on East Campus, with first, second and third year studios, and the Photography and Print sections on the ground floor. ‘Art House’ contains the Workshop on the ground floor (entrance opposite The Nunnery), and senior (3rd and 4th year) studios on two levels upstairs. MAFA and PhD students have studios on the 7th floor of University Corner, and at Number 9 Wolmarans Street in Braamfontein. The Point of Order (TPO) is the Fine Arts project space situated in Bertha Street, Braamfontein.

Studio spaces, equipment, facilities, studios are provided by the Department of Fine Arts and Wits School of Arts for the use of students registered for the BAFA, BAFA Hons, MAFA and Creative PhD degrees. These are partially funded by the Redirected/Laboratory Fees that each student pays as part of their University fees. The equipment, facilities, studio spaces and materials belonging to the Fine Arts Department and the Wits School of Arts may only be used for work that is made towards the degree for which a student is registered and may not be used for private or commercial work.

note that there are toolboxes with some basic items available for use at the UC-7 and Wolmarans spaces.

Michael

Use of Studios

Studio spaces and all other spaces in and outside of the School buildings are to be respected and maintained in an appropriate manner throughout the year by the students who are using them.

Each student is responsible for ensuring that the studio and workshop spaces used during the year are at all times in a condition appropriate for teaching and learning, and, where necessary, for the exhibition of work during the June and November assessments. Furniture and other equipment in studio and workshop spaces are subject to the same requirement. Students who do not adhere to these conditions will be liable for replacement or repair of lost or damaged property and in cases of abuse or theft, will face disciplinary action by the University.

The studios are essentially repurposed spaces they were not originally constructed as art studios but functioned as offices and a dental hospital. In this spirit, the studio spaces are aimed to be a flexible, communal/shared spaces that can adapt to different courses, individual creative practices and activities.

Please do not remove desks, chairs, stools, easels, palettes and other furniture or materials from the first/second year studios, Sculpture Painting and Printmaking studios as this severely compromises the teaching program.

Postgraduate studios for 2022 are spread between WSOA, University Corner 7th floor (UC-7) and 9 Wolmarans Street, Braamfontein (Wolmarans Studios).

• Honours students are given a studio for up to one year of fulltime study and two-years part-time study, Masters for one to two years, PhD for up to three years and are expected to vacate their studio by the date stipulated on their contract (this is usually by the 20th January of every year). This is nonnegotiable as studios have to be readied for the new Hons, MA and PhD cohorts, and studios cannot be held back for students until February/March/April examination dates.

• Any student who completes their practical component ahead of the timeframe above and submits for examination will have to vacate their studio within one month of their examination

date as the department is under strain for studio space. Studios cannot simply be used after practical examination as writing spaces the postgraduate computer lab is to be used for this.

• Studio spaces are allocated by the postgraduate coordinator and no subletting or alternate arrangements are permitted without their permission or knowledge.

• Studio keys are given out only once contracts have been signed and key deposits have been paid to the Departmental Administrator, WSOA Building, Room 314a (key deposits can also be collected from the administer on leaving the studio).

• As our studio spaces are limited, students are expected to share studios, a common practice in art schools and working artist studios, and we do our best to combine compatible practitioners working in the same or at least complimentary media.

• The dialogues between students in shared studios and with studio neighbours are important for our postgraduate culture. Music which is a personal preference is expected to be played on personal headphones or negotiated with other listeners.

• All equipment must be loaned out and returned timeously.

• Common spaces should be treated with respect and used communally. There is a kitchenette in University Corner and Wolmarans a kitty can be established to replenish stock, and dishes must be washed, spaces and rubbish tidied up (this is not the job of the cleaners).

• There are weekly cleaning services, but you are expected to maintain and keep your studios clean and not compromise others with the use of unsafe or toxic processes.

• Studio management is facilitated by the Workshop and Studio Assistant Bongumusa Shezi.

• At the end of the loan period, studios are expected to be cleaned out of all artwork the Department has no facilities to store any artwork unfortunately (not even for short spaces of time). Studios are to be returned in the condition in which they were provided, with keys returned to Bongumusa Shezi and key deposits collected from the Administrator.

• No non-Fine Art student is permitted use of any Fine Arts equipment, materials, workshop or lab spaces and is not allowed in Fine Arts laboratory and workshop spaces after-hours.

• Under COVID-conditions, strict protocols are in place regarding masking, sanitising, physical distancing, rotation regarding use of space, University Occupational Health and Safety protocols. These were outlined to you during the COVID orientation and are available on the Ulwazi PG course module and you are expected to familiarise yourself with them and abide by them in order to use the studios.

You are asked to respect and take responsibility for the spaces you are occupying and make them your own, which includes the following:

• Keeping the studios in good working condition please report any faults immediately to the Workshop and Studio Assistant Bongumusa Shezi (Bongumusa.Shezi@wits.ac.za) copied to the Departmental administrator and the postgraduate coordinator Sharlene Khan, who are assisting with UC-7 and Wolmarans. While cleaners are employed to regularly clean the studios, you are asked to generally assist in maintaining a constructive and inspiring working environment. A student representative for each space will be nominated each year and will liaise with Bongumusa to communicate any space requirements/fault reporting.

• The studios are only for working, while students are permitted to work late and overnight, no sleeping over and no living in the studios is permitted; neither is any subletting of studios.

• No use of hotplates are allowed during the evenings or night.

• Students who are on abeyance are required to vacate their studios for the duration of their abeyance.

• Please display your name on studio doors as well as your contact details should staff or security need to get in touch with you urgently.

• Keep the furniture, easels, clean and in good working order, even if they have been used by many students over several years.

• Students who use the printing and coffee facilities in UC-7 and Wolmarans are required to pay R5.00 for coffee and 50c per page for photocopying, printing (to be placed in the money box). Students will be required to replace any communal equipment or furniture that is mislaid.

Use drop-sheets when painting. Some spaces do not allow for particular modes of production – students allocated spaces in the Gatehouse studios for instance will not be allowed to engage in any other production besides photography and video work as the space – which is on loan for 2022 from another Department – has carpets and walls that cannot be damaged over 2022 (please alert the postgraduate coordinator immediately if this space is not suitable for your artistic production).

• Work process and work ethic: respect each other with how you work in the space, e.g. use of power tools, paint, music etc.

• Take care of your work, tools and material.

• Avoid blocking the drains with paint or oil and dispose of material such as paint, plaster-of-Paris, cement, clay, oil etc. appropriately. Use appropriate bins to collect and recycle solvents such as turpentine – NEVER pour these solvents into the drains. The use of hotplates or stoves are only permitted during working hours and should be not be left unattended.

• Chemical drums are available in the Darkroom, the Painting and Printmaking studios for the disposal of chemicals, turpentine, thinners and various oils.

• For any needs or repairs in the studios (furniture, lighting, plugs, window covers, partitions etc.), paint or any permanent fixtures you want to change or add, speak to the relevant studio assistants, technical and academic staff.

• Get permission first, this is important!

The technical and spatial installation of your artwork for open studios is an integral part of your studies, practice and production. As part of

thinking and working curatorially, you are asked to familiarise yourself with the architectural specifics of available spaces; hanging and installation systems; measuring; the use of the appropriate hardware and tools for the installation and de-installation of your work (i.e. the use of specific types of wall plugs/screws for brick wall, wood or dry walling; appropriate use of nails; handling power drill, use of spirit level etc.). As a principle, do not use double sided tape to hang your work anywhere.

Some spaces require that you need to book out the space in advance and sign a studio use form with the relevant manager of the space (your year coordinator can give you more info on who manages particular spaces) there are special booking and installation requirements for UC-7 seminar room and Wolmarans exhibiton space (please contact Bongumusa for the booking form for these spaces).

You are required to restore the walls, floors, ceiling and lighting to the required standards after any display of work. This includes fixing, patching and painting holes in walls, removing nails, staples or tape from walls and partitioning boards. Short workshops can be arranged with the workshop staff on the basic practical and technical know-how. Students are encouraged to support each other and get input from staff where needed.

Leaving Your Studio (End of Contract)

You are responsible for leaving the studio space as you found it: clean, the walls restored (holes etc. are fixed correctly) and painted white, the floors cleaned (paint and oil stains removed) and the furniture in good order and in place. Remove any of your material or artworks, including unwanted items, by the required date (date on contract), remove all data from the shared computers in the labs by the due date. Students are required to take responsibility for the removal or discarding of material rather than leaving this responsibility to cleaning staff who have other priorities.

The Department reserves the right to dispose of work found in studios and on computers after the after the 20th of December and 20th of Januaryeach year in preparation for the next postgraduate cohort.

Specialised Facilities

The Department of Fine Arts has various specialised facilities available for student use during the course of their degrees.

The Workshop

The Workshop is located on the Ground Floor of the Art House Building next to The Nunnery. The workshop is managed by the Workshop Senior Technician, Daniel Gray, and the Workshop Assistant, Godfrey Mahlangu who will introduce you to the working hours, the use of machines and tools, health and safety rules in the workshop, tool and gear take-out, group and individual appointment system, etc. The use of the workshop is strictly for undergraduate and postgraduate Fine Arts students and staff. Access to these facilities is further monitored in terms of Occupational Health and Safety requirements. Daniel and Godfrey are available to consult and assist you with the use of tools, finding solutions and the realisation of your ideas/artwork production and installation.

Tools and equipment are available for loan or use in the workshop. When taking out tools, you are responsible for returning them in working condition, on the due date. Penalties will apply to late returns. Lost, stolen, or damaged tools / equipment must be replaced by the person who has signed them out. Safety standards must be observed at all times. You are responsible for learning and adhering to the safe and appropriate use of power tools and machines available in the workshop, and to respect the standard safety precautions. Safety protective gear (goggles, particle masks, respirator masks, safety shoes) must be worn while working with machinery in the workshop.

Please adhere to the booking and access times specified by the workshop staff.

Daniel Gray, Senior Technician, Workshop daniel.gray@wits.ac.za | 011717 4633

Godfrey Mahlangu, Workshop Assistant godfrey.mahlangu@wits.ac.za | 011 717 4633

Hemali Khoosal, Between Two? Entre Deux, Video Installation, WYAA19 runner-up, 2019, Photograph by Kundai Moyo

The Photography Section

The Photography Section comprises the photography studio and workspace, digital printing facilities, photographic, video and sound recording equipment, black & white darkroom and processing facilities, and the Fine Arts Computer Lab.

These facilities are managed by the Photography Technician and are located on the Ground Floor of the WSOA building.

Students may borrow equipment from the equipment store. There is a booking system and equipment is issued at specific times only. The equipment issuing hours are posted on the noticeboards in the photography section. A list of equipment that students have access to is available from the Photography Technician. Loan periods vary according to demand, but generally equipment is loaned out for a week at a time. Late returns will be fined. In cases where equipment is long overdue, the Department of Fine Arts may impose further penalties, e.g. restrictions on further loans for a certain period of time, relative to the period of the overdue return.

The computers in the Fine Arts Computer Lab have the Adobe CC Suite with Photoshop, Lightroom, AdobeBridge, Adobe Premiere being the main software used in the teaching program. The computers are used for the production of work for the undergraduate and postgraduate Fine Arts degrees only. The Computer Lab Code of Conduct must be signed by each student and adhered to at all times. Access to the Lab is controlled by access card.

The digital printing facility is available for specialised photographic printing. Post-graduate students are required to pay for printing, as their Redirected/Lab Fees do not cover printing costs. These payments are made directly into the photography account and cash is not accepted. The darkroom is equipped with enlargers and all the requirements for black and white film processing. A basic amount of chemistry is available to students.

The Print(making) Studio

The Print Studio is located on the south side of the ground floor of the Wits School of Arts building. The Print Studio is equipped with professional facilities for intaglio processes, relief printing, silkscreening and lithography. The Print Studio is open for senior students’ independent work, and collaborative printing projects, in consultation with the academic staff and the Printmaking Technician. Short workshops are scheduled into the calendar when necessary.

As in the workshop and photography sections, all of the equipment, tools and stock are Wits School of Arts assets. The Studio Manager/ Printmaking Technician, Thabiso Kholobeng, has to ensure that these are used safely, correctly and respectfully at all times by students and fellow colleagues. Studio protocols should be observed with consideration to all who are using the studio. Some processes, due to Occupational Health and Safety Procedures, are not available after hours when the technician is not around.

Use of Professional Facilities

Please remember to ...

• Monitor the correct use of the presses at all times

• Release the drum and press bed at the end of the day • Avoid wastage of materials at all times

• Follow the standards and instructions set by the Printmaking Technician/ Studio Manager

• Ensure that hot plates are switched off at all times when not in use • Switch off lights at the end of each day

• Maintain a clean studio space throughout out the week, including the cleaning of rollers, brayer and surfaces

• Clean the sink at the end of every day

• Take care of inks and ensure that they are packed away at the end of the day

• Wear protective clothing/safety gear: students are not allowed to use the Acid Room and associated materials without protective clothing, mask, PVC apron and gloves

• Refrain from using C4 (liquid/ paste) to clean silk screens

• Work with care

Thabiso Kholobeng, Printmaking Technician / Print Studio Manager

thabiso.kholobeng@wits.ac.za

The Point of Order (TPO)

Vision Statement

The Point of Order (TPO) is an on-going initiative implemented by the Department of Fine Arts that functions as an experimental exhibition space managed under the auspices of the exhibitions programme of the Department of Fine Arts, Wits School of Arts. Located beyond the boom, just outside the University grounds, TPO allows for the engagement of artworks that are made in Fine Arts in a publicly accessible exhibition space. The programme covers student and/or staff-led initiatives, and hosts programmes (residencies, exhibitions, events and exchanges) with local and international individuals and institutions, with a focus on emerging artists from the undergraduate, postgraduate and alumni Fine Arts programme, as well as upcoming undergraduate students within the Department.

Objectives of the Space

• Question the role of ‘exhibitions’ in their present form

• Question histories of exhibition-making and develop artmaking practices in various forms of space engagement and their rootedness to place

• Allow for experimental use of space by undergraduate students – with an outcome that will be publicly engaged in the form of exhibitions, openings, events, talks, screenings etc.

• Collaborate with curatorial courses taught within the WSOA, the Humanities and other appropriate teaching and learning programmes of the University

• Engage with, and develop, various curatorial strategies, through student-led initiatives

Overview

The mission of TPO is to engage with current exhibition-making practices taught within the Fine Arts program. It is a space that challenges students to experiment with various forms of practicebased space engagement.

The contributors examine the proliferation of graduate programs in curatorial studies over the last twenty years, and consider what can be taught without giving up what is precisely curatorial, within the ever-expanding parameters of curatorial practice in recent times. They discuss curating as collaborative research, asking what happens when exhibition operates as a mode of research in its own right. They explore curatorial practice as an exercise in questioning the world around us; and they speculate about what it will take to build new, innovative, and progressive curatorial research institutions.

• Open itself to ‘viable’ proposals from Johannesburg and elsewhere Management and Exhibitions Plan

• The Exhibitions Coordinator, Reshma Chhiba, oversees the logistical and creative management and maintenance of the space. The Department’s workshop team, who are available to assist with exhibition installation and structural maintenance when required, support the logistical management of the space. The Exhibitions Coordinator and Exhibitions Portfolio Manager, with input from Fine Arts staff members, drive creative decisions on exhibition and event proposals.

• All exhibitions and events will still be managed under strict Covid guidelines for 2022.

• Protocol and exhibition agreement documents ensure that all exhibitors use the space in a manner that requires care and effective use of space, without damage or negligence to the artworks and equipment on display/in use.

• The Point of Order hosts three dedicated Fine Arts exhibitions, undergraduate events and postgraduate exam exhibitions annually. The space is also made available to external exhibitors, artists, curators, events and projects from other Departments, Faculties or Institutions whose projects align with the vision and objects of TPO.

• TPO bookings for postgraduate exhibitions should be booked directly with Reshma Chhiba via email. It is advisable to book at least 8 to 12 months in advance as the calendar gets quite full. Any cancellations must be made no less than two months prior to the confirmed exhibition slot.

Reshma Chhiba, Exhibitions Coordinator

reshma.chhiba@wits.ac.za | 011 717 4737

https://www.thepointoforder.org

https://www.wits.ac.za/wsoa/fine-arts/point-of-order/

Please note: All of these labs, equipment and facilities are under high demand at particular times of the year by undergraduates, as are the demands made on the technicians, so please avoid, if possible, making bookings nearing the mid-year and end-ofyear undergraduate exam periods (check with workshop and lab technicians on dates).

Postgraduate Computer Lab, Writing Spaces in the School, Student Opportunities

The Postgraduate Computer Lab is a dedicated postgraduate computer lab located on the ground floor of the WSOA building for both your use of editing as well as writing needs. The Photography Technician will also assist you with arranging card access to this or the main computer lab as well (located opposite this).

There are also common spaces in WSOA, at the Wolmarans and University Corner studios where screenings, happenings, social events can happen. Drama for Life, located on the topmost floor of University Corner also has a postgraduate writing space and welcomes students to work there. Besides the computer labs in the second floor WSOA resource centre, there are additional computer labs in the Graduate Centre for Humanities in the South West Engineering Building as well.

The School facilities should be seen as shared resources and especially at postgraduate level student-led initiatives are important to your own growth and experience. We encourage self-organised exhibitions, but also your own initiation of reading groups, film screenings, talks, etc.

There are also several partnerships with arts institutions on the African continent and internationally. We have run several exchange programs for postgraduate students with these institutions and this is also an exciting and interesting potential for your postgrad group.

The Wits postgraduate programmes orients itself towards a decolonial approach, with a sense of the urgency for art practice to articulate new ways of thinking creative research that is postcolonial and Southoriented, speaking to our context but also to a global contemporary condition, both within the University and outside, and encourages postgraduates and undergraduates to interact across all years.

Security and Safety

The School of Arts is committed to ensuring the health, safety and welfare of all staff, students, contractors, service providers and visitors in its working environment. The School aims to provide an environment that is secure and conducive to achieving levels of academic and creative excellence. Students are required to share this responsibility.

Access to campus and various buildings in the WSOA complex is enabled with your student card. While security officers are stationed at the WSOA buildings, it is important that equipment, materials and personal possessions are safely stored when not in use.

The UC-7 postgraduate studio space is access controlled and students are asked to maintain this by ensuring that doors remain closed at all times and being responsible for who is let into spaces. Studios at Wolmarans have 24-hour security guards, but as the studios are a few streets down from the University and there are regular power cuts, there are specific protocols for emergencies in this space. Protocols are pinned up on the Wolmarans notice board. Please familiarise yourself with them (including panic buttons, emergency exits and landline for emergencies).

Use of Material and Tools - Safety Precautions

The Department of Fine Arts endeavours to establish a healthy working environment, which encourages recycling, conservation (water, electricity, resources), awareness of hazardous and toxic materials/fumes, and preference for non-toxic ‘green’ material as an integral part of creative practice, and research. Students are asked to participate in the recycling of paper, discarding toxic material such as turpentine and acids in appropriate containers, and handling of hazardous material, tools, and machines with the necessary precaution. Students are required to inform themselves about the material they work with (paint, varnishes, solvents, sculpture materials, image processing chemicals etc.). They need to be aware of which

Audrey Salmon, Clotted Bodies in Paradise, Installation View, 2017 Video work toward PhD completion 2022

materials are toxic and damaging to their health and environment, and how to safely store them. Each student must ensure for themselves the necessary safety precautions for working (protective gloves, goggles, dust mask, working in open air, working in a well-ventilated studio, switching on extractor fans, having fire extinguishers at hand etc.). Plaster of Paris, paint, and clay must not be discarded via the drains and plumbing system. Resin and similarly toxic material should be used carefully and only in open areas (Sculpture Studio exterior). Chemical drums are available in the Darkroom, the Painting and Printmaking studios for the disposal of chemicals, turpentine, thinners and various oils.

• Students may not bring visitors to classes without prior permission by the course coordinator and Head of Department

• Do the research to find alternative, less toxic material

• Be smart and know what you are working with and how to work with material and tools.

• Be mindful not to endanger yourself or others when working

• Take responsibility for the appropriate and safe use of tools and material as part of your research and practice

Please note that due to health and safety concerns, some material and tools may not be available for use after hours or outside the supervision hours of workshop technicians.

• Discuss and plan with your supervisor if any of the material you have been using can be re-used/recycled by other students once you leave

• Familiarise yourself with the location of fire extinguishers in the building, first aid kits, as well as being aware of all emergency fire exits (please ensure during the course of the year that all passages and exits remain free for movement in the event of an emergency)

• Read the instructions for usage of materials and chemicals and familiarise yourselves with storage requirements, and waste management

• Should you come across anything during the day or after hours that may be of Health and Safety concern, please report it immediately to the guard on duty and to a member of staff.

• No students are allowed to sleep overnight in WSOA, particularly in the Fine Art workshop and lab spaces, as this presents a great health and safety risk

• Fine Arts students are not permitted to allow non-Fine Art students into workshop and lab spaces after working hours

• Inform your supervisors or course coordinators of safety risks that you may encounter while working in the studios

WSOA Occupational Health and Safety

It is the policy of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, insofar as is reasonably practicable, to comply with the Occupational Health and Safety Act No 85 of 1993 (and its regulations) as well as allied OHS&E related legislation, standards, and requirements to which the University subscribes. The University is committed to providing and maintaining, as far as is reasonable practical, a healthy, safe and risk-free working and learning environment.

The Wits School of Arts is committed to undertaking our part in complying with the University OHS&E policies. On a very immediate level, this means being aware of how your practice may at times inadvertently harm people in and around the School and surrounding environment. Should you have any queries about whether your work does present a risk, please discuss this with your supervisor or course

coordinator. In case of emergency, contact the Safety Officers in your area.

http://intranet.wits.ac.za/gtd/healthsafety/Shared%20Documents/ OHSE_Pol_Pg1.pdf

9.Department of Fine Art Staff Profiles

Occupational Health and Safety Contacts (Fine Arts)

Reshma Chhiba | OHS&E Officer | First Aider – Level 1

The Point of Order (TPO) | 011 7174737

Daniel Gray | OHS&E Officer | First Aider Level 1 Art House, UC7, Wolmarans | 0117174633

Thabiso Kholobeng | OHS&E Officer

WSOA Printmaking Studio, First Year Studio | 011 717 4634

Godfrey Mahlangu | OHS&E Officer | First Aider Level 1 Art House, UC7, Wolmarans | 011 717 4633

Elias Nxumalo | Evacuation Co-ordinator

WSOA, based at the WSOA Reception | 011 717 4609 | speed dial 6194

Joshua Williams | OHS&E Officer

WSOA Basement | 0117174654

Under the South African Government Legislation and the Wits Policy on Smoking, smoking (of any kind) is not permitted in any public or workspace. As such, no smoking is permitted in the Wits School of Arts building (this includes any open courtyard or space within WSOA, including the rooftop) - please smoke at least 10 metres away from the building including any window.

Bettina Malcolmess

Bettina Malcomess is a writer and an artist, also working under the name Anne Historical. Their work exists in a diverse set of forms, from long duration performance to staging situations and installations to the book as a site of practice. A practice inhabiting multivocality and density, embodied research and material investigation. Since 2015, Anne Historical has been working with analogue film and sound media to produce a series of works that inhabit the entanglement of memory, technology and history. Treating what is lost in translation as both sonic and luminescent matter, these works constitute a set of unfinished articulations, in counterpoint voices, signals and gestures, making tangible the invisible politics of historical technology. An attempt to queer the signal.

Malcomess has been teaching at the Wits School of Arts, Johannesburg since 2011 and is currently completing a PhD in Film Studies at King’s College London, a media archeology project researching the history of cinema, telegraphy, heliography, cartography and empire. They coauthored the book Not No Place. Johannesburg, Fragments of Spaces and Times (Jacana, 2013) and was the visual editor of Routes and Rites to the City: Mobility, Diversity and Religious Space in Johannesburg (Palgrave, 2017). She is also widely published as a critical and creative writer.

Historical/Malcomess’ work has shown at the Spier Light Art Festival, Cape Town (2020), ICA, Cape Town (2019), ausland, Berlin (2018), Padiglione de Arte Contemporanea (PAC), Milan (2017), Dak’art Biennale, Senegal (2016), the Johannesburg Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2015) and at the La Maison Rouge, Paris and Dresden for the ‘My Joburg’ exhibition (2013). She has collaborated with Betonsalon, Paris (2016) and the Showroom, London (2017). Malcomess cocurated the group exhibition Us with Simon Njami, with iterations at the Johannesburg Art Gallery (2009) and the Iziko South African

National Gallery in Cape Town (2010). In 2018 Malcomess formed an interdisciplinary platform focused on performative practice called the joining room. This was invited by William Kentridge in collaboration with Bhavisha Panchia’s Nothing to Commit Records to form part of Season 3 at The Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg (2018). She is part of several ongoing collaborations in Berlin with the sound performance space, ausland.

Research interests and areas: -media archeology, technology and race -performance, sound art and theatre -history, narration and archives -creative writing, queer studies and science fiction -film histories and analogue film -books as visual practices David Andrew

David Andrew is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Fine Arts at the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He studied at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, (BA Fine Arts 1985) and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, (H Dip Ed (PG) 1986; PhD 2011, Title: The artist’s sensibility and multimodality: classrooms as works of art). He is a practising artist and lectures in Fine Arts and Arts Education courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His interest in the artist-teacher relationship has resulted in a number of projects aimed at researching, designing and implementing alternative paths for the training of arts educators and artists working in schools. In the period 2003 to 2008 he jointly coordinated the Curriculum Development Project Trust-Wits School of Arts partnership that developed the Advanced Certificate in Education (Arts and Culture) and the Artists in Schools and Community Art Centres programmes. Current research interests include the tracking of histories of arts education in South Africa and southern Africa more broadly; the Another Road Map School Africa Cluster research project with researchers in Cairo, Harare, Kampala, Kinshasa, Johannesburg, Lubumbashi, Maseru and Nyanza;

the On Location research project with the Konstfack University College of Arts, Craft and Design in Stockholm, Sweden; and the reimagining of the arts school and artistic research in the context of the Global South. He was a member of the organising team for the first NEPAD Regional Conference on Arts Education in Africa (Johannesburg, South Africa, 2015) and participated in the second NEPAD Regional Conference on Arts Education in Africa held in Cairo, Egypt, May 2017. In March 2017 he co-convened the ArtSearch Symposium on Artistic Research with Professor Jyoti Mistry at The Dance Factory, Johannesburg. He has presented at numerous conferences including the InSEA Conference in Budapest, Hungary (July 2011) and the Arts in Society Conference also in Budapest, Hungary, (June 2013). In May 2013 he was invited to attend the World Summit for Arts Education in Munich and WildbadKreuth, Germany. One of his most recent publications, An aesthetic language for teaching and learning: multimodality and contemporary art practice is included in the volume Multimodal approaches to research and pedagogy: Recognition, resources and access (2014). His most recent publications are Pedagogies and practices of disaffection: Film programmes in arts schools in a time of revolution, Journal of African Cinemas, Volume 9 Numbers 2 & 3 (2017), co-authored wIth Professor Jyoti Mistry, and Notes from Johannesburg Dialogues and Itineraries of the South from Kinshasa: Art, History, and Education in ARTL@S BULLETIN, Vol. 7, Issue 1 (Spring 2018). He recently convened the Rorke’s Drift, Histories and Pedagogies Stories told and yet not told Symposium in Johannesburg, South Africa (5-6 April 2019).

Dorothee Kreutzfeldt

Dorothee Kreutzfeldt lives and works in Johannesburg. Her artistic practice and research have been pre-occupied with spatial realities and imaginations, particularly in the post-Apartheid context of South Africa. This has included researching the impact of bomb attacks in Cape Town in 1999 (‘Fresh’ Residency, 2001), to the ways in which histories are written into the contested and often violent urban fabric of Johannesburg. She completed her MA FA with distinction (2004), which involved collaborations with sign-writers on a series of paintings for ‘mothballed’ buildings in Johannesburg, including the former

Trades Hall which was the site of a miner’s ‘revolt’ in 1922. She was involved in building the artist’s collective Joubert Park Project at the Drill Hall in 2004, which aimed to build artist collaborations and networks that addressed the site and its role as a military base and courtroom during the 1956 Treason Trial in the city centre. In 2014 Kreutzfeldt copublished the book Not No Place, Johannesburg Fragments of Spaces and Times with Bettina Malcomess, which evolved out of five years of research. In all these different projects and initiatives, Kreutzfeldt returns to the details, re-inventions and stresses of spaces, to questions of who built them, how they are adapted and become unreadable structures or fictional memory. Kreutzfeldt lectures in the Fine Arts Department at the WITS University (since 2011). She is represented by Blank Projects, a gallery based in Cape Town. Her latest collaboration, City Without A Sun, consisted of a series of paintings with artist Blake Daniels (http://www.blankprojects.com).

Research interests –painting, urbanism, spatial practices and culture, collectives and artists collaborations, socially/politically/historically informed art practice, inter-disciplinarity and representation, lensbased media, African literature, violence studies, resilience and healing

Paulo, and the Palais de Tokyo’s Do Disturb Festival, Paris. Her solo exhibition, This song is for… is currently installed at the Iziko South African National Gallery, having previously shown at the Monument Gallery in Makhanda, and the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg. Goliath has won a number of awards including a Future Generation Art Prize/Special Prize (2019), the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Award (2019), as well as the Institut Français, Afrique en Créations Prize at the Bamako Biennale (2017). Her work features in numerous public and private collections, including the TATE Modern, Iziko South African National Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, and Wits Art Museum. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate with the Institute for Creative Arts at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

I locate my research interests at the intersections of trauma theory, visual studies and performance, through the lenses of (post)colonial, decolonial, black feminist, and queer theory. http://www.gabriellegoliath.com

Gabrielle Goliath

Gabrielle Goliath situates her practice within contexts marked by the traces, disparities and asof-yet unreconciled traumas of colonialism and apartheid, as well as socially entrenched structures of patriarchal power and rape-culture. Enabling opportunities for affective, relational encounters, she seeks to resist the violence through which black, brown, feminine, queer and vulnerable bodies are routinely fixed through forms of representation.

Goliath has exhibited widely, most recently in Le Guess Who, Utrecht; Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev; Conversations in Gondwana, São Paulo Cultural Center, São Paulo; Kubatana

An Exhibition with Contemporary African Artists, Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Norway; Verbo Performance Art Festival, São

Joshua Williams

Joshua Williams was born in Cape Town, South Africa, where he completed a BA in Fine Arts (2013) and Masters of Fine Arts (2018) at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. Williams trained in sculpture, however works interdisciplinary between sculpture and painting between image and object. Central to his practice is forms of mark making with reference to space and time which extend to notions of memory and archival practices. Broader research interests include intersections of identity, race, trauma (intergenerational and national) and how this informs culture individually and collectively.

Natasha Christopher

Natasha Christopher is an artist and academic based in Johannesburg. She has an MA (Fine Arts) from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (2007) and completed her undergraduate studies,

majoring in sculpture and photography, at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town (1991). She is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative Practice at Wits University and is a PhD Fellow at the Wits Cities Institute. The title of her research is Welkom to Johannesburg, and explores the use of plant life in Johannesburg, and gardens in the Garden City of Welkom, in the Free State Goldfields, as evocations of the two cities’ socio-political histories. Christopher is a full-time faculty member at Wits School of Arts, where she has been teaching photography and studio practice since 2010. Her photographic work consistently evidences her search for intimacy and the personal in all subject matter, whether in the city or the personal domain, keenly considering her position in relation to these subjects, as well as her implicatedness as photographer in the broader power contentions and problematics of photography as a medium.

Kwaito at the centre of my work. My research and experiments into South African music histories is published in two books… Not No Place by Dorothee Kreutzfeldt and Bettina Malcomess (2013) Space Between Us (English/German) edited by Marie-Hélène Gutberlet (2013)

Sonic talks/lectures at events such as the: 10 Cities public sphere symposium and concert in Kenya (2013) Year After Zero conference in Germany (2013)

Someone who knows something, and Someone who know something else: Education and Equality symposium of the 9th Bienal do Mercosul in Brazil (2013)

- Stimela: Migration and Song in Southern African Song, Night School (2017)

Sonic Speculations into Kwaito: documenta14 (2017) Kaya FM, Johannesburg (2017)

Go tsamaya ke go di bona; Emancipatory Epistemologies, Humanities Graduate Center, Universty of the Witwatersrand

Rangoato Hlasane

Rangoato Hlasane is a cultural worker, writer, DJ, educator and cofounder of Keleketla! Library in Johannesburg and the Molepo Dinaka/ Kiba Festival in Polokwane. He holds a masters degree in Visual Art from the University of Johannesburg and teaches at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he is an active member of the community and a PhD candidate. Rangoato is committed to ‘art/s education’ with a social justice agenda including a selection of written contributions: 58 Years to the Treason Trial: Intergenerational Dialogue as a tool for Learning (2014)

- Guest author with Malose Malahlela for the 2014 book Creating Spaces: Non-formal Art/s Education and Vocational Training for Artists in Africa Between Cultural Policies and Cultural Funding (English/ German/French) by Nicola Laure Al-Samarai (2014)

We believe a library is everything (English/Portuguese) Multi-authored case study of Keleketla! Library in the Brazil-based journal, Mesa (No3: Publicness in Art, 2015)

As Mma Tseleng, I plays music to expand his my research into the social, political and economic significance of South African music, with

Curation/Commissions

Thath’i Cover Okestra, co-curated with Malose Malahlela, is an experiment in ‘writing’ (South) African music histories and rerouting their family trees.

Vol 5 (Berlin, Germany, 2018)

Sharlene Khan

Sharlene Khan is a South African visual artist and scholar. Khan works in a range of media which focus on the intersectionality of race, gender and class and the socio-political realities of a post-apartheid, postcolonial society. She uses masquerading as a decolonising strategy to interrogate her South African heritage, as well as the constructedness of identity via rote education, art discourses, historical narratives and popular culture. She has exhibited in various local and international exhibitions (most recently at the Thessaloniki Biennale), and has participated in a number of international visual artist workshops and

residency programmes (Egypt, South Korea, India, France, Mauritius). She was recipient of the Rockefeller Bellagio Visual Arts residency in 2009. She is second prize winner of the German 2015 VKP Bremen Video art award and has been twice nominated for the South African Women in Arts Award (Painting). She is a 2017 recipient of the American Learned Councils African Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship and a 2018 winner of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Science Award in the Visual Arts category. She has presented academic articles and performances at numerous conferences internationally and has published articles in Manifesta, Springerin, Artlink, Artthrob, Art South Africa. She holds a PhD in Arts from Goldsmiths College and has lectured in Visual Arts at the University of South Africa (UNISA) and in Art History and Visual Culture at Rhodes University. She runs the project Art on our Mind, that holds public dialogues with South African women-of-colour visual artists on their creative methodologies. She is also co-convener of the African Feminisms (Afems) Conference. She is the editor and publisher of the artist books What I look like, What I feel like (2008); I Make Art (2017) and When the moon waxes red (2019).

Her research interests include race studies, black-Afrocentric feminist creative methodologies, postcolonialism, South African visual arts, performativity, African literature, crime fiction, science fiction, film, popular culture (particularly mural studies) and decolonialising aesthetics. http://artonourmind.org.za https://afemsconference.wixsite.com/afemsconference/ https://blackfeministreadinggroup.wordpress.com/ https://decolonialaesthesiscreativelab2018.wordpress.com/ https://sharlenekhan.wixsite.com/faith-khan

Micheal Cheesman, Landscape Entanglements: exploring Johannesburg and a family archive, MAFA exhibition installation, 2019

Tracey Rose

Tracey Rose was born in 1974 in Durban, South Africa. She holds a Master of Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, University of London (UK) and received her B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1996. She was trained in editing and cinematography at The South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance in Johannesburg.

Rose belongs to a generation of artists charged with reinventing the artistic gesture in post-Apartheid South Africa. Within this fold, she has defined a provocative visual world whose complexities reflect those of the task at hand. Refusing to simplify reality for the sake of clarity, the artist creates rich characters that inhabit worlds as interrelated as the many facets of a human personality. Her reference to theatre and the carnival tradition also places her work in the realm of satire. As such, it has consistently questioned and challenged the prevalent aesthetics of international contemporary art, the emergence of a dominant cultural narrative of struggle and reconciliation in South Africa and also post colonial, racial and feminist issues in the wider world. Working with performance, often for the camera, Tracey Rose places her body at the center of her practice. She inhabits the roles given to Africans, to African women, and to women in a male dominated world, swallowing stereotypes whole. In her quest to understand the source of these cultural meanings that define the human condition, Rose is inevitably led to religious myths of creation. The scope of Rose’s work is not limited to the boundaries of South Africa, and it has indeed quickly found a global, humanist resonance.

Rose has exhibited and performed widely both at home and internationally, including the South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Johannesburg Art Gallery; Dakar Biennial in 2000 & 2016; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg; The Project, New York; Venice Biennial, 2001 & 2007; The Haywood Gallery, London; The Brooklyn Museum; Tate Liverpool; Bildmuseet, Umea; and most recently Museo Reina Sofia; WIELS Brussels; Dan Gunn, Berlin; EVA International, Limerick; the São Paulo Biennial; Biennial of Moving Images, Geneva; Museum of Modern Art, Buenos

Aires; Documenta 14, Athens & Kassel; and her upcoming mid-career retrospective at Zietz MOCAA entitled “Shooting Down Babylon”. My interests are broad and diverse, but for now my focus is on the following:

Performance Art; Video Art; Installation Art; Photography; African Spiritual Practices, and Shamanism.

Zen Marie

Zen Marie is an artist who works in a variety of media. Core to his practice is a concern with how meaning and possibilities are produced through material and immaterial site, space and place.

While working from a position that often begins with photography and film making this extends into performance, sculpture, graphic processes and writing. His areas of focus have included international sport, identity, nationalism, public infrastructure, food, urban space, aesthetics and forays into undisciplined decolonial philosophy. The links between these diverse areas is around the relationship between desire, power, agency and their subversive or revolutionary potential.

Marie currently lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he is a Lecturer in Fine Art at the WITS School of Art. He is also a PhD candidate at WITS, with a focus on areas of art and theory in relation to what he calls situated aesthetic practice.

Next pages:

Bev Butkow, embodied entanglements / entangled embodiements

MAFA Exhibition Installation, 2021

10. Department of Fine Art Health and Safety Protocols Under Covid-19

• Common COVID-19 symptoms include:

– Fever (or fluctuations in body temperature)

– Difficulty in breathing

– Fatigue

– Headaches

– Diarrhoea

– Body aches and pains

– Dry cough

– Runny nose / sneezing

What is COVID-19 and How do you get it?

• Caused by a virus referred to as SARS-Cov-2

• How is it spread – the virus gets in through our mouth, nostrils, eyes, open wounds. COVID-19 is mainly transmitted through molecular droplets of sputum, mucus / nasal discharge (bodily fluids) primarily from infected persons that are coughing or sneezing. These molecular droplets contain infective virus particles. Transmission takes place through direct contact of these virus particles on a person’s hands, followed by touching the eyes, nose or mouth.

• The spikes of the virus attach to our lungs, uses RNA to replicate and destroy our cells, causes upper respiratory infection; (far more dangerous for those with weaker immune systems (particular persons with immunocompromised or immunosuppressed systems e.g. cancer, TB, heart/lung disease, people over 60 years of age); can cause lower respiratory tract infections such as acute lung injury (ALI) or acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), but doctors are learning every day of more and more outcomes of this infection.

• Symptoms vary from mild flu-like symptoms to pneumonia, but also other forms of non-respiratory symptoms like loss of smell and taste, gastrointestinal symptoms (diarrhoea and vomiting). Many people may also be asymptomatic (i.e., they don’t display any symptoms/display typical COVID-19 symptoms) and may also be infectious.

• If you think you’re experiencing COVID-19 symptoms such as high fever, breathing difficulty (i.e. such as shortness of breath and wheezing), fatigue and body pains or if you are unable to eat or drink then call your doctor/healthcare worker immediately or go to a designated hospital.

Employees and Students (Self-Management)

• Employees and students must strictly adhere to the rules in the various COVID-19 related in Government Gazette’s as well as University protocols. This includes practicing good personal hygiene practices (i.e. for coughing/sneezing into one’s elbow, washing of hands and physical distancing rules).

• Office spaces must be arranged to ensure that the required physical distancing rules are applied and, where this is not possible, the necessary screening/barricading must be applied. Each University entity will identify these requirements based on the outcome of their respective entity risk assessments.

• All persons are required by law to wear a mask when in public. All public buildings/institutions are by law required to enforce the wearing of masks by all who enter their premises. Refusal to wear a mask and to undergo symptom screening is a punishable offence. Staff and students are required to wear a mask at all times when interacting with each other, and to practice good cough etiquette (cough into your elbow) and physical distancing (1.5m 2m).

• Furthermore, the university is required to provide hand sanitisers for the use of all staff and students.

• Daily cleaning of surfaces and equipment is key in controlling the spread of the disease as is good ventilation of all rooms/ venues.

• Attendance registers will be issued and for most spaces there will be a roster of who is allowed to work in a lab space during which hour or during which day in the studio if it is a shared studio space (sometimes advance bookings will be essential). This will be to ensure physical distancing, to track-and-trace in case of an infection when other persons need to be notified for quarantining and/or if there needs to be an University investigation.

• NO VISITORS (even non-Fine Art students) will be allowed access to Fine Art spaces during COVID-conditions!

• You will receive a notice on your mobile phone that either clears you for entry or denies you entry to campus.

• Show your clearance note to the security officers before entering campus.

• For those staff members and students without smartphones or computers, hard copies of the screening form can be filled in and/or dropped off in boxes at the gates.

• Refusal to undergo symptom screening, is a disciplinable offence. Not undergoing symptom screening defeats the University’s goal of maintaining a healthy and safe work environment as explicated in the University’s OHS&E Policy as well as Section 8 of the OHS Act.

• For more information on the Wits Covid-19 Screening Process, visit: http://www.wits.ac.za/covid19/covid19-screening-tool/

ENTRY AND ACCESS TO WSOA AND FINE ART PG VENUES

• Use the Logbox Self-Screening App to self-screen every day this must be done in advance of coming to campus.

Online Self-Screening Form/App: LOGBOX APP

• The Wits Screening App (LogBox Patient Application) is live and can be downloaded from the App Store or the Google Play Store.

• Staff members and students must COMPLETE THE SELFSCREENING FORM ON THE APP EVERY DAY, BEFORE entering campus.

• Follow the initial instructions in the Covid-19 WITS SCREENING APP BROCHURE to set up the app.

• Fill in the screening form daily (truthfully).

SYMPTOM SCREENING

• COVID-19 is a notifiable disease and, daily symptom screening is mandatory for all persons (including, employees, students, contractors, service providers, suppliers and visitors) prior to accessing the University’s premises.

• Self-administered symptom screening has been made available for this purpose for employees and students.

• As of 1st March, only vaccinated persons staff, students, vendors, visitors will be allowed on campus. Staff and students need to be vaccinated with at least one dose and where a second is necessary, this needs to be done within 90s. Upload vaccine certificates to the vaccine portal: MVAX Upload and RA Portal: https://witsapps.wits.ac.za/mvax/applogin

• Vaccines are currently made freely available to all staff and students in the Sports Multipurpose Hall.

• If you have uploaded your vaccine certificate already, then whenever you enter campus, complete the Logbox Screening tool daily and your student card should give you access automatically. If you have forgotten your student card, then you can still gain entry by showing security your Govt ID, your vaccine certificate QR code, and filling in the Logbox tool.

• Any student who did not want to vaccinate was already given notice that they had to apply for reasonable accommodation on the vaccination portal (reasonable accommodation on medical or constitutional grounds). Such cases have been heard by the Faculty with recommendations from the Dept/School. The university retains the right not to accommodate such requests and to either refuse registration or deregister students, where studies cannot be carried out effectively.

• Students granted RA (Reasonable Accommodation) have to have produce a negative antigen test weekly (these can be done on campus), and where a student can demonstrate they cannot pay, they can apply to the university to pay for such tests. Such students are also not allowed to congregate in common areas.

• No student is allowed into Uni residence on RA basis.

As of January 2022

What to do if…

• Test positive for COVID-19 (PCR/Antigen test) with NO symptoms

• Test Positive for COVID-19 (PCR/Antigen test) AND with Symptoms

• Develop Symptoms of COVID-19

• Close contact with a positive COVID-19 person

Scenario A:

•

If you test positive and do not have symptoms then no isolation is needed and you can come to campus. Follow the standard safety COVID-19 Protocols 1M+2V+3Ss– wear Mask, stay in well-Ventilated areas, Vaccinate, complete the COVID-19 Screening tool, Social Distance 1.5m and Sanitise hands often.

Scenario B:

•

If you test positive and show symptoms you need to isolate for 7 days, do not come to campus. Return to campus after 7 days with a sick note. If with moderate/severe COVID-19 illness, provide medical certificate to anna.moloi@wits.ac.za to return to campus.

Scenario C:

•

If you have symptoms of COVID-19 please do not come to campus. You do not have to isolate, but monitor the symptoms and seek medical advice as needed. Return to campus when healthy with sick note as required by Faculty/Line Manager.

Scenario D:

•

If you were in close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19 and you do not have symptoms then no isolation is needed and you can come to campus. Continue to monitor for symptoms and follow COVID-19 Protocols in no 1. All information is available on the Wits COVID-19 Handbook. https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/courses/19776/pages/wits-covid-19-handbook

• More Frequently Asked Questions on the Wits website.

• All COVID related information for students and staff pertaining to the Academic year on the Wits COVID-19 Handbook.

• Information for accessing campus on the Screening & Testing Section:

https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/courses/19776/pages/3-screening-and-testing

PERSONS WITH COVID-19 SYMPTOMS ON CAMPUS

• If COVID-19 symptoms are detected while the employee is on Campus, then the following protocol, must be followed:

• The person experiencing COVID-19 symptoms must be reassured and comforted.

• A person wearing a face mask must immediately isolate the person without touching the person.

• The person suffering symptoms must be given a new medical face mask (the old one must be carefully discarded).

• The person should be taken to a well ventilated isolation area (that is away from other persons). Attempts should be made to ensure that the isolation area is amply ventilated, e.g. such as opening a window. There are isolation rooms in WSOA, UC-7 and Wolmarans.

• If possible, this isolation area must be near to toilet facilities. If persons experiencing COVID-19 symptoms needs to go to the bathroom whilst waiting for medical assistance or to be transferred to their isolation/quarantine venue, then they should use a bathroom that is not being used by anyone else at the time (if such a facility is available).

• Friends or family must not be permitted to sit with the person. A distance of at least 2 metres must be kept between the person experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and any other people in the vicinity.

• The person must be asked to avoid touching people, surfaces and objects and that they must cover their mouth and nose with a disposable tissue when they cough or sneeze. They must be asked to put the tissue in the bin. If no bin is available, to put the tissue in a bag or pocket for disposing in a bin later. If no tissues are available, they should cough and sneeze into the crook of their elbow.

• Ensure that there is no stigmatisation and that the process ensures little or no emotional trauma.

• After assisting the person all those that have assisted must wash their hands according to the handwashing guidelines.

• Campus Health and Wellness Centre must be informed of the

situation (Sister Maggie) and persons notifying CHWC must implement any advice or instructions that they are provided with. While notifying CHWC the name and condition of the person must be provided.

• If the staff member/student is safely capable of doing so by themself, and without placing other people at risk of exposure, then they must safely leave Campus and proceed to a place where they will be able to self-isolate or to an offCampus Healthcare Facility for further medical examination by Healthcare Workers to determine whether testing is necessary.

• If the staff member/student is not safely capable of doing so by themself, then arrangements must be made for the person to be transported in a manner that does not place other persons at risk to a place off-Campus to be self-isolated or to an off-Campus Healthcare Facility (i.e. such as by means of an ambulance service).

• The HoS/Manager/Director for the University area in which the incident occurred must:

• Assess the area for risk of transmission and arrange to have the area disinfected/sanitised.

• Refer persons who may have been in contact/exposed to the person (and who may be at risk) to consult with their Healthcare Worker and to take any other appropriate measure(s) to prevent possible transmission.

• In the event that the person is a student at a student’s residence (i.e. resides on Campus) then the person must remain in their room, seek advice telephonically from relevant Campus Housing and Residence Life (CHRL) staff and follow the CHRL protocols on notification/quarantining/testing.

Notification when Persons are Quarantined

• In the event that persons are going to be confined to a designated quarantine site then it is necessary for the following entities to be notified as soon as possible:

– The Section 16.2 Assignee in whose area the quarantine venue is located (i.e. HoS / University entity Director / Manager / Head):

• Prof Sharlene Khan (HoD) 011 717 4637

Dorothee Kreutzfeld (HoD) 011 717 9999

• Dr René Smith (HoS) – 011 717 4613

• Daniel Gray Fine Art OHS Rep 011 717 4633

– Head Campus Health and Wellness Centre: Sister Maggie Maseka 011 717 1211

– Director Services: Israel Mogomotsi – 011 717 1701

– Director Campus Control: Gary Kruser 011 717 1852

– Senior Director Human Resources: Dr Kgmotso Kasonkola – 011 717 1401

– Jo-anne-Zastrau at Dept-OHS-Admin@wits.ac.za

– Dean of Student Affairs: Jerome September 011 717 1501

– NICD website: www.nicd.ac.za

– Wits Student Crisis Line: 0800 111 331

– Wits Student Crisis Line is fully operational and available in all official South African languages on 0800 111 331

– Staff counselling services: 0861 635 766 or a ‘please call me’ message to 072 620 5699 or an e-mail sent to: asknelson@kaelo.co.za

–

South African Depression and Anxiety Group 24-hour Helpline: 0800 456 789

• South African Suicide Line: 0800 567 567

• Department of Health’s WhatsApp number: 0600123456

• National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD)/Covid-19 Public Hotline: 080 002 999

Other Resources:

COUNSELLING / EMOTIONAL SUPPORT

• Staff/students have access to emotional support services. Kaelo (for staff) and ICAS (for students) will provide counselling for persons to enable them to cope with the prevailing pandemic situation.

• The following information is provided via the Communications Division regarding access to emotional support:

– The NICD’s Coronavirus Emergency 24-hour hotline number: 0800 029 999

• More resources available at the National Institute for Occupational Health (posters, videos): https://www.nioh.ac.za/

• National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) Frequently Asked Questions on Covid-19: https://www.nicd. ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/covid-19/frequently-asked-questions/

Mujahid Safodien, Honours exhibition,

Safety on Campus

Wolmarans Studio

You need to sign in daily at the Wolmarans studios whether you are a student, staff member, or visitor. The security writes a report on activity daily. All studios in Wolmarans have a working silent panic alarm in them, as well as a panic alarm in common areas. Should you need assistance, press them and a signal will be sent to main Protection Services who will immediately call the security guard stationed at Wolmarans to let them know an alarm has been activated. A cellphone is available should an urgent call need to be placed to the postgraduate coordinator or to the Fine Arts Department or Protection or Health Services by the security or the community at Wolmarans.

UC-7 Studio

All pg students and staff are given card access to the access-controlled door at UC-7. Please ensure that the door remains closed at all times and is not propped open.

Protection Services

The Protection Services Division is responsible for the prevention of crime, the detection and apprehension of offenders, the reservation of peace and the protection of students, staff and University property. Security officers patrol the entire campus 24-hours a day. Services offered by Wits Protection Services include a 24-hour escort service (on campus) for all students and staff, especially those working late in libraries or computer labs. If you require an escort, dial one of the numbers listed below and supply the following information:

• Your name

• Your current location and intended destination

• A call-back number in case we need to notify you that your escort has been delayed

All hours and in case of emergency and to escort students on campus at night:

East Campus: (011) 717 4444 / 6666

Health Sciences Campus: (011) 717 2222 / 2232

Education Campus: (011) 717 3340

Business School: (011) 717 3589

For more information:

https://www.wits.ac.za/campus-life/safety-on-campus/

Wits mySOS Service

Wits has teamed up with mySOS to help the Wits community to be prepared for any emergency on campus. Just press the Wits button and a call will be started to Protection Services. How do you access this service?

1. Download mySOS for free and register yourself as a user.

2. Check that you see the Wits button in mySOS. (if you don’t make sure your cell phone number is updated on your Wits profile online)

3. If you ever have an emergency on any of the Wits campuses, open the mySOS app and press the Wits button.

4. A call will be made to Protection Services and they will receive a notification that you have an emergency and your location.

It’s as easy as that…. But there is more! mySOS can be used by anyone, anywhere in South Africa so get your family to download mySOS too; it could help save a life.

Different ways in mySOS can help you:

1. mySOS Panic Button A mobile, wearable panic button connected via Bluetooth to the mySOS emergency app on your smartphone. If you are ever in a situation where you need help and can’t use your phone directly, this is the solution! Just press the panic button for more than 2 seconds and the mySOS emergency app will inform your emergency contacts of your emergency and your GPS location.

2. 1-button emergency activation on starting mySOS an automatic countdown timer starts, if this is not cleared, mySOS will automatically notify your emergency contacts with details of the emergency and location.

3. Emergency offers a list of contact details for the closest and most appropriate emergency service providers based on the nature of your emergency (medical, police, fire, sea rescue or roadside assist). mySOS also notifies your emergency contacts about the incident and your location.

4. Find Near Me helps you find, contact and navigate to the nearest service provider for the service you need. This includes hospitals, doctors, pharmacies, dentists, police stations and also veterinary services for your four-legged friends.

5. Track Me – Set the countdown timer before you start and mySOS will track you, if anything happens and you do not clear the timer before it runs out, your emergency contacts will be notified about your journey details and current location.

Download the app onto your smartphone and have instant access to details of emergency services nationwide. When you activate an emergency, your emergency contacts also receive notification of your type of emergency and your location

mySOS is free of charge and available from the App Store and Google Play. Download and use it to save a life!

From MySOS: https://www.wits.ac.za/mywits/mysos/

KUDU CARDS

Access to many campus facilities is controlled by the use of student identity cards. Every student must carry their Kudu Card at all times. Please report lost/stolen Kudu Cards to Protection Services

IMMEDIATELY. This is to prevent unauthorised use of your card.

You should have your card with you at all times and be prepared to show it to Protection Services or Library personnel at any time if you are asked. Other officers of the University may require your card as identification in labs, examination venues and sports facilities. You may not refuse to identify yourself.

Abuse or misuse of your Kudu Card may lead to disciplinary action or immediate card confiscation.

What constitutes misuse of your card?

• Allowing any other person to gain access to, or out of, any facility

• Being in possession of more than one Kudu Card

• Allowing another person to make use of your card for any purpose, other than to obtain your details for official university purposes

• Failing to store the card in a manner that will prevent it from being damaged (every card is issued with a Card Holder for this purpose)

• Failure to report any financial or fraudulent irregularities.

OTHER USEFUL CONTACTS

Campus Health and Wellness Centre (CHWC)

The Campus Health & Wellness Centre (CHWC) offers a wide variety of health services to Wits students and staff members. The services are convenient, accessible, caring and cost-effective.

Lower ground floor, The Matrix Building, East Campus

Tel. 011 717 9110/1/3 https://www.wits.ac.za/campushealth/

Counselling Careers and Development Unit (CCDU)

The CCDU provides a welcoming and safe space to students, to enhance their well-being and contribute to their academic success. They offer career development through career counselling/education, psychometric career assessments and personal development workshops.

The CCDU also offers confidential individual psychotherapy/ counselling, groups for psycho-education and support, stress management, self-esteem and mindfulness.

CCDU BRAAMFONTEIN CAMPUS WEST [Main Office]:

CCDU Building, Braamfontein Campus West, Wits University

Closest Entrance: Gate 9, Enoch Sontonga Ave, Braamfontein.

Tel: 011 717 9140 / 32 | Email: info.ccdu@wits.ac.za

CCDU EDUCATION CAMPUS:

M14 Ground Floor, Marang Block, Education Campus, Parktown, Tel: 011 717 9268 | Email: info.ccdu@wits.ac.za

Both offices are open Monday-Friday 08h00-16h30 https://www.wits.ac.za/ccdu/

Wits Student Crisis Line

Support for students experiencing emotional and psychological distress. The tollfree line is managed by professionals and is available 24/7/365.

Call 0800 111 331

Useful Contact Information for After Hours Support

Life-Line (24 hours) 011 728 1347 or 0861 322 322

South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG)

SADAG Helpline - 0800 12 13 14 or SMS 32312

SADAG Suicide Crisis Line 800 567 567 or SMS 31393

Akeso psychiatric response unit (24 Hour) 0861 435

Disability Rights Unit (DRU)

The Disability Rights Unit (DRU) is able to assist students with visual, physical, hearing, learning, psychological, speech, chronic illnesses & painful conditions, seizure disorders and students with temporary disabilities (e.g. broken limbs) who may request services for the period during which they are disabled.

Room 1151, First Floor Solomon Mahlangu House, East Wing Closest campus entrance on Jorissen Street

011 717 9154

https://www.wits.ac.za/disability-rights-unit/

Gender Equity Office (GEO)

The Gender Equity Office deals with all aspects of gender-based harm, e.g. sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape; sexism / unfair discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.

20th Floor, University Corner, cnr Jorissen Street and Jan Smuts Avenue, Braamfontein (the building above the Wits Art Museum) Open from 08h00 to 16h30 from Monday to Friday

011 717 9790

https://www.wits.ac.za/students/geo/contact-us/

8. Research Ethics Training and Ethics Clearance Protocols Ethics Clearance

The University insists that all its research be conducted following the very highest ethical standards. Research integrity in general is a cornerstone of high-quality research.

All researchers including staff and students conducting any research that may impact directly or indirectly on people, animals or the environment need to seek ethics clearance before any research is conducted. If one fails to obtain ethical clearance before the research is started, then this may lead to a breach of research integrity, articles not being published and students being barred from graduating.

The University’s Ethics Committees are registered with the National Health Research Ethics Council (NHREC) of the Department of Health. As such, we fully subscribe to the document entitled Ethics in Health Research.

Online Application for Ethics Approval using the Ethics Management System (EMS)

• In most cases requests for ethical clearance certificates need to be submitted via the online Ethics Management System (EMS)

• If you need help with writing and/or submitting an application, please use this Ethics User Guide: https://www.wits.ac.za/ media/wits-university/research/documents/Ethics-UserGuide. pdf

• It is best to access the EMS via the webpage which describes the most appropriate ethics committee for your research. There are six committees which can be reached by following this link: https://www.wits.ac.za/research/researcher-support/researchethics/ethics-committees/

Sue Pam-Grant, Duel/Duet: The Every Love Story,

Research on Wits or Its People

Should you want to conduct research about the University or want to use the University community as research participants then you will have to discuss the project initially with the Assistant Registrar, Ms Nicoleen Potgieter, who can be reached at: Nicoleen.Potgieter@wits.ac.za.

• Students or staff currently registered with the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg for Hons, Masters or PhD degree wanting to conduct research by either using Wits students or staff data need to apply to the University Deputy Register’s Office for permission to conduct the research.

• (Source: https://www.wits.ac.za/research/researcher-support/ research-ethics/ - for more information and relevant ethics forms to be filled out.)

As an Honours, Masters or PhD student, if your research topic (any aspect of it, including your practice) involves any human or animal subjects (even a single participant) including data that might put such at risk, you need to apply for ethics clearance for your project. (If it doesn’t you still need to complete the ethics application applying for waiver.) Please discuss with your lecturer or the course coordinator timeously what this entails, as you may not conduct any part of the research that involves human or animals subjects (including interviews, photographs, videos) until you have ethics clearance from the School Sub-Committee or University Ethics Committee. Your supervisor should assist in filling in the form and must sign off that your application has been properly filled before it goes to the University Ethics or School Sub-Committee with the proper documentation.

Documents to be Submitted:

1. Completed ethics application form

2. Participant information sheet(s)

3. Consent form(s) (if required)

4. Details of research instruments used (e.g. questionnaire/ interview questions; drafts if final not available)

Submitted or accepted research proposal.

Ethics Submission Dates in 2022

WSOA Ethics Submissions:

Direct all Hons ethics submissions to the WSOA PG School Administrator Sibusisiwe Ndlovu: PG.WSOA@wits.ac.za (unless they involve vulnerable participants in which case they have to go to the Main University nonmedical HREC).

All MA by dissertation and PhD ethics submissions should be submitted via the University online portal, with a printed hardcopy delivered to Ms Shaun Schoeman (email: Shaun.Schoeman@wits.ac.za).

Ethics Training

Students are not allowed to graduate who have not completed a course in research ethics training and have gained a certificate of competence in ethics. The University runs free ethics training courses for students which are done over an afternoon and students are required to submit three assignments within the space of a week for the course in order to gain their certificate (there are quite a few readings to do for the course and assignments so best to clear up your week to dedicate it to this task if you go for the course). The dates for 2022 are below.

Wits University Ethics Training Workshops in 2022

This workshop has two components:

PART 1 (3 hours) comprises formal training on research ethics, with a particular emphasis on social science research. This training is content based. There is a formal written assignment following this workshop. Successful completion of this assignment will allow participants to receive a Certificate of Competence in Research Ethics.

PART 2 (1 hour) describes how to apply for ethics clearance to the University Research Ethics Committee (Non-Medical) or to school ethics committees. This workshop will be relevant to Honours, Masters, PhD students as well as staff dealing with human subjects in their research projects.

Ethics Training Workshops Dates 2022

Wednesday, 19 January, 9-13h

Wednesday, 23 February, 9-13h

Wednesday, 16 March, 9-13h

Wednesday, 13 April, 9-13h

Wednesday, 18 May. 9-13h

Wednesday, 15 June, 9-13h Wednesday, 13 July, 9-13h

Wednesday, 17 August, 9-13h

Wednesday, 14 September, 13-17h Wednesday, 19 October, 13-17h Wednesday, 17 November, 9-13h Wednesday, 7 December, 9-13h

Workshops are run by Prof Jasper Knight. Email Ms Lucille Mooragan (Lucille.Mooragan@wits.ac.za) 2 days in advance to RSVP for a place (and if they are held in person, to confirm the venue).

For students who live outside the province and not able to attend this course, as well as others who cannot attend the in-person training, they may obtain certification from the free online course: https://elearning.trree.org/

Complete: Module 1 – Introduction to Research Ethics (When you are finished with the course, click on ‘dashboard’, ‘course overview’, click on the icon of the training module you just completed and then you should see ‘Training Materials’ and under that ‘module 1’ and ‘training certificate’, which you can print. Sometimes you might have problems printing to pdf on some browsers. If so, ensure that pop-ups are not blocked, or try a different web browser.

12. Plagiarism and Referencing Guidelines

University views academic plagiarism as an offense. Please familiarise yourself with what constitutes academic plagiarism and choose a referencing style employed by the University. For more information please see:

12.1 Turnitin Report

are required to submit a Turnitin Report with your proposal/

can be generated via the PG Ulwazi site

course can be joined by students, using this link:

Submit your proposal, dissertation or thesis by pressing on the lefthand tab ‘Assignment’, then upload the submission to ‘Turnitin Submissions’. Submit your document in Word format (only do this once if possible) thereafter, ask your supervisor to generate a Turnitin Report for you. Please do not leave this for the last day of your submission as large documents (especially with visuals) can take up to a day to generate a report and sometimes these sites can often go down leading to a lot of anxiety!

13. Department of Fine Art and WSOA Online

14.Postgraduate Applications to the Department of Fine Art

For online information on our undergraduate or postgraduate degree programmes, as well as our Department and School events, please visit:

https://www.wits.ac.za/wsoa/fine-arts/

https://www.wits.ac.za/wsoa/ https://www.wits.ac.za/wsoa/fine-arts/undergraduate/ https://www.wits.ac.za/wsoa/fine-arts/postgraduate/

For more information on how to apply for the Honours, MAFA and PhD programmes:

https://www.wits.ac.za/course-finder/postgraduate/humanities/ bahons-fine-art/

The following criteria are needed for consideration in the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in the field of Fine Arts programme:

• A minimum of 65% obtained in a BA degree in Fine Arts/ Visual Arts/Art History/Curatorial Studies/ Photography/ Museology/ Journalism or a related visual culture/ creative arts related field.

• Alternatively if you are planning to apply via a Recognition of Prior Learning then you need to have at least a Matric degree and an age exemption certificate (i.e., be 26 years or older) AND at least 3-4 years of professional practice in the field of fine arts/visual arts/curatorship/art history scholarship/arts writing or a related visual culture or creative arts field.

• Present a strong portfolio of 10 artworks to the committee. These images could take the form of digital still images (if so please present as a pdf), film stills or link to a website (or for video formats a Vimeo or Youtube link). This can be submitted in a digital format such as a flash drive etc. Your portfolio of work should reflect your practice up to the present. TIP: As the portfolio represents both you and your work, please give the visual presentation at the postgraduate level good consideration as the application is reviewed not just by the Departmental

Committee, but by School and Faculty Representatives in final decision-making. (This should be noted when choosing writing samples and writing the research proposals as well.)

• Please note: even if your application is reviewed positively we may still require an interview according to Faculty rules.

• All former academic transcripts of prior degrees.

• A comprehensive Curriculum Vitae detailing professional experience including all qualifications and/or training certificates with formal and informal local and international arts and cultural organisations/projects/community projects that are relevant to the candidate’s practice and research application will be considered by the committee and may be subject to verification. The CV should also detail examples of achievement/ recognition in the professional industry. These may include: solo and group exhibitions, arts projects, arts residencies, visual arts workshops, curated exhibitions, articles/books written, newspapers/magazines contributions, community engagement projects organised, collaborations, internships, academic/ professional/industry awards, organisations and partnership involvement, examples of recognised industry/field/ community awards; professional organisation membership/representation and other examples of recognised creative contribution to the industry; as well as informal/formal academic involvement in conferences, symposia, festivals.

• A recent writing sample that gives the committee a good reflection of your academic writing capacity and/or additionally your creative writing.

• No longer than a one-page proposal of what your intended research area/topic is for the Honours research year should you be accepted.

•

A personal motivation reflecting on why you want to apply for the BA Hons degree at the Wits Department of Fine Art and how this relates to your personal trajectory and history. Give us and idea of how this will develop your current artistic or other creative practice. (no more than 250 words)

Closing date for applications 30 September.

The following criteria are needed for consideration for the Master of Arts in Fine Arts programme: https://www.wits.ac.za/course-finder/postgraduate/humanities/mafine-arts/

• A personal motivation reflecting why you want to apply for a MAFA degree at the Wits Department of Fine Art and how this relates to your personal trajectory and history. Give us an idea of how this will develop your current artistic or other creative practice. (250 300 words)

• A proposal for the MAFA by Dissertation: this should encompass an area of research you would like to pursue, highlighting a focused research area. It should reflect a consolidated direction for both your practice during the MAFA and the theoretical component. TIP: What is your central research question? (remember a research question is not yes or no and must be clear and focused; how do you envision this as a creative component over 2-3 years; how do you see the various 3-4 chapters developing; who are some of the key theorists/theoretical positions or readings that you are hoping might inform your study? (300 500 words)

• A detailed professional Curriculum Vitae reflecting professional experience, exhibitions, projects and education; academic writing, other kinds of creative writing.

• All former academic transcripts of prior degrees.

• Please provide us with 1-2 writing samples indicative of your past level of study or professional experience (as you are applying for a MA study, provide us with a sample of writing equivalent at least to a BA Honours study); additionally you can also provide us with a creative writing sample that shows us how you tackle creative productions or how you write creatively or think critically through creativity or use creativity as a methodology.

• Two referees: names, institutional affiliations and contact details.

• A portfolio of 10 artworks. These images could take the form of digital still images (if so please present as a pdf), film stills or link to a website (or for video formats a Vimeo or Youtube link). This can be submitted in a digital format such as a flash drive etc. Your portfolio of work should reflect your practice up to the present. TIP: As the portfolio represents both you and your work, please give the visual presentation at the postgraduate level good consideration as the application is reviewed not just by the Departmental Committee, but by School and Faculty Representatives in final decision-making. (This should be noted when choosing writing samples and writing the research proposals as well.)

• Please note: even if your application is reviewed positively we may still require an interview according to Faculty rules.

Closing date 30 September.

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)

Wits University and the Wits School of Arts recognises prior learning and experience of applicants and assesses these towards the admission of applicants into undergraduate or postgraduate study or towards the granting of exemption, full or partial credit of one or more courses. Prior learning is recognised as having been acquired through formal,

non-formal or informal routes. No applicant under the age of 26 may apply for RPL. RPL will be consider for the BA (Hons) in the field of Fine Arts and the Master of Arts in Fine Arts postgraduate programmes only. If you are interested in finding out more about applying for RPL in the Department of Fine Art, then please contact Sharlene Khan.

To Apply for the PhD Programme

The PhD is the highest qualification which a student can earn by conducting independent research under supervision. The thesis is required to make a recognisable contribution to new knowledge in the field of study, and must be of a publishable standard. In the Wits School of Arts (WSOA) there is no coursework component to a PhD degree.

The PhD degree can be by research only or by creative component and thesis. As such ‘research’ is broadly defined in the latter in terms of both a central creative component derived from ongoing discursive and field research and critical thinking in conjunction with a written, discursive exploration of the topic. The duration of a doctoral degree is normally 3 years full-time and 4-5 years part-time.

Our application requirements for a PhD (whether traditional or creative) requires submission of the following:

• A letter of motivation for the studies in the Department of Fine Arts at Wits

• A 3-page preliminary proposal identifying the proposed area of research enquiry and specific research questions. This preliminary proposal should also demonstrate the applicant’s familiarity with the literature and debates in the field of proposed enquiry.

• Detailed professional Curriculum Vitae

• An academic transcript of all prior degrees

• A copy of your MA report/dissertation

In the case of a Ph.D. by Creative Research, the proposal (which must indicate how the research emanates from the locus of the creative component’s ideas) must be accompanied by:

• A portfolio of work/performance/scripts, etc.

All PhD applications are reviewed by a central admissions committee within the Wits School of Arts. Applicants are advised that the admission process may require applicants to submit additional documents (e.g. SAQA certification, proof of English-language proficiency, etc.), and/ or appear before one or more members of the committee for an interview. Applicants accepted into the PhD programme may enrol throughout the year. Last day of registration: 30 September.

16. Choosing a Potential Supervisor

For Honours, MA and PhD applications, apply online or download an application form from the link below: https://www.wits.ac.za/postgraduate/applications/

You are also required to send all department-specific criteria to Sibusisiwe Ndlovu at PG.WSOA@wits.ac.za

15. South African Qualifications Authority

A list of the Department of Fine Art’s staff and their research interests are provided in this PG Handbook to assist prospective students in deciding if they can identify a suitable supervisor for their PG studies. When filling in your application form, please note your preference of supervisor(s). The Department attempts to take your preference into consideration, although due to workloads and other factors, this may not always be possible.

If you did not obtain your previous qualifications in South Africa, you need to have the South African equivalents verified by the South African Qualifications Authority. This process can sometimes take a while so please ensure that you attend to this quickly: https://www.saqa.org.za/

17.Department of Fine Art Administration

Head of Department:

Prof Sharlene Khan, WSOA 322, 011 7174637, 083 337 6253

Sharlene.Khan@wits.ac.za

Dorothee Kreuzfeldt, WSOA 319, 011 717 9999, 083 956 0507

Dorothee.Kreutzfeldt@wits.ac.za

Fine Arts Departmental Administrator:

tba WSOA 314A, 011

Honours, MAFA and PhD Coordination:

Sharlene Khan

Visual Culture and Critical Theories (FINA4017A):

Gabrielle Golliath, WSOA 316

Gabrielle.Goliath@wits.ac.za

Honours Research Paper (FINA4022A):

Gabrielle Golliath

Professional Practice (FINA4018A):

Sharlene Khan

Fine Arts IVA (FINA4020A) and Fine Arts IVB (FINA4021A):

Zen Marie and Dorothee Kreutzfeldt

Zen.Marie@wits.ac.za, WSOA 321, 011 717 4621, 082 763 2009

PGCE Coordination

David Andrew and Rangoato Hlasane

David.Andrew@wits.ac.za, WSOA 320, 011 717 4636, 082 451 3987

Rangoato.Hlasane@wits.ac.za, WSOA 319, 011 717 4659, 078 764 4741

General School Administration of Postgraduate Admissions, Submissions, Hons Ethics Queries and Bursars:

Sibusisiwe Ndlovu, WSOA 113, 011 7174617

PG.WSOA@wits.ac.za

Venue Booking and Studio Maintenance:

Bongumusa Shezi, WSOA Basement, 078 617 2636

Bongumusa.Shezi@wits.ac.za

Photographic and Film Facilities and Equipment:

Natasha Christopher, WSOA Ground Floor 011 717 4629, 084 600 0160

Natasha.Christopher@wits.ac.za

WSOA Resource Centre:

Happiness Moshupya, WSOA Room 220, 011 717 4635 Happiness.Moshupya@wits.ac.za

Printmaking Workshop:

Thabiso Kholobeng, WSOA Ground Floor

011 7174634, 076 224 3823

Thabiso.Kholobeng@wits.ac.za

Wood and Metal Workshop Arthouse, 011 7174633

Godfrey Mahlangu, 060 966 2278, Godfrey.Mahlangu@wits.ac.za

Daniel Gray, 079 434 7080, Daniel.Gray@wits.ac.za

Art House Windows (University Corner) and Point of Order (Noswal Hall)

Reshma Chhiba, Point of Order (cnr Stiemens and Bertha Street), 011 7174737, 083 324 1776, Reshma.Chhiba@wits.ac.za

University Ethics Queries

Shaun Schoeman, 011 717 1408, Shaun.Schoeman@wits.ac.za

18. Wits Art Museum

Wits Art Museum (WAM) maintains the largest and most significant holdings of African arts in southern Africa. Over 12000 items have been assembled primarily in recognition of their aesthetic value. Geographically this includes holdings from Southern, West, East and Central Africa. There is significant depth to the collections of beadwork, drums, headrests, wooden sculpture, ceremonial and fighting sticks, masks, basketry, wirework and textiles.

Paintings, drawings, printmedia, and sculpture by artists such as Walter Battiss, Bongi Dhlomo, and Gerard Sekoto are a few examples of historical South African art held at WAM. Contemporary South African art holdings include work by Jackson Hlungwane, William Kentridge, Penny Siopis and others. Artists such as Zander Blom, Gabrielle Goliath, and Nandipha Mntambo represent a younger generation.

WAM also houses the C.J. Petrow Library and the Jack Ginsberg Centre for the Book Arts (JGCBA). C.J. Petrow Library is a reference library and can be visited by appointment. It is a rich source of information on African and southern African art and artists. The JGCBA is home to one of the largest collections of artists’ books. Of the 3500 artists books many are old, rare and important South African and international artists’ books. This covers examples of binding, illustration, printmaking, letterpress, papermaking, typography and photography.

In addition to providing access to the collection as a research resource, WAM partners with the Wits School of Art in hosting PhD candidate exhibitions. Some of these exhibitions have been by Jeremy Wafer, Susan Woolf, and Bronwyn Horne.

For access to the collections, please contact lois.anguria@wits.ac.za

PhD exhibition proposals should be compiled and submitted in conjunction with your supervisor. To submit a proposal, please contact kamal.naran@wits.ac.za

For more information about the JGCBA, please contact rosalind.cleaver@wits.ac.za

You can also contact us on 011 717 1365 or email info.wam@wits.ac.za

Bronwyn Horne, A[chrono]mation, Installation view, image courtesy of artist

19. Postgraduate Support on Campus

Postgraduate Affairs Office

The Postgraduate Affairs Office is an initiative of the University Research Office to promote a public face for postgraduate studies at Wits. Its brief is to improve the overall quality of the postgraduate experience across all five faculties and for focused strategic thinking about the implementation of the 2022 vision to establish a researchintensive University with 45% postgraduate students.

The Postgraduate Affairs Office’s role includes:

• development of appropriate initiatives which will enhance the University’s strategic goals of increasing recruitment and success of postgraduate students;

• formulating policy on graduate studies;

• implementing the Postgraduate Cross-Faculty Symposium;

• designing and implementing generic courses and research support workshops for graduate students;

• designing and implementing writing retreats for graduate students;

• promotion of a public face for postgraduate studies at Wits.

All information concerning postgraduate opportunities will be advertised and sent via ULWAZI using your official student email address. If you wish to use another email address please log into your Wits student address and forward your mails accordingly. We want you to get all the information that will enhance your postgraduate experience.

Director: Professor Robert Muponde

Senior Administrator: Ms Lucille Mooragan

Source: https://www.wits.ac.za/students/academic-matters/ postgraduate-affairs-office/ (consult the website for more information on the research method workshops, as well as the School-specific writing retreats and cross-Faculty postgraduate symposium).

Humanities Graduate Centre

Postgraduate Training in Research Methods and Seminars

The HGC provides an annual cycle of methods workshops run by expert scholars, timed so that they coincide with appropriate stages in a student’s development of a research proposal, data collection, data analysis, write-up, presentation of results and scholarly publication. These workshops expose postgraduate students and academic staff to the diverse range of methodological strategies and techniques that can be deployed, either singly or in combination, in research. They also provide in-depth training in such strategies and techniques, showing students how the choice of methodological strategy is inextricably linked to the use of concepts within a broader theoretical framework. And they introduce both students and academic staff to new methods as the direction, focus and theoretical orientation of research in the Humanities and Social Sciences changes over time.

The Methods Workshops not only cover specific methodological strategies (e.g. “Designing In-Depth Interviews”, “Narrative Analysis”, “Ethnography and Ethnographic Methods”, “Action Research Principles and Practices”) but also cover topics related to the structuring of the research proposal and the write-up of research findings (such as “How to Write a Research Proposal” and “How to Write a Literature Review”).

A number of workshops are offered through the Grad Centre annually, with total attendance numbering well over a thousand students. Because of their growing size, success and increasing interest from postgraduates in other Faculties, the humanities and social science methods workshops have now been folded into the university-wide post-graduate support programme administered by the University’s Division of Postgraduate Affairs.

Shanti Govender, States of being? MAFA Exhibition Installation, 2019

Postgraduate Student-Initiated Research and Learning Collectives

In the years ahead, scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences will be shaped by today’s vibrant cohort of PhD students and recent doctoral graduates. If they are truly to take ownership of a transformed South African academy, they will need to have the freedom and confidence to pursue agendas in theory and research that they have crafted themselves or in conversation with one another.

The HGC provides both the space and the financial resources that postgraduates require in order to initiate their own independent explorations in theory, creative work and policy-oriented research. Such initiatives—often in collaboration with doctoral programmes in each discipline as well as with the Faculty Research Chairs, Centres and Institutes—have taken the form of self-organised courses, thematic student-staff reading groups, workshops with international visiting scholars, and postgraduate symposia and conferences.

Recent examples include the Horizontal Group on the Subject, Subjectivity and Subjectification; the Social Theory Group; the Critical Knowledge Production Collective; and the Reading Group on African Critical Thought. Interdisciplinary reading groups involving PhD students and staff include one on Collective Trauma, Violence and Memory and another on Desire and Difference: Affects, Objects, Bodies.

Postgraduate students often use these groups to present their own work to one another.

(Source: https://www.wits.ac.za/humanities/faculty-services/ humanities-graduate-centre/academic-support-programmes/)

The Wits Writing Centre

The Wits Writing Centre is for anyone at Wits who wants to work on their writing: for those who already write well and for those who would like to write even better. In all cases you, the writer, make the decisions and direct the writing.

The WWC is for any student or staff member who wants to work on a particular piece of writing. Bring along essays, plans, drafts, practice exam questions and answers and even creative, non-academic writing. Some of our most successful consultations are with students who are already good writers who realise the value of an attentive reader and who go on to produce excellent essays.

WWC consultants will not edit or write for you, but they will listen and help you to put together your ideas and thoughts. Consultants can also focus the session on the language of the paper to point out patterns of mistakes or the need to rethink tone or tighten focus and streamline structure. So, come along and use this valuable service and improve your writing skills.

(Source: https://www.wits.ac.za/students/wits-writing-centre/ - please consult the website or better yet visit the writing centre and find out how one of their groups might be a good fit for your writing plans.)

Wits Postgraduate Association

Welcome to the Postgraduate Association

The PGA advocates for the needs of all postgraduate students, acts as a resource and provides support and services that help advance the postgraduate experience.

I would like to extend my warmest welcome to the Postgraduate students of 2020/2021. We are very excited and eager to work with all of you in order to change the narrative of PG students within the Wits Community despite challenges that have been faced by the entire world because of COVID-19 pandemic. Nobody was prepared for this but we will try our best to serve you even during these difficult times. The Postgraduate Association (PGA) is a body that works closely with different stakeholders to advocate for the needs of all postgraduate students. It acts as a resource that provides support and services to PG students and promotes academic leadership and excellence.

There are three pillars that the 2020/2021 PGA prioritizes:

1. Accountability and Transparency

2. Personal and Intellectual Integrity

3. Upholding the community of Postgraduate Scholars

As the University moves towards being a research-intensive university, we hope to increase our visibility as the PGA on campus in order to increase the amount of support PG students receive from the university. It is a known fact that PG students play a crucial role in upholding the University’s reputation, from the research we conduct to the many historical discoveries we have made. PG students have continuously kept Wits University as one of the best universities in Africa.

The principles that the PGA hopes to lead with are:

• Inclusivity

• Transformation

• Diversity

As the PGA 2020/2021, we hope to serve and protect our fellow PG students, continue with the culture of prioritizing mental health amongst students and become a strong support system for all PG students.

Here’s to a great year filled with academic excellence!

PGA Chairperson

Meluleki Scelo Kubheka

(Source: https://www.wits.ac.za/pga/)

20. Wits Fees

Tuition fees are payable for each course for which a student is registered. Charges ancillary to tuition fees, such as charges for course notes or for excursion costs are not included in the amounts listed. Club memberships fees are also not listed. These additional amounts will be reflected on the student’s fee account.

First Fee Payment

New and returning South African residents, SA permanent residence permit holders and refugee permit holders, are required to make a first payment of R9340 on their fees account prior to registration at the University.

Is the payment refundable?

The first fee payment is not refundable if you subsequently cancel your registration

Is everyone required to make the first payment?

The following students do not have to pay the first fee payment:

1. NSFAS STUDENTS

Please ensure you have received confirmation from NSFAS that you have been awarded NSFAS funding, or check at www.nsfas.org.za to confirm.

2. WITS SCHOLARSHIPS RECIPIENTS

If you have been awarded a scholarship, you do not have to pay the first fee payment. The University Entrance Scholarships are awarded on the basis of NSC matric results to current matric applicants.

3. EXTERNAL BURSARY HOLDERS

If you are being funded by a donor or external bursary please ensure that you have contacted the Financial Aid and Scholarships Office to make sure that your donor has made arrangements to pay your fees.

Students also have the option to postpone the first fee payment by logging into the Self-Service portal and clicking on the “First Fee Payment” tab. After completion of the necessary information the first fee payment will be waived and the student may proceed with on-line registration. Please note, 100% of the total tuition fee must be paid on or before the last working day in March.

Accessing your Fee Account and Full Payment of Fees

Once you have registered, a fees account is generated on self-service at https://self-service.wits.ac.za

The University may alter the payment schedules in keeping with normal accounting practices. Applicants should know, however, that at present fees are due as follows:

• 100% of the total tuition fee must be paid on or before the last working day in March.

• Provision is made for the monthly payment of fees - interest is charged on the balance owing.

• International students who are offered a place must pay 75% of their fees in full before registration, and the remaining 25% by no later than the 31st of March 2021.

Student Fees – Bank Payment Details:

Please use: Standard Bank account number: 002891697; Branch code: Braamfontein 004805; Account name: Wits Student Fees.

PLEASE USE YOUR STUDENT NUMBER AS YOUR PAYMENT REFERENCE.

Email proof of payment to feesoffice.finance@wits.ac.za

International Students

Fee Structure for International Students

All international students (those who are not South African citizens or who do not have permanent residence status in South Africa) are required by the Department of Home Affairs to provide proof of available funds for the tuition fee for the academic year prior to receiving his/her study visa.

How to Pay your Fees

Payments to the University can be made in the form of a bank draft issued in South African currency of “ZAR” and made payable to the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, or by electronic transfer.

Financial Assistance

Financial aid (bursaries/loans) from the University is not available for international undergraduate students. A graduate student registered for full-time study may be eligible for a postgraduate merit award (which is given on the basis of academic excellence).

Average Living costs

The average exchange rate is around $1 = R12.00 R15.00.

US Federal Aid

Wits University is eligible to participate in the William D. Ford Direct Loan Program. This program allows a US Citizen, permanent resident or eligible non-citizen student to apply for a Subsidized Loan, Unsubsidized Loan, Graduate Plus Loan or a Parent Plus Loan. Direct loan funds can only be used by the registered student solely for studyrelated costs.

For more information on international student fees or telephone +27 (11) 717-1054 or e-mail studysa.international@wits.ac.za

Residence Fees

https://www.wits.ac.za/study-at-wits/fees-and-funding/fees-office/

For more information on fees please consult the following: https://www.wits.ac.za/study-at-wits/fees-and-funding/fees-office/

Contact us on Tel: 27 (11) 717 1888 or Fax: 27 (11) 717 4918 or Email: FeesOffice.Finance@wits.ac.za

21. Scholarships and Funding

The Financial Aid & Scholarships Office (FASO) administers funds on behalf of the University, donors and sponsors. The office also seeks to provide information on student funding. https://www.wits.ac.za/study-at-wits/financial-aid-and-scholarshipsadministration/

NRF Postgraduate Scholarships 2022

The DSI and NRF are pleased to announce a call of new applications for NRF Postgraduate Student Funding for the 2022 Academic year. All continuing students who are eligible for a second or third year of funding must submit a Progress Report and not a new application.

The NRF minimum academic requirement for postgraduate funding is 65%.

The entry age requirement is 28, 30 and 32 years or younger for honours, master’s and doctoral studies respectively, in the year of application, regardless of first year of registration.

Successful applicants will be funded either at Full Cost Study (FCS) or Partial Cost of Study (PCS).

The FCS funding will be awarded to South African citizens and Permanent Residents only, who are either financially needy (i.e., those whose combined household family income is less or equal to R350 000 per annum), living with a disability or are exceptional academic achievers.

However, the PCS funding will be awarded to 5% of international students including South African citizens and Permanent Residents who could not be funded under FCS but meet other minimum requirements for the NRF scholarship funding criteria. Scholarships are intended to support honours, masters and doctoral candidates to pursue studies in all areas of Science, Engineering, Technology, Social Sciences, and Humanities.

The NRF has phased out the block grant nomination process as well as the grant-holder linked modalities of funding postgraduate students in 2020. All the postgraduate students will be expected to apply on the NRF Online Submission System by accessing this link.

No manual applications will be accepted. Find more information here: https://www.wits.ac.za/study-at-wits/financial-aid-and-scholarshipsadministration/scholarships-and-bursaries/#d.en.2589679

The Hardship Fund special considerations opened on the 4th of February and will close on 7th of March 2022.

Please note that resources are limited and therefore funding is not guaranteed. All students, therefore, are encouraged to continue to seek alternate funding as the criteria will be strictly applied.

• NB. This is not a bursary, it is only to assist with registration

• Students who apply must be eligible according to the criteria set below.

Fund Application Criteria

• Students who have a gross household income less than R600 000 per annum.

• Returning students who have obtained a minimum average prioryear mark of 50% and above.

• Students who stay further than a 30km radius from the university will be considered.

• Accommodation in a Wits accredited on- or off-campus residence facility only.

Hardship Funding 2022

https://www.wits.ac.za/study-at-wits/financial-aid-and-scholarships-ad ministration/#accordion-2726512

Wits University is cognisant of a number of students who may need assistance with registration and accommodation as a result of their socio-economic circumstances. The University has opened applications for Hardship Funding for either accommodation or registration between 03/01/2022 and 28/01/2022.

Exclusions

Hardship funding is NOT granted for:

• Students who are eligible for the DHET Government Bursary (New NSFAS i.e. FTEN from 2018)

• Students registered for Non-Degree courses eg. Diplomas and Certificates in the prior academic year. See full terms and conditions.

• Students registered as part-time in the prior academic year.

• Students who received hardship funding in the previous academic year.

How To Apply

1. Login to student self-service portal

2. Click on the “Council Hardship Application” tile

3. Select from the drop-down list “Begin New Application”

4. Select from the drop-down list “Level of Study”

5. Select from the drop-down list “Application type”

6. At this stage, the hardship criteria rules will apply. If you are eligible the terms and conditions page will open.

7. Ensure that you read and understand all the terms and conditions before proceeding with the application.

accommodation support, this will be in shared accommodation only and at a Wits accredited accommodation provider in line with the arrangements made from time to time. Accommodation arrangements are temporary and periodically reviewed.

Students who secure funding (that includes accommodation) will be required to vacate the emergency accommodation and make their own appropriate arrangements in line with their funding.

More Information

Tuition queries

HardshipTuition.FinAid@wits.ac.za

Documents Required

Please ensure that the following documents are ready as you will be required to upload them as part of the application process.

• Proof of gross household income (combined income before deductions of income-earning members in a household must be up to R600k). It must be salary advice or any other proof of income, no affidavit will be accepted. Where necessary the University will verify income. A consent form will be required.

• Copy of parents or guardian identity documents.

• Consent form to verify household income.

Wits Accommodation Deposit/Full accommodation

• Detailed affidavit (which includes details on student’s effort to secure funding and student circumstances)

• Proof of gross household income (combined income before deductions of income-earning members in a household must be up to R600k). It must be salary advice; no affidavit will be accepted.

Students applying for emergency accommodation support must please note that an interview may be required to get a better sense of their circumstances. Should they be successful for emergency

Accommodation queries

HardshipAccomodation.FinAid@wits.ac.za

See: https://www.wits.ac.za/study-at-wits/financial-aid-and-scholarshipsadministration/

19. Postgraduate Merit Awards

The aim of the University Postgraduate Merit Award (PMA) is to assist graduates to complete Honours, Masters or PhD degrees by research or by a combination of course work and research on both a full-time and part-time basis. No application is necessary for the Postgraduate Merit Award. Please note, the Award does not fund all courses.

NB: Please make sure that your bank details are on the system with Fees Office before submitting the first stipend. The last stipend will not be paid out if the student has outstanding fees after payment of the last stipend is made.

Renewals:

PLEASE NOTE REVISED 2020 RULES (VCO) for the PG Merit Award

• HONOURS: 70% Average in 3rd year of an Undergraduate Degree

• MASTERS: 75% Average in Honours, 4th Year of a professional degree or PG Diploma

• PhD: Masters submission must be done within 2 years full time and 3 years part time

• Provisional offers will be sent to eligible students.

• Students that do not meet this criteria will not receive any communication.

• Please refer to the terms and conditions for more details.

Terms and Conditions - PMA

• Full-time students that have been awarded the PMA need to fulfill duties with their schools each block.

• Please speak to your school administrator once registered. Your duties will be assigned to you and schools will submit a list of all the students who have completed their duties each block.

Schools need to submit lists by the following dates:

• 1st Stipend 6th April 2022

• 2nd Stipend 31st May 2022

• 3rd Stipend 2nd September 2022

• 4th Stipend 24th October 2022

See:

https://www.wits.ac.za/study-at-wits/financial-aid-and-scholarshipsadministration/scholarships-and-bursaries/#d.en.2589679

Renewal of the Postgraduate Merit Award & the Honours to PHD 5 Year Scholarship for the normal tenure is NOT automatic. Please note that the normal maximum tenure is as follows:

• Postgraduate Merit Award - Full-Time PHD - 3 years

Masters- 2 year Honours - 1 Year

• Postgraduate Merit Award Part- time PHD 4 years

Masters- 3 years Honours- 2 years

• Honours to PHD 5 Year Scholarship Honours 1 year

Masters- 1 year PHD- 3 years

(Source: https://www.wits.ac.za/study-at-wits/fees-and-funding/financial-aidand-scholarships-office/postgraduate-funding/postgraduate-merit-awards/please visit for the university’s website for more information)

Other Postgraduate Funding Opportunities:

https://www.wits.ac.za/media/wits-university/study/fees-and-funding/ documents/WitsFundingOpportunities.pdf

Fine Art Department General (HMN-WSoA-Fine Art PG-2022):

https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/enroll/6HJBP3

WSOA General PG (WSOA-POSTGRAD-2022):

https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/enroll/EY9NAR

WSoAPGSimRpt2022 (Turnitin site):

https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/enroll/FCXG4C

External Scholarships/Bursaries/Funding

Canon Collins Thekgo Bursary

https://www.canoncollins.org.uk/apply/scholarship/thekgo-bursaries

Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Scholarship for Local Study

https://www.omt.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/OMT_ Guidelines_Local-Scholarships.pdf

National Arts Council Bursaries for Postgraduate Study

https://www.nac.org.za/bursaries/

• All sessions are to be considerate of voicings, framings and methodologies of decoloniality and social justice where necessary, allow persons equal time to present and be considerate of those presenting by not disturbing (including disturbing persons by side conversations or by mobile phones).

• Please treat people how you expect to be treated an ethics of care to be practiced in all sessions, including scheduling of breaks, maintaining respectful ways of engagement, attempting different pedagogical modes.

• Be mindful and respectful of shared and personal space(s).

22. Code of Conduct

• Most postgraduate sessions, unless otherwise indicated, are flexible & non-compulsory, however, attendance particularly in the first semester around proposal, academic writing and methodologies are encouraged, as is participation in the peerled sessions.

• Respect. Thoughtfulness. Mindfulness. Equal ground. Unapologetic. Freedom. Democracy. Love. Peace. Happiness. Respect. Generative. Community. Respect. Space. Nonjudgmental. Laughter. Respect. Personal relationships. Respect. Playfulness. Fun. Respect. Breathing room. Conflict. Patience. Care. Call-us-out. Kindness. Gentleness. Care. Ease. Interest.

(With thanks to the MA 2019 group for generating this Code of Conduct, which can be amended and further developed)

• Readings should be circulated at least a week in advance of class.

• Seminars and workshops are interactive and student-centred.

• In the first semester, staff and guest workshop will be focused around methodologies training and practice-led inquiries and theorisations. Student-led sessions are to be determined and chaired by the postgraduate cohort.

Gray,

23. Postgraduate Forms and Info

The forms presented here are just to give you a guideline on forms that are needed please refer to the relevant Faculty Graduate Office website for the most recent version of these forms (only the first page of these forms is shown here) as well as the Ulwazi Fine Art PG courses which presents these.

Fine Art PG courses site: HMN-WSoA-Fine Art PG-2022 *Departmental course for all Hons, MAFA and PhD students (includes all pg info/forms, seminars/workshops/open studio notification and archive) students to self-enrol on this module using the following link: https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/enroll/6HJBP3

- MAFA (FINA8003A) course: FINA8003A - MA Dissertation-2022-FYR https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/courses/30862

PhD (FINA9001A) course: FINA9001A - PhD Thesis-2022-FYR https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/courses/30868

WSOA Postgrad Ulwazi Module WSOA-POSTGRAD-2022

*Wits School of Arts course for all Hons, MAFA and PhD students (includes all pg info/forms, seminars/workshops) – students to selfenrol on this module using the following link: https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/enroll/EY9NAR

Form to be filled by yourself, your supervisor for your submission of your proposal and your reader on completion of reading your proposal

Any changes to your enrolment, including change of degree, supervisor, timeline to your proposal, taking longer than a year to complete your MA, 3 years to complete your PhD, etc.

Supervisor Report Form – progress report completed at the end of each year by the supervisor and sent to Faculty

Postgraduate Student Progress Report Form – progress report completed at the end of each year by the student and sent to Faculty

To be submitted by student to Faculty when submitting research for examination

Supervisor to fill in the form giving consent to Faculty that the students work can be submitted for examination