Hussein Salim working on a reduction print at the ASAI reduction printmaking workshop, Centre for Visual Arts, University of KwaZulu Natal, February 2025. Photograph by John Robinson.
Africa South Art Initiative (ASAI) has been very active since the end of last year and into the first quarter of 2025, hosting three printmaking and arts writing workshops in Cape Town (University of Cape Town, December 2024), Johannesburg (University of the Witwatersrand, January 2025) and Pietermaritzburg (University of KwaZulu Natal, February 20205). The workshops were made possible through funding from the National Arts Council and the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture to further its Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP). Notable artists who have participated in our workshops include Pietermaritzburg based Sudanese artist Hussain Salim, painter, ceramist and printmaker Thami Jali and much loved and respected artist and arts educator Sophie Peters.
Thami Jali and Sophie Peters at ASAI printmaking workshops, WITS and University of Cape Town, Dec 2024 / Jan 2025. Photographs of Jali by Oupa Nkosi. Photograph of Peters by Ricardo Dunjwa
As such, ASAI’s Print Access Workshops and Emerging Writers Programme aim to provide skills training and access to professional standard facilities to under-represented and emerging visual artists (not represented by a gallery) and recently graduated students interested in art writing. Depending on the available funding, workshops result in catalogues and / or exhibitions of the work. Artists can sell their print editions and are promoted on ASAI’s social media platforms. The emerging art writers produce accessible short essays on artists featured on the ASAI website or who participate in the printmaking workshops.
ASAI is pleased to be able to host research or marketing and communication interns, also made possible with PESP funding, and there are currently eight interns receiving mentorship and experience through participating in various ASAI initiatives.
In 2023, ASAI founded the Art Resource Centre (ARC) which is hosted in the Faculty of Arts and Design of the Durban University of Technology. The resource centre houses a growing library of scarce art books, creates in-service art history training opportunities for recent graduates and hosts public programmes (talks, workshops). A major project will be digitising archival records of community arts centres in KZN province.
ASAI will be sending out a call for papers for a special edition of 3rd Text Africa in April, for publication in 2026. More information about the journal is available at https://asai.co.za/3rd-text-africa/. Lastly, EVC members and art historians might be interested to know about ASAI’s South African Artists Index - a unique searchable database of 3,656 artists (1920-2019), 884 authors/editors/curators, 541 publishers and 1,392 publications. The index is available at https://asai.co.za/index/.
Hussein Salim holding up a print at the ASAI reduction printmaking workshop, Centre for Visual Arts, University of KwaZulu Natal, February 2025. Photograph by John Robinson
Litho print by Sophie Peters in progress at the ASAI lithography workshop, Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, December 2024. Photograph by Madelize van der Merwe