CULTURE

JOHANNESBURG has a vibrant cultural life, with theatre, dance, music and visual art thriving at a wide variety of venues across the city. The Arts, Culture and Heritage department looks after the city's museums, historic sites and buildings, and also co-ordinates and presents arts events and festival programmes. One of the major city-sponsored highlights of the year is the Arts Alive festival, which takes place every September, celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2001. This month-long cultural celebration showcases local drama, music and art as well as importing musicians and performers from Africa and further afield. Other events are planned throughout the year, often taking place at the city's cultural hub - the Newtown Precinct. Jazz at Zoo Lake is another popular attraction, while the Johannesburg Art Gallery hosts local and international exhibitions on an ongoing basis. Read more

Out from under - the geological museum June 21, 2002 By Barbara Ludman WITH a R2,2-million donation from the National Lotteries Board, Johannesburg's Geological Museum - now part of MuseuMAfricA - is looking towards an eventual redisplay of its extraordinary collection of gems and minerals. The collection has been kept in storage under lock and key since a robbery about a year ago. The geological museum has boasted a number of owners and homes since it began as a reference collection for prospectors in 1890. This vast array of gems and minerals came under the care of Johannesburg in 1927. Until the launch of MuseuMAfricA, it occupied a floor of the central public library; it was moved to the new museum in Newtown but its exhibits only went on display in March 2000. Among them: the original stunning collection of gems; manganese from the now defunct Tsumeb mines in Namibia; two huge meteorites - the latter the targets of the thieves. The museum is looking for another R1,6-million to make its collection secure and its displays up-to-date. "The way museums display exhibits these days links in very well with outcomes-based education, where you're linking new knowledge to what you already know," says MuseuMAfricA curator Diana Wall. "We're aiming to make the new displays more interactive, to make them more intriguing to visitors. Relating the exhibits to what is of interest to the visitor will be a display on what uses we as people make of products from the earth. We will link geology to the use we make of geology: for inspiration, beauty and practical living." There could be an exhibit of the way marble, for example, is used for decoration; or how prehistoric humans made tools of stone; or how we adorn ourselves with gems. "It then becomes a cultural museum, because you're talking about how geology and people go together," she says. It will take nearly two and a half years to design and build new displays once the requisite funds arrive, but the wait should be worth it. "Redisplaying the collection will inspire visitors and spark interest in the earth sciences and science fields generally," says a City of Johannesburg spokesperson, announcing the lotteries grant. "Nearly half of the museum visitors are school children from previously disadvantaged areas. The museum also has the potential of playing a very important role in tourism, by becoming an exciting venue in Johannesburg that shows the unique geological heritage of South Africa." Permission to use web site material Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as: Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency (www.joburg.org.za)"; If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original article on this website; The name of the article's author is acknowledged; The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill in this brief online form). Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400