THE WITS School of Arts has positioned itself at the forefront of African cultural innovation, placing African creativity at the heart of global progress and digital disruption.
This development was announced at the institution’s Film and Television cinema during the official opening ceremony of the Afrotellers Conference, led by head of school Rene Smith last Thursday, at which Zimbabwean delegates were also part of.
“The school is committed to being an African-centred community of artists and researchers immersed in practice-based, decolonial, critical arts technologies — fuelled by innovative thinking, teaching, learning and making,” said Smith.
She added that they were proud to be among the first institutions on the continent — if not the very first — to teach and conduct research in the fields of arts management and cultural policy, contributing to the re-qualification of the country’s creative landscape.
Smith challenged the audience, raising concern about how artificial intelligence (AI) is overtaking the creative space traditionally occupied by storytellers and artists, and questioning the implications for storytelling itself.
“I was part of a leadership and management team from various universities which was shown an official video, which people were proud to say was made entirely by AI,” she said.
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“Suffice it to say, these two events have been weighing heavily on me. I’ve been thinking a lot about what this means — for all of us, for creators, for the artists and storytellers here — when the human element is completely removed from our stories.”
Smith emphasised how the world is being confronted by this new reality.
“This transformative infrastructure is driven by the digital. It’s powered by technologies that replicate human cognition — including, of course, machine learning, natural language processing and robotics.
“But the question we must ask ourselves is: where do we see ourselves in all of this?”
Willson Chivhanga, the chief executive officer of Thrive Africa and a key partner in the event, echoed these sentiments, urging creatives to build own platforms to tell their stories.
“Afrotellers is a living archive of resistance and resilience,” he said.
“It is a declaration that our story has been set — and that it is the most vital part of the work we do.
“That is why we are gathered here. Our voices are power and our future will be shaped by us.”
With a record-breaking turnout and a programme rich in dialogue, performance, and provocation, the event affirmed a growing Pan-African movement to reclaim creativity in the face of accelerating technological change.
Wilson Chivhanga, the CEO for Thrive Africa, praised the overwhelming attendance and the energy in the room.
“We gathered here last year and it was a bold act of imagination. It was wild, it was scary — but we gathered. And as we gathered, it was a gathering of dreamers — people who said, ‘No one will tell our stories for us anymore. We will do it ourselves.’ It is such a pleasure to see that the movement is growing,” Chivhanga said.