#cocreateIDENTITY Experience: Provoking your identity. Image: Adobe Stock
The event will be held in Cape Town at significant venues, including the Castle of Good Hope, the Camissa Museum, the Iziko Slave Lodge and the Artscape. The programme will open meaningful dialogues around identity and transformation in the context of Dutch and South African shared cultural heritage, including trade and slavery.
These conversations will take place through cultural, scientific, social and artistic South African initiatives and collaborations between South African and Dutch artists. Initiatives include two cultural theatre pieces, a Camissa Museum Tour, a tour of the Slave Lodge and an exhibition at the Castle of Good Hope and connected discussions and dialogues.
#cocreateSANL is an initiative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Africa, capturing the true essence of modern foreign diplomacy. It stimulates collaboration between South Africa and the Netherlands with the belief that if we work together, we can co-create solutions for local and international challenges. #cocreateSANL is a platform for South African and Dutch counterparts to exchange ideas and innovations for a sustainable future.
#cocreateSANL predominantly aims to support South Africans in uncovering their own narrative between each other. As an expression of #cocreateSANL, the #cocreateIDENTITY Experience aims to unpack the complex question of who are we today and how does that relate to the past?
The festival will depict how South Africa’s and the Netherlands’ histories are woven together, driving thought provoking conversations about today’s identity issues. It will encourage future-forward relationships, creating a deeper understanding of identity and transformation needs.
Mutual understanding may lead to more effective cooperation in today’s world of transnational challenges. Truthful partnership comes with understanding commonalities and differences, however painful. Truthful partners want to understand each other – even across borders. Understanding today’s identity issues and their origins is a step in overcoming them. The #cocreateIDENTITY Experience is hopefully a contribution and a step in this journey.
By learning from our South African counterparts, we look to create impactful, inspiring and meaningful dialogue around identity. This will stimulate the ongoing conversation surrounding VOC history also in the Netherlands and worldwide, which is integral to answering questions surrounding Dutch identity and historical awareness.
“The philosophy is to recognise shared challenges and ambitions,” says Han Peters, Ambassador for the Kingdom of the Netherlands to South Africa. “It is our responsibility to dive into our past to co-create a shared better future – engaging in difficult conversations about our histories, sitting with uncomfortable truths, driving a new trajectory for the future.”
“The goal is to create an opportunity for the Dutch people to be truthful listening partners, while South Africans venture to make sense of their identity journey connected to the past. Elements that are derived from our VOC past must be fed back to the Dutch, to learn what the impact of our history is,” adds Consul General Sebastiaan Messerschmidt. “It takes courage of all participants in this journey, to walk it without predetermining its outcome but really experience, exchange and listen.”
The #cocreateIDENTITY Experience is set to open a dialogue that delves into how the Netherlands and South Africa can create meaningful exchanges to foster powerful transformation and address identity issues.
The #cocreateIDENTITY Experience programme will be held at various significant venues in Cape Town and includes art, theatre, dance, music, heritage and food, as well as discussions and dialogues.
Castle of Good Hope
4 – 6 June
(The following iniatives are ncluded in the Castle ticket)
Food Heritage Journey (interactive)
Charting the Uncharted (exhibition)
ONS Perspectief (digital performance)
Nieuw Licht (documentary)
Future for the Past (art film)
Camissa Memory Well, Camissa Museum
Artscape Theatre
Krotoa (Eva van de Kaap)
Tickets cost R100 and are available through Artscape
18:00 – 19:30, 4 June
12:30 – 14:00, 5 June
Iziko Slave Lodge
Future for the Past: Sites of Memory Performance
Free to the public; first come, first serve basis
12:00 – 12:30, 4 June
15:00 – 15:30, 4 June
11:00 – 11:30, 6 June
‘Who Were the Enslaved? Commemorating lives under enslavement at the Cape of Good Hope’
Standard exhibit entry cost to the Slave Lodge
Saturday, 4 June
Monday, 6 June
To view the full programme and to plan your attendance, visit: cocreatesa.nl
Join the conversation
Share your experiences with us and join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram @cocreateSANL.
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