South Africa
Visiting Arts
London
1999
252 pp.
ISBN 1 902349 02 4
£11.00
Visiting Arts Southern Africa Regional Arts Profile series
Keywords Arts, South Africa
If we have in other contexts noted the wider value of information generated within specialist activities, such value is very considerably enhanced by the international dimension of these two volumes; and then more widely still of other volumes in the same range. Visiting Arts is a not‐for‐profit organisation which promotes foreign and international arts and cultural activity through consultancy, advisory services, information provision, training, publications and project development. Although covering the whole world, it is particularly active in East and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, East and South East Asia, South Asia, Africa and Islamic countries. It has a close working relationship with the British Council.
Visiting Arts thus has both widespread and close contacts around the world in their subject field ‐ and, of course, that field of culture and the arts is itself very broad. The contacts thus made are here distilled into two excellent and invaluable country directories (and with every reason to assume that the same level of excellence will apply in the other volumes not seen for review). A generally standard coverage (but with some local variation) offers information within nine sections common to both volumes: cultural organisations; performing arts; visual arts; museums and heritage (this includes heritage sites in the country); arts festivals; arts training and research; cultural information centres; sources of arts funding; and an international section covering supra‐government and supra‐national bodies, cultural missions and the like. The Hungary volume also has sections on literature and on film and video. Each of these sections comprises a comprehensive directory of relevant bodies and institutions with not only the usual directory and contact data but also often fairly comprehensive accounts of the organisation’s purpose and activities. The local detail presented in these sections is both comprehensive and detailed. Each major section is then sub‐divided so that Section 9.3 of the Hungary volume, for example, lists (with descriptive annotations) the libraries in the country. Section 7.2 in the South Africa volume lists only five provincial libraries having specialist arts collections.
The value of these works is further enhanced by their excellent introductions: “Background” gives a general introduction to each country; “Arts Survey” a brief review of the arts scene; “Cultural Policy and Infrastructure” explains how culture is administered in the country; and “Cultural Exchange” gives notes on reciprocal exchange opportunities. The volumes are edited by staff of Visiting Arts, but credit is given to nationals of each country concerned (including embassy staff), and the local knowledge is very much in evidence: with all the contact bodies and individuals concerned a full range of comprehensive, accurate and informed local knowledge is made available.
Layout is excellent: names in the Hungary volume are given first in English translation then in the vernacular. The directory data are listed clearly and consistently. Each volume has an index of names: all the English versions seem to be included but not all the vernacular (or perhaps I am hindered by my ignorance of the Hungarian language).
The detailed organisation and sub‐divisions of the main text make further subject indexing unnecessary. Including the volume reviewed here, 11 Southern Africa countries are covered, the other ten being:
- 1.
1Angola, 60pp., ISBN 1 902349 03 2.
- 2.
2Botswana, 60pp., ISBN 1 902349 09 1.
- 3.
3Lesotho, 56 pp., ISBN 1 902349 05 9.
- 4.
4Malawi, 48 pp., ISBN 1 902349 07 5.
- 5.
5Moçambique, 63 pp., ISBN 1 902349 04 0.
- 6.
6Namibia, 76 pp., ISBN 1 902349 10 5.
- 7.
7Swaziland, 48 pp., ISBN 1 902349 06 7.
- 8.
8Tanzania, 72 pp., ISBN 1 902349 11 3.
- 9.
9Zambia, 63 pp., ISBN 1 902349 08 3.
- 10.
10Zimbabwe, 95 pp., ISBN 1 902349 12 1.
Each volume costs £10.00, or the complete set for £75.00 (postage and packing extra). Two volumes in addition to the Hungary reviewed are:
- 1.
1Israel, 263 pp., ISBN 1 902349 13 X, £15.00.
- 2.
2Norway, 309 pp., ISBN 1 902349 16 4, £15.00.
Twenty‐one Asia Pacific countries were covered in three earlier (1996) volumes and Palestine is due to be covered in the near future.
These really are quite invaluable mines of information: the significance of the information included goes beyond the stated purpose in compiling and publishing the directories since, for example, they give information to a level of detail which will satisfy many tourism enquiries also. We have here a new series of international directories which will enhance not just those collections on the arts for which they are designed (and that is a wide enough constituency in the first place) but also tourism and international reference collections more generally.
