UWC art and identity project, 2025

Abstract

The 10-week Art & Identity extracurricular workshops I offered on Saturdays on campus over the second semester, 2025, were a  response to the vision of your rector, Professor Robert Balfour (UWC Vice Chancellor) – himself an artist and poet and aware of the cognitive and personal benefits of arts-based education.
A group of 16 participants were drawn from 113 responses to an open advertisement offering free participation in this initiative. The selection was made on a first-come-firstserve basis, and the workshops were to be held on Saturday mornings. The students represented diverse disciplines: Law, Linguistics, Natural Sciences, Economics and Management Sciences, Arts and Humanities and Linguistics. Very few of these students had been exposed to art education; some had never before picked up a brush to paint.