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The Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Mr Valli Moosa joined us at the Field Station on Heritage Day 2000. The Minister appealed to the inhabitants of Clanwilliam to foster appreciation and respect for the rich rock art record that survives in the Cederberg Mountains. Coupled with the dramatic annual display of wild flowers that graces the region, the abundance of rock art so close to the town makes Clanwilliam an ideal place for tourism initiatives, the Minister said.
Since its inception, the Living Landscape Project has held several workshops, each culminating in Heritage Day celebrations.
This archive allows you to see not only what the Project has been doing over the past few years, but also how the Project has evolved - and continues to evolve. The texts that follow were written at the time of the events.
Heritage Day 1997
Preparation for the launch of the Living Landscape Project on Heritage Day ’97 began with the organisation of painting workshops. Children from the two local schools were enlisted to paint large banners depicting their vision of the surrounding town and landscape, and discussions were held about which aspects of the landscape learners felt were worth preserving.
Heritage Day began with speeches from the Superintendent General of Education in the Western Cape, members of the local community as well as members of the UCT research community, all of whom expressed their enthusiasm for the Project and their hopes for its future. A presentation outlining the intended components of the Living Landscape Project was unveiled on the day.
As the Superintendent General concluded: "This project combines the best of what our country has to offer; here they are using the richness of our past to build a better future."
Three weeks after Heritage Day, a seven-day workshop was organized with sixteen Grade eleven learners from both of the secondary schools in Clanwilliam.
During the week, students interacted with each other and learnt about the valuable heritage and resources in the surrounding landscape.
The learners produced their own exhibit box, based on their experience in Clanwilliam. Exhibits took the form of a number of large cardboard boxes, on which graphics and text were printed, describing each of the project’s components. These included the survival of indigenous plant names, the use of plants by pre-colonial hunters and herders, fossil traces left on the landscape, and understanding rock art.
Heritage Day 1998
Heritage Day ‘98 was celebrated in the old St John's school just before renovations began in earnest, converting it into the Field Station. The day began with workshops held in the old school. The participants, mainly from the local primary and high school, made their own interpretations of handprints and rock art in paint, and honed their stone knapping skills in producing stone flakes and tools.
The children also had the chance to work with computer-based multimedia tutorials in history and archaeology. A small art competition was organized, displaying the talent and enthusiasm of local school children on the theme of the day – our heritage.
At end of the day, Theatre for Africa performed their extraordinary production "Mountain Men" in the local Dutch Reform church. This play incorporated a lively discussion on human evolution, which emphasized the growing power of people at the expense of our near relatives, baboons and other primates.
Early the following morning, a representative of the National Monuments council, gave a practical demonstration of the removal of charcoal graffiti from local rock art sites to encourage an active sense of preservation and protection of this irreplaceable resource.
Heritage Day 1999
Heritage Day ’99 was celebrated in the freshly renovated Field Station. As in ’98, work shops were held with pupils of different schools – the children enjoyed the guidance of professionals and enthusiasts, as they flaked their own stone tools or left their own traces in the form of colourful hand prints on the Field station’s walls.
The art competition was held again this year, much to the delight of the children who participated eagerly. To reward their dedication, the children were presented with a Certificate of Participation in Heritage Day 1999.
The late afternoon marked the official opening of the Field Station by the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, who gave an inspirational speech aimed specifically at the learners participating in the day's events.
He reminded them of the benefits and rewards of education, but pointed out that learning did not just take place in the classroom, rather, learning occurred all around them on a daily basis, in their natural environment.
Prizes and gifts were handed out to pupils and festivities marked by the music of a local school band. Tea was held in the gallery where the paintings were exhibited.
Heritage Day 2000
Heritage Day celebrations in 2000 saw the culmination of ten weeks of intensive work on the part not only of the Project team members, but also of groups of learners from both of the Clanwilliam senior schools.
Six groups of learners came to the Field Station where we planned different projects for each group to research. One of our primary objectives in these projects was to encourage analytical thought and critical skills. By gathering data in the field and then returning to the Field Station to assess the kinds of questions that could be asked of the data, the learners were able to decide not only what should be researched, but also how to go about collecting and analysing the relevant data.
The results of the six projects were on display in the exhibition hall for Heritage Day. One group from each school researched a project on the rock art of the Cederberg, exploring the characteristics and symbolism of the art. Two groups took two of the graveyards in Clanwilliam as their focus, recording the patterning visible in the choice of gravestones, messages and decorations and how these choices change through time.
One group studied the heuweltjies around the town, recording their size and distribution and the plant growth on and around them. The final project investigated periods in the history of the area when it looked very different from today: a time when it was beneath a glacier, at the bottom of the sea and, more recently, when it was inhabited by Stone Age hunter-gatherers.
The ten weeks leading up to Heritage Day also saw the implementation of a pilot project that aims to foster communication via email between groups of students that would not otherwise be able to interact. Researchers at the University of Cape Town have collaborated with researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand to develop parallel resource packages that include images, texts and worksheets about the rock art of the Cederberg and Drakensberg, respectively. The Drakensberg package was implemented in a Johannesburg school, while the Cederberg package was run in the two Clanwilliam secondary schools. These two groups of students shared their discoveries via email. In this way, they were able to discover not only the art of their region, but also of a region that is geographically far removed, and how that physical distance impacts the content and style of the art. At the same time, they became more familiar with the operation and uses of email.
The art competition seems to be turning into an annual event, and was again made possible by the Fairheads International Trust and the Michaelis School of Fine Art. Prizes this year included mountain bicycles for the winners.
The Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Mr Valli Moosa joined us at the Field Station on Heritage Day. Not only did the Minister hand out the prizes to the winners of the contest, but he also made an appeal to the inhabitants of Clanwilliam to foster appreciation and respect for the rich rock art record that survives in the Cederberg Mountains. Coupled with the dramatic annual display of wild flowers that graces the region, the abundance of rock art so close to the town makes Clanwilliam an ideal place for tourism initiatives.
Children from Sederville create a hand-print mural for Heritage Day 1998.
Grade eleven learners from both secondary schools in Clanwilliam creating exhibits based on a week-long learning experience at the Living Landscape Centre.
The children also had the chance to work with computer-based multimedia tutorials in history and archaeology. A small art competition was organized, displaying the talent and enthusiasm of local school children on the theme of the day – our heritage.
The Deputy vice chancellor of UCT addressed the audience on Heritage Day 1999 and later children were given a certificate of participation in the days events.
This orthographic image illustrates heuweltjies (seen as white spots on the landscape) around the town of Clanwilliam. One group project for Heritage Day 2000 was a study of these ancient termite mounds, recording their size and distribution and the plant growth on and around them. Other projects investigated periods in the history of the area when it looked very different from today: a time when it was beneath a glacier, at the bottom of the sea and, more recently, when it was inhabited by Stone Age hunter-gatherers.