Department celebrates centenary with Social Impact Expo

The Department recently hosted a Social Impact Expo at Nooitgedacht wine farm, an event that forms part of the Department's centenary celebrations. The initiative was initiated by Prof Rachel Jafta to showcase the positive effects of research and various projects in the Department on people and communities.

The expo featured a visual exhibition which highlighted the social impact of three of the department's research projects, namely the Biography of an Uncharted People Project, the Mansory phone application and a school traffic awareness research project. Additional social impact initiatives inclued Words Open Worlds (WOW), the Cape Town Carnival, Rachel’s Angels Mentorship Programme and WeCode24.

Pictured above is Master's student Lwandiso Botozo, who worked with postdoctoral fellow Jonathan Schoots, on African nationalism in the late nineteenth century (photo by Philip du Plessis). The art work forms part of the Biography of an Uncharted People Project, which has transcribed large, administrative historical records to tell new histories of people often excluded from conventional sources. Instead of simply publishing this research in academic journals – far removed from those whose stories are told – this project aims to imagine a new form of research dissemination, through art. Fourteen artists were paired with 14 students to translate the research results of the students into works of art. These works of art were displayed at the Social Impact Expo, and will be displayed again at SU's Gallery (GUS) next year.

A longer article describing some of the other projects in more detail can be read on the faculty's news blog.