WHY RESEARCH MATTERS
Listening to Evidence as the Community Arts Indaba Begins
As the formal programme of the Community Arts Indaba kicks off tomorrow at the Market Theatre,
The Creative Passport deliberately pauses to foreground a voice that is often sidelined in arts conversations: that of researchers and academics.
In moments of heightened policy debate and sector frustration, the loudest voices are usually those of practitioners and officials.
Yet too rarely do we sit with the people whose work is to trace evidence, interrogate assumptions, document impact, and ask uncomfortable questions that emotion alone cannot answer.
If Community Arts is to move beyond survival mode into sustainability, equity, and long-term relevance, then research is not a luxury. It is a necessity.
In this interview, we speak to Traver Mudz, whose reflections challenge many of the comfortable narratives the sector has grown used to.
From the assumption that minimal grant funding can magically produce sustainability, to the lack of recent data capturing today’s socio-political and economic realities, this conversation reminds us that policy without evidence is guesswork, and funding without rigorous evaluation risks becoming wasteful rather than transformative.
The Creative Passport is intentionally opening space for multiple stakeholders in this Community Arts Engagement Series: practitioners, government officials, funders, activists, and crucially, researchers and academics.
Their role is not to speak over communities, but to help us see patterns, measure impact honestly, and design models that respond to the complexity of South Africa’s lived realities, including apartheid spatial planning, racial capitalism, and uneven development.
As the Indaba unfolds, this interview asks a deeper question:
Are we ready to listen to what the evidence is telling us, even when it disrupts our expectations, funding models, and political comfort zones?
Because without research-informed decision-making, Community Arts risks remaining under-funded, under-documented, and misunderstood.
And without that knowledge base, even the most passionate interventions may fail the very communities they seek to serve.
This conversation with Traver Mudz is not a conclusion.
It is an invitation to think harder, plan better, and take evidence seriously as the sector charts its future.
Source: ATCA
What does existing research tell us about community arts sustainability?
Currently, the sustainability requires continued and increased public funding. This is based on the Community Arts Development Programme evaluation data.
Image: DSAC Logo
Source: DSAC
Where are the major gaps in data and documentation?
The major gaps do not fully cover the spatial characteristics of the country, the socioeconomic political contexts that results in CAC being expected to solve several macroeconomic issues facing the country. Thus, there is a national economic shift directly linked to the socio-political shifts which is yet to be articulated at the CACs levels. The articulation does not also match funding models and the required amounts for impactful gap covering. As for documents, outside of the CADP generated reports, and previous reports dating back to 2010, there is limited scope of documents reflective of say the past three years.
Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
How can research better serve practitioners, not just institutions?
Practitioners, as part of their M&E and R&D, must periodically commission research around their annual strategic goals, appreciation of past funding, seeking to influence future trends in their sector. Research can best serve practitioners by providing data from which evidence-based decisions are made.
Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
What policy assumptions are unsupported by evidence?
That giving a minimal grant funding for a three-year cycle will lead to CACs being self-funding and ‘sustainable’. Evidence shows that the fund is way too little to make impactful change but mostly serving as a catalyst for some CACs – the fund has becomes a form of much needed sustenance for some CACs with little to no alternative funding.
Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
How should impact be measured in community arts?
This is a whole research study I cannot respond to here because I will have to providing a working definition of ‘impact’ based of the context of each CACs then present metrices for each case. All I can say is to study each community is to carry out their impact assessment, unfortunately there is no easy way out.
Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
What models from elsewhere are relevant to South Africa?
I will respond with a question; where else are they experiencing the negative institutionalized apartheid spatial planning and racial capitalism like South Africa? Finding countries dealing with relatively similar complexities will provides cases to learn from. This is another full on research I cannot provide an answer to without the work.
Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
How do power dynamics shape knowledge production?
Power dynamics shape knowledge production in both positive and negative ways depending on who is championing what and to what ends. A positive example is the CADP where National government uses their position and ability to secure the funding to empower and partner with Provincial Governments on the programme. This can be tracked down to individual levels at CACs.
Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
What research is urgently needed now?
Monitoring and evaluation independent research, outside of the required CADP reports, is required as ongoing evidence gathering to inform timely decisions for each financial year. The next set of research is a double barrel of impact assessment and optimisation.
Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
How can universities engage more ethically with communities?
Universities already engage more ethically with communities. No university research is carried out without an ethic clearance. Should there be cases of individual researchers being unethical that is a case by case scenario which must be brought to the attention of their institution.
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Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
What risks exist if community arts remain under-researched?
To mention only one, the CADP fund becomes wasteful expenditure of much needed public finances.
Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
What would success look like in five years?
Increased CADP funding, revised models of distribution across all nine provinces, tier system (reflective of the general national economic, strategic approach of CACs being strengthened as spaces for training, development, discoverability and feeders into marketplace), some CACs simply being funded to be safe spaces for the younger generations without expecting them to generate income but simply be a haven where the arts are part of ensuring we have a community that is safe, having some of the CACs as economic vehicles with their funding treated as capital to be repaid – government as an investor.
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