Spectrum is the online magazine of Het Zuid-Afrikahuis. The aim of Het Zuid-Afrikahuis is to foster relationships between South Africa and the Netherlands in its broadest sense, also via Spectrum. For years a broad range of articles have been published: ranging from book reviews, interviews, and travel writing to in-depth articles about objects in an archive, and opinion articles. Usually, articles in Spectrum have between 700 and 2500 words.

Art, Culture and Politics

In August 2026 we will be publishing a special summer edition of Spectrum broadly surrounding the theme Art, Culture and Politics: The intersection of Art, Culture and Politics. We have chosen this theme due to its current international relevance.

Our inspiration for this has stemmed from the critique in the art/cultural/political world toward the Biennale of Venice, as well as the Eurovision song contest, where the intersection of art, culture and politics was very prominent.

Bennhold (2026) said the following of the Venice Biennale in the New York Times newsletter, The World:

The Venice Biennale is always overwhelming for art. Our culture writer says the politics were overwhelming this year, too.

This was written even though there have been political controversies witnessed at the Biennale since the 1968 student-led protests.

Along with this, one of the fundamental rules for the Eurovision Song Contest is that politics has no place in the contest, even though the contest has banned countries like Yugoslavia in 1964 and 1992, Georgia in 2009, Belarus in 2021, and Russia since 2022. In contrast with this rule, Moses (2026) contributed an article to the New York Times with the title, “After Eurovision Final, Dismay That Politics Didn’t Play a Bigger Role”.

Despite these comments, both the Biennale as well as Eurovision have been critiqued multiple times before for being political. As art and culture (in all of its forms) can be considered a form of soft power, showcases such as the Biennale with national pavilions and contests such as Eurovision with artists competing on behalf of their country, are spaces where politics can, even in subtle forms, always be identified.

Even historically, writers such as Njabule Ndebele (1989: 416) have touched on views of art (in this case writing and literature) and politics in the context of apartheid South Africa when he said:

The writers [of the Congress of South African Writers] pledged themselves to [use] their ‘total creative resources to advance the struggle for the creation of a non-racial, united and democratic South Africa’.

Share your perspective

Considering the relevance of this topic historically, in the present, and most likely going into the future, we would like to invite you to write about your opinions, experiences, or ideas about this topic with relation to South Africa. Thus, we invite contributions that provide insights into the intersection between arts, culture and politics from different disciplines. Contributions should be sent to Meghan Rider (m.rider@zuidafrikahuis.nl) by Friday, 31 July 2026. The ordinary guidelines to Spectrum authors apply.

We look forward to reading your contributions!

References

• Bennhold, Katrien. Art and Politics. The New York Times newsletter, The World, 7 May 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/world/venice-biennale-art-politics-iran-explosions.html?searchResultPosition=2
• Moses, Claire. After Eurovision Final, Dismay That Politics Didn’t Play a Bigger Role. The New York Times, 20 May 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/arts/music/eurovision-poland-israel-ukraine.html
• Ndebele, N. S. 1989. The writers’ movement in South Africa. Research in African Literatures, 20(3), 412-421.