UCT looks to rename university buildings

Buildings at UCT, including Jameson Hall, which overlooked the recent student protests on the campus, could soon be renamed.

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Cape Town - Buildings at UCT, including Jameson Hall, which overlooked the recent student protests on the campus, could soon be renamed.

A university task team on the naming of buildings, rooms, spaces and roads, has invited proposals for, or against, renaming five key buildings.

The five buildings – Jameson Memorial Hall, Smuts Hall, Beattie Building, Wernher Beit and the Otto Beit Building – were identified for possible renaming last year by members of the university community.

The task team was established by the university to conduct, commission and audit assessment and analysis of the names of buildings, rooms, spaces and roads that could be seen to recognise or celebrate colonial oppressors or could be offensive or controversial.

It also has to seek comment and opinion from members of the university and other interested or affected parties on these names.

The task team has also invited proposals for the renaming of other buildings.

A register of the names of buildings and the history behind these names has been made available on the UCT website.

The closing date for comments and proposals is noon on March 30.

Meanwhile, the UCT council’s artworks task team this month proposed that “a core cluster” of artworks displayed on campus “and identified as controversial” be temporarily removed while the university takes a decision on the curatorial policy it wishes to adopt.

The task team was set up in September and its mandate includes commissioning or conducting an audit, assessment or analysis of statues, plaques and artworks on campus that could be seen to recognise or celebrate colonial oppressors or could be offensive or controversial.

“The task team noted that in 2015, and indeed earlier, some students at the university had indicated clearly that they find a number of artworks offensive for the way in which they depict black people.

“While a comprehensive list of works so identified, in multiple fora and on various occasions, requires close research of the kind that the task team has not yet been able to undertake, the team identified a core cluster of works that were frequently cited,” the task team said.

It noted that unlike in galleries, where people could choose which works they encountered, the works on display were unavoidable.

The task team indicated that it had not been able to establish the existence of university curatorial policies or activities governing the display of artworks on campus.

Noxolo Ntaka, the secretary-general of the Student Representative Council, said it believed that a change in terms of institutional symbolism was needed, a large part of which came from the names of buildings and statues.

ilse.fredericks@inl.co.za

Cape Argus