Cape Town Conference on Modern Heritages of Africa

This year is the 20th anniversary of UNESCO’s Modern Heritage Programme presenting a timely and important opportunity to reflect on the transformative cultural experiences and global consequences of the twentieth century – modernism’s century and the dawn of the Anthropocene. Despite its planetary impact, the heritage of this seminal century is unevenly researched, appreciated and protected around the world. Nowhere is this more conspicuous than in Africa, where, despite initiatives like the Modern Heritage Programme and the 2004 Regional Meeting on Modern Heritage for Sub-Saharan Africa[i] there remains a serious oversight globally of the legacies (positive, negative, tangible or intangible) that transformed the continent during the twentieth century and which remain deeply entwined in the challenges it faces in the future.

In line with the Global Strategy for a credible, balanced and representative World Heritage List, adopted by the World Heritage Committee in 1994, the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF) has identified modern heritage as one of the marginalised heritage categories that urgently needs identification and documentation if it is to be more fairly represented on the World Heritage List. Africa’s cities, many of which are themselves products of the twentieth century, face the highest rates of urbanisation in the world over the next half a century, straining populations, urban landscapes and hinterlands, and placing modern heritage at serious risk of alteration or destruction. Through improved methods of understanding and assessing significance, raising public awareness and promoting inscription on local or global registers, Africa’s modern heritage has a vital role in promoting rural and urban sustainability in line with the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the UNHabitat New Urban Agenda.

By developing new professional and academic networks, critically reflecting on Africa’s encounter with modernities, and carrying out comprehensive research on the continent’s modern heritage, this global collaboration aims to support the sustainable agenda in Africa, from strengthening urban resilience to promoting inscription on UNESCO’s World Heritage List to give  “heritage  a  function in the life of the community and to integrate the protection of that heritage into comprehensive planning programmes”.

The conference will take place online, starting at 10:00 SAST / 09:00 BST on Wednesday 22 September, and finishing at 17:00 SAST / 16:00 BST on Friday 24 September. To confirm your place at the conference, please register at the link below.

This conference is the first of two new symposia, the second taking place at The Bartlett in 2022.

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More information

• Find out more about the conference
• Register to join the conference

Image: St Mary’s Orthodox Cathedral (1938), Asmara (Eritrea) by Edward Denison