ONE of Durban’s iconic establishments is turning 120 this year, and its future looks bright.

At the helm of KZNSA Gallery is its director Angela Shaw. She admits that the year 2024 was not all breezy, however 2025 promises to be more exciting.

She attributes this upward shift to improved, modernised means of digital communication. Shaw recently graduated with a Masters in Curatorial, Public and Visual Cultures from the Wits School of Art.

Also read: KZNSA Gallery embraces connectedness, solidarity

“My dissertation is titled, ‘Sustainability of the KwaZulu-Natal Creative Sector: The KwaZulu-Natal Society of Arts as a case study’. My studies combine my longstanding interest in the KZN creative sector, and how it consistently incubates talent, with my role at the KZNSA and the challenges the sector faces in the currently underfunded arts landscape.

“My supervisor was Dr Nontobeko Ntombela Akoi-Jackson, who studied and worked in Durban for years before going into academia. She is now the Head of Department of Curatorial, Public and Visual Cultures at Wits,” she added.

She hopes that more artists would take advantage of annual membership benefits. Students can have their craft displayed and traded for a membership fee of R100, while adults can be members for R350. A number of exhibitions are lined up for the year ahead.

KZNSA is one of the few galleries in South Africa with a digital archive of exhibitions dating back more than 20 years.

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