What can our art be used for? Used by Whom? This edition of Medu explores the importance of art and its inextricable relationship to community. Two interviews, one with playwright Maki Mapogo and another with Musician Johnny Clegg, explore their artforms and the relationships these artforms have to community and activism. The Zimbabwe Writers'Workshop, chronicled in this edition, had extensive discussions on the political responsiblities of writers, includes delegates like Dambudzo Marechera and extracts from writers like Emmanuel Ngara, Micere Mugo and T.T. Moyana. The edition is concluded by Mongane Serote's in-depth article on the Politics of Culture in southern Africa. Front page graphic by Miles Pelo.

Ordinary months of the year and display of Medu Posters.

Original silkscreen printed folder for the Culture and Resistance Symposium/Festival in 1982, Gaborone, Botswana. Artwork by Thami Mnyele.

Information page given to conference delegates giving details of the rules, meal arrangements, venues and a map of the conference site.

Nadine Gordimer writes this insightful paper on the key concepts of "relevance" and "commitment" in relation to black and white writers. She argues that black writers write from their communities and have daily lives which are embedded within relevant contexts. So too, their commitment to black liberation is innate. She suggests that white writers ought to break out of white value systems and a false consciousness to create relevant art and to openly admit that their experience as being white is of a different order to being black. These are the imperatives which both black and white writers face. The whole aim of art, in its attainment of truth and essence, requires the white writer to attain a true consciousness so that both black and white writers may work for the same end.

This document, composed by the Medu Art Collective, is a political input calling for a cultural boycott against Apartheid. This boycott aims at foreign artistic or cultural groups touring South Africa, boycotting the Apartheid government's cultural events and for progressive organisations to collectively and diligently organise these boycotts against Apartheid.

This is the original draft of the article by Thami Mnyele for Staffrider in 1984. He explains how Bongiwe Dlomo's exhibition at the Botswana Museum and Gallery showcases the growth of art in South Africa at the Bostwana Museum and Art Gallery. Mnyele stresses that visual artists in his country [South Africa] should take action or express their thoughts about their struggle - a failure to do so might imply the grave of ignorance that could break their lives as people. Mnyele argues that the country is in need of of new calibre of cultural worker, one who is committed to their community and to struggle in both visual arts and song. In conclusion, Mnyele quoted the call that was made at the gathering of the Art Toward Social Development Exhibition and Culture and Resistance Symposium in 1982: "Forward with the creation of a new calibre of cultural worker!"