The Centre for Curating the Archive (CCA) is a research centre at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

Background

The CCA began as the Lucy Lloyd Archive, Resource and Exhibition Centre (LLAREC) in 1996 at the

Michaelis School of Fine Art The Michaelis School of Fine Art is a public university, public tertiary education, tertiary art school in the Cape Town suburb of Gardens, Cape Town, Gardens. It was founded in 1925 and is named after its benefactor, Max Michaelis. It is the Fin ...

. Its establishment followed two Pippa Skotnes exhibitions related to xam folklore—"Sound from the Thinking Strings" (1991) at the South African Museum, and "Miscast: Negotiating Khoisan Identity and Material Culture" (1996) at the South African National Gallery. The exhibitions led to books, both of which were edited by Skotnes—''Sound from the Thinking Strings: Visual, Literary and Archaeological and Historical Interpretation of the Final Years of /Xam Li'' (1991, Axeage Private Press) and '' Miscast: Negotiating the Presence of the Bushmen'' (1996, UCT Press). Various academics contributed chapters on issues related to "Khoesan studies". LLAREC was named for

Lucy Lloyd Lucy Catherine Lloyd (7 November 1834 – 31 August 1914) was the creator, along with Wilhelm Bleek, of the 19th-century archive of ǀXam and !Kung texts. Early life Lucy Catherine Lloyd was born to a Welsh family in Norbury in England on ...

and her contributions to the Bleek and Lloyd collection of xam and !kun folklore and linguistic data. LLAREC was later renamed the Centre for Curating the Archive. In 2008, the centre established a photographic unit.

Projects

Partnerships

The CCA works with several institutions in the realisation of its projects and curates exhibitions both in South Africa and abroad. The CCA collaborates with Iziko Museums of South Africa in the delivery of the BA Honours in Curatorship programme.

The Digital Bleek and Lloyd

The CCA began digitising Bleek and Lloyd collection materials on a large scale in 2003.A digital library system was developed for the collection by members of UCT's Digital Libraries Laboratory. The digital Bleek and Lloyd contains a 280 000-word searchable index, and consolidates materials held by the

University of South Africa The University of South Africa (UNISA) is the largest university system in South Africa by enrollment. It attracts a third of all higher education students in South Africa. Through various colleges and affiliates, UNISA has over 400,000 student ...

Iziko South African Museum The Iziko South African Museum, formerly the South African Museum (Afrikaans: Suid-Afrikaanse Museum), is a South African national museum located in Cape Town. The museum was founded in 1825, the first in the country. It has been on its present ...

, and the

National Library of South Africa National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ...

. As of 2024, the Digital Bleek and Lloyd is in the process of being reconfigured and relaunched.
u Toit, M. (2024). Convening context: Reading the Bleek and Lloyd !xun collection digitally, Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa, 5(1):1–10. https://doi.org/10.55492/dhasa.v5i1.5015

References

External links

CCA Homepage
* https://web.archive.org/web/20130203081738/http://www.humanities.uct.ac.za/research/groupings/llarec/ {{University of Cape Town navbox University of Cape Town