Kim Berman is an NRF-Rated scholar and Full Professor in Visual Art at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and Executive Director of Artist Proof Studio (APS), a community-based printmaking centre in Newtown, Johannesburg which she co-founded APS with the late Nhlanhla Xaba in 1991. She received her B.F.A. from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1981 and her M.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/ Tufts University, USA in 1989. She completed her PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2009. She has lectured and exhibited widely in South Africa and internationally. She is committed to engaging arts for social change through her activism and teaching. Her book, Finding Voice: A visual approach to engaging change, published by the University of Michigan Press https://www.press.umich.edu/9256315/finding_voice
Recent published journals, articles, books and chapters:
2019 Berman, K & Le Baron M. Crossing Worlds: South–North Collaborations as Creative Encounters with Arts, Humanities and Sciences, Critical Arts, Critical Arts. Routledge, Taylor &Francis Group DOI: 10.1080/02560046.2019.165879
2018 Berman, K. Chapter: Book Evaluation (pp 27-128) in Changing Our Worlds – Art as Transformative Practice Eds. Le Baron, M and Sarra J. A STIAS publication, Sun Press, and Jointly- authored Chapter: Building a Resilient Transformative Arts Field (pp129-146)
2018 Berman, K. Chapter: Artist Books as Democratic Force, in Books Bones & Other Things, Jan K Coetzee (Ed) pp48-55, Sun Media. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928424154
2017 Berman, K. S. Book: Finding Voice: A Visual Arts Approach to Engaging Social Change: Series: New Public Scholarship, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor (2017) https://www.press.umich.edu/9256315
2014 Berman, K, Imagination and Agency: Facilitating Social Change through the Visual Arts. in Hazel Barnes (ed.), Arts Activism, Education, and Therapies: TransformingCommunitiesAcrossAfricaMatatu 44, Rodopi 2013/14
2013 Berman, K. Students as Agents of Change: Engagement between University-based art students and Alternative Spaces; Third Text, Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art & Culture, 2013, vol 27 (3) 387-399; http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/y8PxWFIxgzcNSQFuhyeC/full
2012 Berman, K & Allen, L, Deepening students’ understanding of democratic citizenship through arts-based approaches to experiential service learning, Journal of the South African Sociological Association, Special Issue – In Search of a Developmental University: Community Engagement in Theory and Practice, South African Review of Sociology, 43:2, 76-88 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21528586.2012.694245
2011 Berman, K, Shifting Boundaries: the challenge of assessing MTech community-based-visual arts research projects. South African Journal of Higher Education (SAJHE (PGS Spec)) 25(5) pp 87-103
2011 Berman, K. Artist Proof Studio: twenty years of responding to South African transformation imperatives. De arte (84) pp52-68, University of South Africa
2008 Berman, K. Shifting the paradigm: The need for assessment criteria for community-engaged research in the visual arts. South African Journal of Higher Education (SAJHE) 22(3): 515-537. http://www.sabinet.co.za/abstracts/high/high_v25_n5_a6.html
2007 Berman, K. A case study of Phumani Paper as a Community Engagement Initiative at the University of Johannesburg. Education for Change. Special Issue: Community Service Learning (11) 3, December. https://journals.co.za/content/edchange/11/3/EJC31613
2007 Berman, K. The Role of the Visual Arts for Social Change in South Africa. The International Journal for the Arts in Society 1(5): 123-135. Common Ground
2007 Berman, K & Allara, P. Transformational practices in community learning: a South African Case Study. The International Journal of Learning 14(8): 113-123. Common Ground
SELECTED AWARDS
2018 Awarded a one-month Wallenberg Fellowship (3rd year) from the Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies (PWIAS) at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver at STIAS April –May 2018. Co-convener an international Symposium as STIAS in May 1st to 3rd called Being Human in the 21st Century: Arts and Social Transformation. This symposium extends to co-hosting a group of UBC Law Students from the Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia from the 25th of April to 3rd May 2018 as part of a global comparative seminar entitled Citizenship,SocialJusticeandCreativeProblemSolvinginCanadaand SouthAfrica.
2017 AAPM research funding received for Artist, Ireland for an Artist residency The Cill Rialaig Project 11-28 August 2017. The residency will be the start of a new inquiry and body of artwork on challenges facing societies affected by historical trauma through shared landscapes.
2017 AAMP Research funding received for Artist in Residence with Dobbin Mill for the production of a collaborative artist’s book by Kim Berman and Robbin Ami Silverberg, 2017: Kakistocracy- a response to our duel political realities. Exhibited at Booknesses, UJ and San Francisco Centre for the Arts. Kakistocracy- a response to our duel political realities (2017) was bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City https://library.metmuseum.org:443/record=b1952175~S1
Recent conference papers and public lectures:
2017 ACT/UJ Creative Conference: # CREATIVEUPRISING 27-28July Title: Activism for systemic change in arts education
2017 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) in the South. University of Johannesburg: 24-27 July 2017. Berman, K, Netshia, S with Mielke, H: Conference paper: Enlivening pedagogical methods in the classroom through visual arts
2017 Community Engagement Conference: Towards Social and Epistemic Justice Durban University of Technology and Rhodes University, 31 May to 2 June 2017. Berman, K, Vári, M, Van Borek, S. Shared Histories, Imagined Futures and The Culture of Possibility
2017 Troubling the Haunting Power of the Past: Interrupting Intergenerational Cycles of Historical Trauma” – An Interdisciplinary Symposium, 15-16 May 2017
2017 Booknesses Colloquium on the book arts in South Africa FADA, University of Johannesburg, 24 & 25 March 2017
Roundtable Panel discussion: K Berman: The Artist Book as Demographic Force
Colloquium Lecture: K Berman: Developing and sustaining Hand Papermaking in South Africa
Chair of Panel: Collaborations across studios: William Kentridge, Eliza Kentridge, Sue Gosin, Mark Attwood and Nathi Ndladla
2017 College Art Association (CAA) Annual conference, New York, February 15-18, 2017. Panel: Collaborative Printmaking Across Cultures and Times
Berman, K: Collaborative Printmaking as co-creation, a South African example of practice
2016 IAPMA Congress and 30 Year Anniversary Nature, Diversity, & the Art of Paper, City of Brasilia, Brasil, 12-16 September 2016
Title: Developing and sustaining Hand Papermaking in South Africa
2016 SAVAH Conference, 28-31 July 2016, TUT. Rethinking Art History and Visual Culture in a Contemporary Context
2015 Co-coordinator of a colloquium at STIAS with the Prof M LeBaron of PWAIS Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies December 1-4, 2015
2015 South African Visual Art Historians’ Association (SAVAH) 30th Annual International Conference CFP: POWER AND VISUAL CULTURE August
K Berman: Unravelling the power of the academy through arts based approaches to engaging community
2015 Key Note Address: Women and Leadership Conference: Women Hackers Unite, Cortex Hub, Dimension Data East London August 25 “Women in Leadership” UJ Womens Day Lecture: “Women on Purpose: Community engagement at UJ and the women of Phumani Paper, Aug 25th 2015 7th SA AIDS Conference : Poster presentation: 9-12 June 2015. Engaging change though arts-based participatory action for HIV/AIDS interventions
2015 Postgraduate Supervision Conference 2015, Spier Estate, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 25 – 27 March 2015. Berman, K. Arts-based approaches to
countering the “cult of the expert” in postgraduate supervision
2015 Public Lecture: Marymount Loyola University, Laband Gallery:, Los Angeles Artist Proof Studio: A Journey of Reconciliation, Jan 19 2014 NRF-SAHECEF: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT SYMPOSIUM: Developing a model of community -engaged practice for using arts-based approaches to
development, CPUT, Cape Town, Nov 30-Dec 1 2014 2014 International conference on Arts Culture Heritage and the National Development Plan; vision for 2030: A Masters in Art Therapy: an opportunity for Higher Education to meet the challenge of developing an inclusive cohesive
society, 1-3 Oct 2014, Tshwane University of Technology
2014 Designing arts-based interventions using multidisciplinary and cross- professional partnerships for a rural South African community. Cumulus Johannesburg Conference: Design with the Other 90%: Changing the World by Design, 22-24 September 2014
2014 Key Note Lecture: Stories of Change, 16th ACASA Triennial Symposium on African Art, March 19-22 2014 (Arts Council of the African Studies Association), Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA
2014 16th ACASA Triennial Symposium on African Art, March 19-22 2014, Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA ACASA Panel: Engaged Pedagogy and Collaboration
at Artist Proof Studio and the Boston Arts Academy: Chair Pam Allara, with Linda Nathan (BAA)
2013 UBIAS Conference: Scientific and Academic Knowledge: Sept 17-19, 2013. Resilience Stories from South Africa Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver http://pwias.ubc.ca/media-centre/podcasts/view-by-date.php#117
2013 Southern Graphics Conference International; The Print: MKE conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin March 20-23 2013 printmke2013panels@gmail.com
Panel Chair and presenter: International Exchanges at Artists Proof Studio: Building Agency through collaborative printmaking Exhibition: 21 years of
Collaboration and Exchange at Artist Proof Studio
2012 International Roundtable: “Resilience, Arts and Social Transformation” from October 21-26. Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies (PWIAS) under the
“Program on Dispute Resolution”, Faculty of Law, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
2012 Voices in participatory art practices: a collaborative intervention between Artist Proof Studio and Sonke Gender Justice. 27th annual SAVAH Conference, Visual Dialogues, 4-7 July 2012, UNISA, Pretoria
Solo and curated exhibitions:
2015 Curation of an Artist Proof Retrospective exhibition for Laband Gallery, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA: Art and Social Action for Change.
Opening Jan 2015
2013 Solo Exhibition: Kim Berman: South African Landscapes: Jacques Gorus Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium, August 9-28 2013
2012 Solo Exhibition: Duets with Egon: An Exhibition of multi-types in collaboration with Egon Guenther, Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, December 1-16, 2012
2010 Dislocated Landscapes. Solo Exhibition: Gallery Art on Paper, Auckland Park, Johannesburg August 12 – September 3rd 2010
2009 Dislocated Landscapes. Solo Exhibition: Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, September – November 2009
2006 Kim Berman: Resistance And Renewal: Selected Work from 1985-2005, Slater Concourse Gallery, Tufts University, Medford, Mass, February 2006.
Curated by Pamela Allara, Brandeis University and Paul Stopforth, Harvard University
2005 New work by Kim Berman, Art on Paper, Melville, Johannesburg, October – November 2005
2003 On Their Own: Kim Berman: Recent Work, The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, Mass, USA. February – April 2003
2002 Kim Berman: New Works, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, August 2002
2001 Testimonies of Truth & Reconciliation, Cultural Centrum, Sint Niklaas, Belgium, September 2001
