GETTY CONSERVATION INSTITUTE ROCK ART COLLOQUIUM - NAMIBIA APRIL 2017

	'ART ON THE ROCKS' - GLOBAL ROCK ART ALLIANCE

Neville Agnew, Senior Principal Project Specialist of the Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles, organised an international colloquium on rock art, held in Namibia from 21 April to 1 May, 2017, to explore a spectrum of ways whereby rock art can be raised to a higher level of public awareness in the public and political domain with potential bearing on its preservation, promotion and uses. The colloquium was based on previous work encapsulated in the publication 'Rock Art: A cultural treasure at risk: How we can protect the valuable and vulnerable heritage of rock art', by Neville Agnew, Janette Deacon, Nicholas Hall, Terry Little, Sharon Sullivan and Paul Taçon, published in 2015 by the Getty Conservation Institute. The 10-day colloquium gathered 24 experts from around the world, including professional rock art researchers and conservation specialists as well as creative thinkers who use rock art in a variety of ways, such as communicating its values to the public through film, deriving artistic inspiration from it, management by traditional owners, and sustainable tourism. Beginning in the the Namibian capital city of Windhoek, the colloquium was structured around papers, presentations and discussions by all those attending. These continued throughout the course of the event, punctuated by two rock art site visits to the Brandberg and the World Heritage Site of /Ui- //aes, also known as Twyfelfontein. Wrap-up sessions took place in Windhoek. For the painted rock art of both human and animal depictions in the Brandberg, the first site visited is the most famous - the so-called 'White Lady' rock painting, located on a rock face with other artwork under a small rock overhang, in the Tsisab Ravine at the foot of the mountain. A number of other sites, equally impressive, were then visited and examined. For the (predominantly) engraved rock art sites at Twyfelfontein, a number of petroglyph panels located near the Visitor Centre were visited, displaying a wide variety of carving of animals shown in profile, spoor, human foot marks and geometric patterns. The outcome of the Getty Conservation Institute Namibia Colloquium 2017, and the preceding Kakadu Forum 2014, is the formation of a Global Rock Art Alliance - ART ON THE ROCKS - whose ultimate purpose is to encourage public and political awareness and support. A Getty Conservation Institute initiative, the ART ON THE ROCKS hub [hot link] will be located on the Bradshaw Foundation website, providing a constant stream of on-going research, discoveries and site management on rock art and related matters from around the world. → Art on the Rocks
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