ADA : ART - DESIGN - ARCHITECTURE : NO. 14 : 1995 : JOHANNESBURG

ADA : ART - DESIGN - ARCHITECTURE : NO. 14 

Magazine, folio format, Johannesburg issue, cover has wear , overall condition: good.

Edited by art critic, Jennifer Sorrell, ADA was a South African cultural magazine first published in 1986 during the height of the apartheid era. Its name is an abbreviation for Architecture, Design, Art, which also acted as the magazines tagline and effectively defined the focus of the publication. Most issues were printed using a large A3 format, with a design approach typical of the late 80s zeitgeist in South Africa concurrent to the resistance movements fighting against apartheid, just before independence and the rise of democracy. As such, the magazine delivered an alternative type of journalism that was metropolitan and interdisciplinary, true to the spirit of resistance and transformation in SA at the time, and envisioned a prospective post-apartheid cultural identity.

Fourteen issues were sporadically published between 1986 and 1996. Although it could be argued that architecture is design within the scope of the magazine, art was seen to be a looser term comprising various art forms, including the fine arts, music, literature, dance, theatre, and many more. ADA discovered and supported now-important local talents, all historical contributors to SA culture, many of whom have themselves become cultural establishments.

There are too many significant moments in the magazines history to mention but some highlights include #1, which introduced Manfred Zylla; #7, which featured Helen Sebidi; #8, which featured Fook island citizen Norman Catherine on the cover; #9, which profiled George Pemba; #11, which included an early Bitterkomix comic-strip titled Suidoos by Conrad Botes; #13, which had a photomontage of president Nelson Mandela by Lien Botha and an interview by Pieter-Dirk Uys with Madiba the list goes on. The final issue, #14, published in 1996, featured contemporary legends David Goldblatt, Steven Cohen, William Kentridge, and Penny Siopis, to name a few.

Perhaps the most-popular issues were the cultural A to Z profiles, which focused on the three largest cities in SA Cape Town (#11), Durban (#12), and Johannesburg (#14) which gradually developed a quasi-avant-garde narrative surrounding each scene. Based on the creative energy and cultural verve of the time, perhaps theres a lesson to be learned from ADAs prolific formula: intentionally producing culture as opposed to blindly consuming it.