The art of Zen

Only among specific and knowledgeable communities in South Africa is it known that MTN boasts a substantial Art Collection that comprises of both classic and contemporary works from Africa, and in particular South Africa. This Collection, curated professionally under the auspices of the MTN Art Institute established in 1999, is underpinned by an appropriate infrastructure that includes an associated Web site, which was created and populated utilising Insite, the Content Management System available from Zen Computing.

The MTN Art Institute is a NGO operating in the areas of Education and Art, and includes a significant social outreach and upliftment programme. It also facilitates a range of further projects aimed at giving visible support to art, culture and heritage in South Africa.

One of these new projects is the establishment of a resource centre/library/media centre that will provide active support for teachers and facilitators who wish to expand their knowledge of South African art. All research work undertaken on the works in the MTN Art Collection, for example, will be put at the disposal of visitors to the MTN Art Institute New Resource Centre. This centre is expected to be active shortly, as will be the MTN New Media Centre, created initially at the current premises in Sandton in partnership with South African New Media Art Network (sanman). This project is envisaged as an aspect of the Art Institute`s wider education campaign, and will be devoted to the development of digital and web projects, accompanied by an education initiative. It is intended that this Centre will move to the new campus planned on Fourteenth Avenue, Randburg, in 2003.

"When I started out in October 1997 establishing this collection and the MTN Art Institute, I had many aspirations regarding the potential of this new opportunity. I am already delighted that many of these dreams have already been fulfilled and look forward to the new projects that we have recently set in motion," commented Ronel Kellner, Director and Curator of the MTN Art Institute.

The original Web site was created in 1999, and had the objective of providing an unlimited capacity central hub for Art and Art Education, particularly focused on South Africa. Additionally, it was to act as a catalogue and research support mechanism for the Art collection, an art exhibition review medium, a resource for Art research and education, and to provide a site that would foster debate and dialogue on associated issues. It was essential that the site was easy to use and could be maintained by the non-computer-orientated individuals employed at the Institute. Thus the Zen Computing Insite tool was chosen for this purpose. "The site has proved to be extremely stable, and certainly met the objectives that were set at that time," continued Kellner. "Thus, the new Web site currently under development is utilising the latest version of the Insite tool."

The new site is intended to go live by the end of April 2001. It will include re-cycled displays involving many of the Art works, a look and feel that embraces much more in the area of dynamic visibility, a site that is XML-based rather than HTML-based and one that includes both global and local navigation. The development is being undertaken jointly by both the Art Institute and Zen Computing and this project is being used as a beta testing site for many of the new features that are intended to be incorporated into the later versions of Insite.