Imagination Labs learn the tricks of their trade
I went to talk to students from the Johannesburg campus of Imagination Labs about the history of copyright and Creative Commons today.
The Imagination Labs were initiated by Café (the Communications and Advertising Forum for Empowerment) and the Vega Brand Communications School in order to help transform the creative communication industry in South Africa.
The Labs are creative hot shops that offer one-year intensive training courses to previously disadvantaged South Africans. Lab programmes guide learners through a diversity of creative explorations in fields such as design, performance, fashion, writing, music, photography, architecture and film-making. Learners are also given the opportunity to apply their skills and talents by interacting with professionals in community projects and ‘real-life’ campaigns. In community labs, such as the Alexsan Lab, the course also includes projects to retrieve and creatively document community memories that are in danger of being lost.
The students were great to talk to - really informed and enthusiastic about how they could become involved in the Creative Commons movement - and hopefully now a little wiser about the implications of their work on freedom of expression in South Africa.