Dr Graham van Wyk

He is working with Shelley Sacks and Maritta Koch-Weser to develop the Earth Agenda project and related web-platform which will facilitate cross sector global networking and exchanges among scientists, artists, policy-makers, projects and social movements concerning social and ecological questions.

Graham is committed to making connections and crossing borders, conceptual and geopolitical. This has taken him to northern Russia where he witnessed both the destructive power of uncaring industrialisation and the resilience of the human spirit among environmental activists.

He is currently researching the notion of 'capital' in Joseph Beuys' thought and its implications for an economics of human well-being, as well as developing his doctoral research on money and the state in South Africa, for a study on money and freedom.  Graham is also active in the Art, Culture and Sustainability research cluster, with a special interest in creating an interface that faciltates work and dialogue between local NGOs and university researchers.

For many years Graham was involved in cultural, community and workers organisations in South Africa. His social and cultural concerns led to active participation in the South Peninsula Educational Fellowship, New World Film Society and the Artists' Alliance. He researched and documented conditions of farm workers and rural communities in the Little Karoo region and was involved in the early development of domestic workers organisation in Cape Town.  He worked with Shelley in the Unemployed Workers' Movement, and on a feasibility study for an Unemployed Worker's Union, as well as helping to establish the first Cape Town Trade Union Library.  He served as a national official for the Union for Commercial and Catering Workers in South Africa and, as a representative to the trade union federation, COSATU, was involved in policy development for building democracy in South Africa.

Graham has worked closely with Shelley on several projects, most especially the early development of Exchange Values. It was Graham's idea in the mid 90s -witnessing the levels of interest in social sculpture in the UK -to try and develop a university-based social sculpture research unit. 

Graham sees his involvement in the sphere of social sculpture as the point of intersection of his many interests and concerns.