As established members of the South African creative community, the KZN Art Fair welcomes critical engagement and recognises the important role that independent arts journalism plays within the sector. We issued a press pass to Heidi Thembeka Sincuba, as we did to numerous other writers and publications covering the Fair, including Wanted Online, Currency, ArtThrob, Culture Club and The Witness.

Our concern relates not to the critical nature of the article (The KZN Art Fair wants your money. Just don't ask them for a seat at the table), but to the apparent conflation of Sincuba’s roles as an arts journalist and educator, as well as several claims in the article that we believe require clarification.

There are two key issues we would like to address.

Firstly, access for students.

The article suggests that the KZN Art Fair refused a request to provide free access to students from the Durban University of Technology (DUT). This does not accurately reflect the broader context of the discussion.

As an institution, DUT has established processes through which funding can be sought for student activities and excursions. Four members of DUT staff have independently confirmed to us that such funding is available through an application and procurement process.

Other institutions made use of these processes to facilitate student attendance. For example, the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Fine Art programme in Pietermaritzburg arranged for approximately 60 students to attend the Fair through its institutional procurement channels.

We therefore believe that presenting the matter as the Fair simply issuing a “hard no” to a request for free access, particularly when the article itself characterises the request as a “cheeky freebie”, presents an incomplete account of the exchange.

Secondly, the framing of access to the Fair as something that should be provided without charge.

We find this particularly concerning within the context of the broader creative economy. Art fairs require significant investment in infrastructure, staffing, programming, logistics and the participation of galleries and artists. While we strongly support access to the arts and actively seek ways to facilitate student and public engagement, we do not believe that this should be conflated with an expectation that cultural events and the labour underpinning them should be provided for free.

As an arts educator and journalist, Sincuba occupies two important positions within the cultural sector. We believe the article would have benefited from a clearer distinction between Sincuba's personal experience as an educator seeking access for students and their responsibilities as an independent journalist reporting on the Fair.

Most concerningly, the article was published without the KZN Art Fair being given an opportunity to respond to the specific claims made about our engagement with Sincuba. We would have welcomed the opportunity to provide the relevant context before publication.

We respect the role of the Mail & Guardian and of arts journalism more broadly in holding cultural institutions accountable. However, critical reporting should be grounded in a fair representation of the facts and should allow all parties implicated in a story a reasonable opportunity to respond.

We therefore request that this response be considered for publication alongside the original article and that the relevant claims be reviewed in light of the information above.