In 1999, The Bethesda Arts Centre was founded by Jeni Couzyn, a poet and psychoanalyst, with her daughter Tarot Couzyn. The work began in a falling-down mud-brick building in the centre of the village of Nieu Bethesda.
Jeni, an exile from South Africa since apartheid days, was drawn by a symbolic connection to the biblical Pool of Bethesda as a place of healing. She made a commitment to the Centre that has been central to her life for the last twenty years.
Tarot was an art student, and talented art teacher. Together they built a programme of teaching through the arts to anyone in the “coloured” community who wished to come.
The Centre is now housed in four buildings, including the museum, studios, an outreach house, and tourist accommodation. The artwork made at the Centre has been exhibited in major galleries around the world including the British Museum, the Iziko National Museum in Cape Town, and in Perth Australia with Aboriginal artists.
