Professor Henry C. (Jatti) Bredekamp until and including October 2010 was the CEO of Iziko Museums of Cape Town, which position he helt since November 2002; and since October 2006 President of the South African National Committee of ICOM (International Council of Museums). And from late June 2009 he has been appointed by intervention of the South African Minister of Arts and Culture as Interim CEO of Robben island Museum (RIM).
His origins are firmly rooted in the Overberg region of the Western Cape, South Africa. Born at the Genadendal Mission Station by the end of the Second World War, he began his career as a farm schoolteacher near Leeu Gamka in the Great Karoo. He later joined the University of the Western Cape (UWC), which he had served for twenty-seven years. He holds Master degrees in History, obtained as a Fulbright scholar from the Wesleyan University in Connecticut, USA, and the UWC in South Africa. In 1976, he was appointed Lecturer-Researcher at UWC's Institute for Historical Research and moved swiftly up the ranks. In 1992, he was appointed Associate Professor and, in 1995, Director of the Institute. After his appointment as Interim CEO of RIM he is the ex officio chair of the UWC/RIM Mayibuye Archives Working Group.
As CEO of Iziko Museums (and Interim CEO of RIM) Bredekamp has traveled and studied extensively. He has spent time in the USA as a Visiting Fellow at the School of Advanced International Studies of John Hopkins University in Washington D.C. in 1984, as well as an academic Fellow at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands in 1989/1990 and the ‘Afrika Studiecentrum’ there in 1996/1997.
Professor Bredekamp has published prolifically on topical historical issues and is an acknowledged authority on not only Khoisan Revivalism and Khoikhoi identity but also on the memory of slavery and human rights.
Since 2002 Bredekamp has presented a wide range of papers related to heritage and museum studies. His most recent works appear in two UNESCO publications, Challenges and Transformation: Museums in Cape Town and Sydney (2006) and Human Remains and Museum Practice (2006), and in the World Library and Information Congress publication, Libraries for the Future (2007).
In August 2007 he attended the triennial General Conference of ICOM in Vienna where he presented a paper on ‘Transformations: Museums and Cultural Diversity’; and the same month he attended the African Union’s Diaspora bicentennial Conference at the Hilton Barbados in the Caribbean. At the George Washington House in Barbados he presented a paper after the Conference on the making of Iziko Museums in Cape Town from an anti-slavery perspective.
In June last year he delivered the keynote address CIE South African Heritage Day meeting in Zeist of the Netherlands, on ‘Mutual Cultural Heritage Cooperation (between The Netherlands and SA)’. In early July he was one of the speakers of a Round Table at the 3rd World Forum on Human Rights in Nantes, France, and in November he presented a paper in Jerusalem at the ICME annual conference on ‘The Genadendal Moravian Mission Museum and its Community in South Africa: Diaspora, Pilgrimage and Memory of a special type’.
More recently, in July this year, he gave the keynote address at the State Library of Queensland, Australia, on occasion of the International Inclusive Museums Conference held at the University of Queensland. And in September he addressed from a South African museums perspective, the annual meeting of the European Ethnology Museum Directors Group at the Maritime Centre Vellamo, Kolka, Finland on challenges facing African museums still focusing on Ethnology.
Bredekamp is the former editor of Kronos, the Journal of Cape History and since 2005 appointed by the Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Korea as a member of the Editorial Board of the Korean-based International Journal of Intangible Heritage. In addition to his academic commitments, the Executive Council of ICOM called upon him in 2008 to serve on the Ethics Standing Committee for 2008-2011 and the Hans Manneby Museums Development Fund in Stockholm to be on their Board. In June 2009 he was elected chairperson of the joint National Committees of ICOM during the General Assembly and Advisory Committee meetings in Paris.
Bredekamp is also a Trustee of the Groot Constantia Trust and the Genadendal Mission Museum, as well as on the Castle of Good Hope Control Board, and the Cross-Cultural Task Team of ICOM. He also serves on the Speaker and Chair of Parliament’s Millennium Project Advisory Board. At the request of the Ministry of Arts and Culture and UWC he is chair of the Minister’s Steering Committee for the Afrikaans Language Project, which culminated in September in the Afrikaans/Dutch/Flemish Roots Conference Festival.
In August 2005 the Western Cape Business Opportunities Forum awarded him the Certificate of Appreciation in recognition of his contribution to the development of Black SMME’s. The following year he obtained the Samp/ALAS Certificate for attending and successfully completing the Course in Network Management in Madagascar and Sweden.
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