A week immersed in creative practice with Zanele Muholi and Anelisa Mangcu

Header image credit: Southern Guild, Stellenbosch Outdoor Trust

Last week our photography students had the incredible opportunity and privilege to spend time with visual activist and photographer, Zanele Muholi. They were able to experience a personal and informative walk-through of Zanele’s autobiographical exhibition, currently on show at the Southern Guild in Cape Town.

Zanele took time to talk through the many pieces of work in the exhibition, which included both photographs as well as sculptures. Allowing our students to see how their work can evolve beyond photography, bringing it to life in various mediums of art. The photography students had moments of deep exploration and curiosity as they asked questions, engaged and learnt from Zanele.

The exhibition is presented at the Southern Guild until the 17th of August 2023.

Credit: Frank Krummacher

We then moved on to the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town, where our students had the opportunity to privately view an exhibition titled “An Endless Night”, curated by Anelisa Mangcu. Anelisa was kind enough to do a walk-through with our students, giving them an insight into how one goes about the curation of an exhibition. From selecting the pieces of art, to the venue, and making sure to showcase the work in such a way that honours each piece.

The exhibition is open to both Mount Nelson Hotel guests as well as the public until the 28^th of August 2023.

The incredible week of art and conversation didn’t end there! To close the week off, our students attended a workshop and book launch hosted in collaboration with Zanele Muholi and Anelisa Mangcu, as well as the Muholi Art Institute, The Stellenbosch Outdoor Sculpture Trust and Art School Africa. Held at the Rupert Museum in Stellenbosch, Connect the Dots was launched and created an inspiring experience for our students as well as learners from various high schools in the area.

What an incredible opportunity it was for our students to be able to be so immersed in creativity and have the chance to absorb all the influential knowledge from those involved on the day. 

We’ve got 24 Loeries finalists!

We are very excited and overjoyed to announce that we have 24 Loerie Finalists this year, from across all 5 of our majors as well as our Honours programme!

Congratulations to every student and lecturer involved in producing these amazing pieces of work. We look forward to the results being announced Friday October 7^th!

In the meantime you can have a look through the Stellenbosch Academy finalists below.

Student
Jenna Cawood

Lecturer
Cashandra Willemse

Title
SITTING IN THE SEAT OF A STORY

Brand
MAPPING JOURNEYS

Product
MAPPING JOURNEYS

Student
Njabulo Hlophe

Lecturer
Marike Spangenberg

Title
African Summer

Brand
Temple of Reason

Product
Clothing

Student
Gina Holdsworth

Lecturer
Caroline Piotrowski

Title
Digs & Don’t

Brand
Digs & Don’t

Product
App that matches roommates

Student
Annabelle Armstrong

Lecturer
Cashandra Willemse & Ilse Muller

Title
PUTTING THINGS IN ORDER

Agency / Entrant
Stellenbosch Academy of Design And Photography

Brand
PUTTING THINGS IN ORDER

Product
The Rabbit Typeface

Student
Aidan Murgatroyd

Lecturer
Garth Meyer

Title
Becoming South African

Agency / Entrant
Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography

Student
Michelle Lourens

Lecturer
Suen Muller

Title
choose-your-own-adventure

Brand
Design Activism

Product
Publication Design

Student
Jia Watts

Lecturer
Marike Spangenberg

Title
The Origin of the Witch of Hex River Valley

Product
Stop-motion animation

Student
Keeley Browne

Lecturer
Suen Muller

Title
Retracing District Six 

Brand
District Six Museum 

Product
Visual Identity System

Student
Armand Nel

Lecturer
Caroline Piotrowski

Title
Break the Cycle: Kitchen

Brand
Father A Nation

Product
Anger Management Workshops for Fathers in the Cape Flats

Student
Rosemary Van Driel

Lecturer
Wessie Van Der Westhuizen

Title
Thorn

Brand
Thorn 

Student
Cailin Spies

Lecturer
Caroline Piotrowski

Title
Homeless Women Need Menstrual Products. Period.

Brand
The Cora Project

Product
Reusable Sanitary Pad

Student
Luke Kammies

Lecturer
Garth Meyer

Title
Environmental Racism

Agency / Entrant

Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography 

Student
Terence Green

Lecturer
Marike Spangenberg

Title
Helvegen

Brand
Kalandra (musician)

Product
Music Video 

Student
Sarah Stewart

Lecturer
Cashandra Willemse & Ilse Muller

Title
Taste the Magic

Brand
Higher Living 

Product
Tea

Student
Winona Swanepoel

Lecturer
Wessie Van Der Westhuizen

Title
Oogle

Brand
Google

Product
Oogle

Student
Petya Bartosch

Lecturer
Garth Meyer

Title
South Sudan- Mundari Cattle 

Agency / Entrant
Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography

Student
Keeley Browne

Lecturer
Sally Joubert

Title
Rawr Juice

Brand
Rawr Juice & Tetra Pak

Product
Children’s Juice

Student
Rosemary Van Driel

Lecturer
Wessie Van Der Westhuizen

Title
Kino

Brand
Kino

Product
Kino

Student
Catia Swanepoel

Lecturer
Caroline Piotrowski

Title
Rongs and Rights

Brand
Rongs and Rights

Product
Spelling Tool for Dyslexic People

Student
Mijean Ludeman

Lecturer
Cashandra Willemse & Ilse Muller

Title
ALL SORTS OF FUN

Brand
Liquorice Allsorts

Product
SWEETS

Student
Jia Watts

Lecturer
Marike Spangenberg

Title
The Ugly

Product
Illustration & Sculpture

Student
Isabella Tschirschwitz

Lecturer
Caroline Piotrowski

Title
CHU(on this)

Brand
CHU(on this)

Product
Socially responsible chewing gum

Student
Armand Nel

Lecturer
Caroline Piotrowski

Title
Break the Cycle: Living Room

Brand
Father A Nation

Product
Anger Management Workshops for Fathers in the Cape Flats

Student
Rosemary Van Driel

Lecturer
Wessie Van Der Westhuizen

Title
Symphony

Brand
Symphony 

PHOTOGRAPHY WEEKEND IN BARRYDALE WITH GRAHAM ABBOTT

Our second and third year photography students attended a weekend printing workshop in Barrydale, hosted by Analog Guru and enthusiast Graham Abbott.

The Academy students photographed portraits in the Karoo in May on Black and White 120 Roll film, and this weekend in Barrydale, was the introduction of printing medium format film which will culminate in being one of the exhibitions at the 2022 Barrydale Analog Film Festival which Graham Abbott hosts and co-ordinates in December each year.

Together with learning to print, Graham gave the students a Wetplate Workshop which uses the 1880s Collodion Process and glass plates, something incredibly unique to experience as you are using a camera that was used in the era of the American civil war period.

The students would start to print after dinner, around 6pm, and finish up before the sun rose, around 5am.

A fantastic experience that we foresee becoming an annual event for our students, another reason why our Photography Department is top of their game in the Academic Industry of Teaching and Learning in Tertiary Educational Programmes.

All images were taken by our students or by Graham Abbott himself.

Turbine Art Fair Talent Grad Show

We are extremely proud and elated to announce that Applied Illustration Design Graduate, Nthabeleng Pepenene, has been chosen as a part of the TAF Talent – Grad Show.

Turbine Art Fair (TAF) is a unique South African Art fair that brings together exhibitors from around the SADC region to present, sell and celebrate works. The fair is the epicentre of emerging art in South Africa. It presents a space for the showcasing of established and new talent in an environment that is immersive, accessible and inclusive.

Nthabeleng’s illustration titled Birds of the Feather, is a digital illustration printed on hahnemule etching paper.

To view the work click here.

What an amazing platform for an up and coming illustrator to be featured on. Such an incredible achievement for Nthabeleng!

To learn more about the Turbine Art Fair, click here.

And to follow more of Nthabeleng’s work, you can follow them on Instagram here or on Behance here.

Picture This! The Picture Book Competition 2022 Winners

We are happy to announce that 3rd Year Applied Illustration Design student Linn Hugo is one of the winners of the 2022 international Picture This! competition. The ultimate platform for outstanding up-and-coming illustrators.

The works of the fifteen winning artists will be part of a travelling exhibition, which will be shown in the participating countries. The final selection will be published in an international catalogue and presented to several leading picture book publishing houses at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2023, thus giving the artists an excellent opportunity to find commissions.

Some great comments by the judges on Linn’s work

Piet Grobler: “The images are interesting and contemporary, and I feel that experimenting should be encouraged in young work”.

Mia Oosthuizen: “Linn’s entry is the only one that really pushes the boundaries of space, characterisation and medium. The simplicity of her scenes leaves a lot of room for self-interpretation and imagination”.

Alida Bothma: “I was struck by the playfulness and simplicity in Linn’s illustrations. Her work is a bright spot for me in the sense that she is the only one who plays around a bit with ideas and technique, and does it partly by hand (which is a bonus for me). I like the mixed media combination she uses and the cutting and pasting of paper, combined with watercolours and photos. The unconventional way she runs the text through the illustrations, as well as the layout of the pages and the compositions of her illustrations, make her work exciting, and I would love to watch her in the future”.

To learn more about the Picture This! competition you can visit their site here.

And to see more of Linn Hugo’s work, you can follow her on Instagram here. Or follow her on Behance here.

Collaboration – Masiphumelele x Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography

The Grade 11 & 12 learners from Masiphumelele are doing a collaboration with Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography second Year Photography students in which the Academy students are documenting, through their photography, the life and people in Masiphumelele.

The Grade 11 & 12 learners, through IKAMVAYOUTH, are bettering their writing skills after school by attending weekly session for creative writing and will be using their writing skills to match up the photography of the Academy students, culminating in a final collaborative book at the end of the project. 

We would like to say a massive thank you to Premium Brands for the incredible writing material and T-shirt’s that the learners can use over the next few months of this project.

Funds raised through the sale of the book will be plowed back into IKAMVAYOUTH and the big dream is to raise enough money to eventually create a skate park in Masiphumelele. By planting a seed, the dream will grow!!

Keep an eye out for the final collaborative book that is to come!

Attached are the images of today’s Nikon Goody bag surprise from Premium Brand Group.

To learn more about Ikamva Youth, you can visit their site here.

Creative Exchange – Durban

The Creative Exchange is built on the principles of learning outside of the classroom and peer collaboration.  Each year a group of Academy students travel to a Southern African city and work on a short-term creative collaborative project with creatives based in the host city.  The purpose of the collaborative project is to immerse students in the creative life of the city and introduce them to the key project spaces, creative hubs, institutions, and individual creatives in the host city. Creative Exchanges have taken place in Harare (Zimbabwe), Maputo (Mozambique) and Durban (South Africa). 

This year’s Creative Exchange took place in Durban and we worked with the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, as well as the Contemporary Archive Project and Maison Originals.  We were also privileged to have a workshop hosted by artist Clive Sithole which resulted in a number of students experimenting with clay.  Our students collaborated with other students, interns and self-employed creatives and produced a range of interdisciplinary projects which were exhibited in two pop-up exhibitions where all collaborators and other creatives were invited to come view the work produced.   

The Creative Exchange would not have been possible without our collaborators.  A big thank to Centre for Creative Arts at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, as well as the Contemporary Archive Project and Maison Originals.  

The One Show Young Ones Awards 2022

The Stellenbosch Academy of Design & Photography is proud to announce that we are the only school from the Middle-East and African continents to have made the winning circle in this year’s One Show Young Ones Competition.

Congratulations to our alumni, and 2021 graduates, Cheyenne Miller and Jared Laggar!

Cheyenne received a Silver ADC Cube award for her work titled; Erascism

Cheyenne explains that; Eracism is a tool kit specifically developed to end racism from the root. We believe that through daily teaching & curating a safe learning environment, everyone can benefit from anti-racist education.

You can check out the explainer video here.

And the website over here.

Jared received a merit award for his work titled; Eli-man-ate

An incredible campaign around creating awareness about Toxic masculinity. As Jared explains in his own words; Elimanate is a multidisciplinary awareness movement aimed at educating and informing men, from boys in high school to young adults/fathers in an attempt to fix the issue of toxic masculinity one man at a time.

You can view the explainer video here.

And you can visit the website here.

Well done Cheyenne and Jared! What an amazing achievement!

Photography Alumnus Featured on the Seapoint Promenade

We’ve got some great news to share! Daniel Louis, a student who graduated in 2021 from our Higher Certificate in Commercial Photography course, has been chosen as one of the photographers for the Wavescape Surf and Ocean Festival’s art awards.

The competition, brought together by Wavescape, Orms, Canon and SJ Artists, saw a panel of judges from the four organisations choose 22 of the most poignant aesthetic representations of the joy and wonder of the ocean. How incredible to think that Daniel Louis was one of them – there were over 3000 entries!

His work (which you see above) is now on permanent display on the Seapoint Promenade in Cape Town. What an amazing achievement.

You can learn more about the exhibition here.

Academy graduate named as a finalist in the Sony World Photography Awards

We are incredibly excited to share with you all that Aidan Murgatroyd, Honours Graduate of 2021, is the only South African student finalist in the Sony World Photography Awards 2022 for his body of work title: Becoming South African

Becoming South African

As a third culture kid born and raised in various regions of the world and spending more time outside South Africa than in it, I’ve always desired to explore, understand and connect with what it means to be South African. As a child of mixed cultural background with one English and one Afrikaans parent, even in the midst of family gatherings, I felt a sense of otherness. 

I returned to South Africa in 2017 and wanted to travel, connect and interact with the people, places and spaces that make up the South African experience. Finally in 2021, at the first chance available, I undertook a countrywide road trip over five months. The goal? To ascertain what it means to be South African, especially in a nation which encompasses so many cultures, languages and identities. Who are we?

To learn more about Aidan’s incredible achievement, you can visit the official site for the Sony World Photography Awards here.