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. 

Temple of Reason x Applied Illustration Design 3

The illustration students were required to design a set of illustrated patterns in multiple colour ways for the Temple of Reason Summer 2021 male range. The three provided themes that students could choose from was African Summer, Tropical Chaos and Welcome to Paradise.

Four students’ work was chosen and is currently on sale on Temple of Reason’s online shop.

Njabulo Hlophe: Braai Madness

Jay chose the theme ‘African Summer’ and made a point of steering clear from the stereotypical representation of Africa: a warm sunset with an orange tone hitting a large bed of scorching hot sand in the middle of nowhere. Instead, this pattern aims to show what African Summers really look like: vibrant and energetic gatherings of people celebrating the good weather with good food and braais.

Kelsey Fleiner: Rifle Birds

For the theme, Tropical Chaos, Kelsey illustrated tropical birds that exhibit a type of ‘chaotic’ behaviour when looking for a potential mate. The pattern consists of drypoints, gouache paintings and digital distortion of these to create a sense of chaos.

Nthabeleng Pepenene: Christmas

Nthabeleng decided to create a body of work that highlights a different perspective of summer in Africa. This particular pattern showcases Christmas celebrations as integral part of African Summer.

Alexandra Dickson: Faces

Alex combined human and natural elements for the theme ‘Tropical Chaos’ where human elements represent Chaos and the natural elements represent Tropical. This range of patterns, especially ‘Faces’ aims to challenge the stereotypical style of men’s clothing through her more feminine illustration approach.

** all content provided to us by Temple of Reason
Thanks to @robynt_photography for the photos and @brandon.Upfold for videos!

We’ve got 8 Pendoring Finalists!

We’ve just heard the news that we’ve got 8 Pendoring finalists for this year’s competition. Stay tuned for more info as the winners are announced!

To learn more about the Pendoring awards, you can visit their website here.

We Won at the Loeries!

We are elated to announce that we have won 5 Bronze Loeries and 1 Craft Certificate at this year’s Loerie Awards. The Academy is proud of all students and lecturers involved in the producing of work to such an impeccable standard. Congratulations to you all!

View the work that won below:

Marianne Strauss – Multi-sensory Experience

Category – Student: General Design

Bronze Loerie Award

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Emma Fourie – Cardboard Library

Category – Student: General Design

Bronze Loerie Award

Leigh Hertzberger – The Migration of Stephen McGown

Category – Student: Publication Design

Bronze Loerie Award

Nina Roodbol – Insight

Bronze Loerie Award

Category – Student: Digital Media

Available to view online here.

Chantal Pretorius – Picture Your Kids Future

Category – Student: Integrated Campaign

Bronze Loerie Award

Minke Beukes – The Other Side of the Wall

Category – Student: Print & Design Crafts – Illustration

Craft Certificate Award

3rd Year Applied Illustration Design Stop-Motion Animation Brief

The 3^rd year Illustration students explored 3-D illustration, storytelling and stop-motion animation through depicting a legend from Southern Africa. They were tasked to make everything by hand, photograph all movements, and collate it into short animated clips that would communicate the essence of the legends.

They explored their character design skills within a three-dimensional space. With an already strong foundation in character development, they were challenged to translate their 2-D skills into the 3-D space of sculpture and puppetry. Here we look at Jia Watts’ project.

Jia Watts made use of three-dimensional illustration and stop-motion animation to reinterpret the folktale, The Witch of Hex River Valley.

The folktale is about Eliza, an 1860’s farmstead girl. She declared to her lover, Frans, that to prove his love for her, he must climb the Matroosberg mountains to fetch her a rare Disa flower. Frans then journeyed through the mountains, but fell from a rocky outcrop, with Eliza’s Disa in hand. Struck with grief of the news that Frans had died, and the growing guilt, Eliza became mentally ill and was kept in her room by her parents to protect her from herself.

This animation illustrates a moment where Eliza reminisces on Frans, analysing the letters he wrote and the flowers he brought her, fondly. She wants to run to where Frans had died, summoning the courage to break the window and escape. Legend says that Eliza was crying at the edge of a cliff as it crumbled, befalling the same fate as her lover Frans. And so, her ghostly presence at the foothills of the Hex River valley roamed, becoming known as the Witch of Hex River Valley.

To have a look at some of the other incredible work, head over to our Instagram page for the rest of the week.

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Coenraad Torlage Wins Student Photographer of the Year at the Sony World Photography Awards!

We are so unbelievably proud to announce that current 3rd year BA Degree photography student, Coenraad Torlage has won the 2021 Student Competition Sony World Photography Awards.

From left to right: Garth Meyer (3rd year photography lecturer), Coenraad Torlage (winner) and Garyth Bevan (2nd year photography lecturer).

“Torlage impressed the judges with his response to the second brief ‘Our Time’ where students were challenged to show a story describing the way their contemporaries see the world and how they plan to change it” – World Photography Organisation

Official Info from their website:

A huge well done to Coenraad Heinz Torlage (South Africa) for winning this year’s Student Photographer of the Year for his series Young Farmers. He is awarded €30,000 of Sony digital imaging kit for his institution plus global online coverage. Torlage impressed the judges with his response to the second brief ‘Our Time’ where students were challenged to show a story describing the way their contemporaries see the world and how they plan to change it. 

And here’s Coenie in his own words, explaining his rationale behind the work:

Young Farmers | Coenraad Heinz Torlage

I was born on a farm in South Africa, and grew up with cattle, horses, donkeys and chickens, many of which I still own and love to this day. Farming is an intense occupation that requires passion and unwavering dedication. I set out to photograph young people who choose this life because, like me, they believe they have a responsibility. This sits heavily on all of our shoulders. South Africa is an unpredictable land with severe droughts, safety concerns and debates around land ownership. Despite these challenges, young farmers are working toward a fairer and more equitable future of sustainable food security. They are my peers, my friends and my family, and this is our time to feed the nation.

To say we are over the moon is an understatement! We are so happy and so proud of Coenie and our lecturers who have helped guide him through his journey with us at the Academy.

You can see more of Coenie’s work at the links below:

Instagram – @coenietorlage

Website – www.torlages.co.za

Behance –  https://www.behance.net/torlages

Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94z5f-tetxA

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/torlages/

And let’s not forget the winning images! Well done Coenie!

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Five of our Graduates Featured in Between10and5’s Grad Guide!

We love keeping up to date with Between10and5, one of SA’s best destinations for creative work. So when we heard that five of our graduates had been named in their Grad Guide we jumped for joy!

Well done to:

Angelina Wicker: Multimedia Design

Cheyenne Miller: Multimedia Design

Sandra Nagel: Photography

Anke-Mari Geldenhuys: Applied Illustration Design

India Tyers: Applied Illustration Design

Click above to see more of their work!

We’re #3 Top Educational Institution of 2020

We’ve received the official rankings for the 2020 Loeries and we’re delighted to announce the following:

• We have been ranked #3 Top Educational Institution of 2020
• We have 4 Alumni ranked within the top 20 of different award categories
• We have 2 lecturers who have been ranked in the top 15 of the Lecturer category 

What an incredible achievement! You can find more details on the official 2020 ranking document here.

Our ranked alumni are:

• EMMA STRYDOM: Designer Category (10^th) as well as the Illustrator Category (06^th)
• LUKE RITCHIE: Illustrator Category (04^th)
• NICO JARDIM: Student Category (08^th)
• SIMON KOTZE: Student Category (11^th)

And our ranked lecturers are:

• WESSIE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: Lecturer Category (5^th)
• CASHANDRA WILLEMSE: Lecturer Category (13^th)

Well done everyone! We are so incredibly proud!

We have 3 Pendoring Finalists!

Some more good news to share! We’ve just heard that we have three Pendoring finalists for 2020.

Our finalists are:

1. Sien Jou Kind se Toekoms – Specsavers – Chantal Pretorius
2. Sterk mans Verhoed Geweld – Carling Black Label – Chantal Pretorius
3. Werp Die Lig Op – Simone Formato

Again we need to say a huge thank you to all the hard work put in by our students and our lecturers. Being recognised in this way is no small feat and we are incredibly proud.

You can learn more about the Pendorings and see all the other finalists here.

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Student Film – Desolation Diaries

We are very proud to announce the release of our student film Desolation Diaries. The official premiere is this Saturday, and the film will be made publicly available on Monday.

The film is structured as an anthological collection of twelve diary entries from twelve millennial, third year multimedia design students from the Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography.

The central theme serves to be human connection, ironically complemented by lack of human contact. Social interaction reduced to a thing of the past, has instead been replaced by the ever-present phones in our pockets. Yes, we were always socially connected and yes, we were raised by the Internet but this year, 2020 changed everything.