Away from Tankwa Town, the AfrikaBurn community is constantly busy making contributions to a better world. Some of the examples of how the spirit of AfrikaBurn lives on year-round are:
It’s true that much of the activity for our main event in the Tankwa Karoo is around that time of year, but our community is active all year round, across the whole of South Africa and beyond. Other than our main event in the Tankwa Karoo, we host other events during the course of the year. These include (but are not limited to):
This is our annual post-Tankwa get together, where we gather to share experiences and shake off some dust. It’s usually a large event, with around 2 000 people who contribute artworks, decor, music and performance. Since 2016, the event has been held at the Killarney race Track in Cape Town, which allows for both outdoor fire art, and a race track for Mutant Vehicles to display and cruising. The event is usually held in early June, in order to perform the function of welcoming our DPW crew home, just as they emerge from the desert, having wrapped up all infrastructure.
The plan is now to hand over the Decompression responsibility to a new team, who would host the event on fresh energy and gees post-event. If you’re the person, or you think you have some cool ideas, please feel free to mail our team at [email protected]
Having found our forever home, during the 2020-2022 period, we launched a new type of event at Quaggafontein.
Aimed at the more ecologically concious community members, as well as those who wanted to assist on our ‘Land Journey’, the events improve and expand our enviromental and ecological aims on Quaggafontein.
Created as a means to bring our desert experiment in community and art alive in an urban setting, Streetopia takes place in both Cape Town and Johannesburg, where for a day our crew, as well as residents, artists and civic organisations collaborate to bring the streets alive with good vibes and a whole lot of art and mutant vehicles from Tankwa Town.
It’s been on a hiatus since the pandemic started, but it will be back. Check out the Streetopia website for more details when you hear an announcement.
This is a pilot project, in the form of of an urban Hammer School, bringing key elements from the DPW desert experience to the City in order to transfer a variety of hard skills and soft skills to youth in the Cape Town metropole – development that builds resilience, togetherness and empower self-reliance in a radically changed social and economic climate in a COVID and post-COVID world.
Resilliance In Shared Endeavour is a program designed to provide safe spaces that help elevate self-empowerment, and to explore the challenges faced by women and LGBTQI+ people in the South African landscape.
Launched with backing from the Solidarity Fund, these events are a collaborative program designed, created and facilitated by those who participated.
The Blank Canvas Express is an arts roadshow that our team embarks on regularly, bringing arts workshops, exhibitions and discussion sessions to far-flung towns of the Northern Cape (and occasionally Free State) where funding for arts development is hard to come by. Driven by team member Lorraine Tanner, the BCE aims to continue engaging Northern Cape artists, youth and cultural practitioners.
Find out more about the Blank Canvas Express here.
Our Spark Grants are designed to bring one of the 11 principles that AfrikaBurn is founded on, by providing funding to community-based initiatives that are designed to make a difference in a community member’s area, or in that of someone else’s. Sparks continue to make a difference for many people engaged in community activism, environmental causes and social upliftment initiatives.
Find our more about our Spark Grants here.
Many thanks to Lorraine Tanner for creating & driving this initiative!
To get info on what activities and initiatives are taking place, check out the following online spaces:
Our main Facebook page (our main social media info channel)
Our Facebook group (great for discussions & introductions)
AfrikaBurn International (where our local community & international visitors can connect)
AfrikaBurn Resource (a great place to ask & post about project needs and exchanges)
In the lead-up period to our main event at the end of April each year, many crews across South Africa come together to connect and collaborate on various projects in preparation. Keeping an eye on our social media spaces and signing up for our newsletter (which you can do here on our homepage) will ensure you’re updated on the many things happening in our community.
There are also other artistic, social and environmental initiatives that take place throughout the year – and you’re welcome to get involved in any of them.
Art created for AfrikaBurn often goes on to bring beauty and joy to communities across South Africa. Many of the large-scale artworks are re-used in urban settings, and some make their way to previously disadvantaged communities, bringing joy to where they end up.
As part of our website update, we’ll be adding more details to this timeline soon.
The gloriously complex ‘Cosmic Pacemaker’, created by Matt Proxenos and team, was installed in the foyer of Mandela Rhodes Place, on St George’s Mall in Cape Town. Thanks to Matt and his team, and Andrew Currell for facilitating the artwork’s reappearance.
Two of the main elements of the amazing ‘Lilith & The Garden of Eden’ installation that bewitched so many in the desert was given a new lease on life, as an installation at Cape Town’s city hall as part of the Open Design programme, which is bringing design to life across the city thanks to the Cape Town World Design Capital programme.
The anamorphic sculpture created by Andre Carl van der Merwe and his amazing team that made such a great impression at AfrikaBurn 2012 is now in place on Sea Point Promenade (which is shaping up to be a great public art space) in Cape Town. Created to highlight the plight of rhinos in the face of an onslaught from poachers, the piece has been recreated (as it was burned the year it was shown in the Tankwa) in metal. Apparently the response has been massive and queues are lining up daily to view the piece. Congrats to Andre Carl and all involved!
Fancy reliving those golden sunset moments in the city? The Mighty Bench, which has provided the perfect perch for Tankwa views for so many since 2012 now has a counterpart in Cape Town! Built by the same master architect and artist that brought the city the Boomslang walkway at Kirstenbosch – Mark Thomas – the mighty bench’s new incarnation is located near the Prestwich Street Memorial. It was created in conjunction with Rock Girl, a grassroots public art and education campaign that partners with artists and designers to motivate for and create safe places for girls and women in Cape Town and across South Africa. If you’re in the area, head over to find it and enjoy!
You might remember it under its previous name ‘The Big Boom’, which was erected in Tankwa Town in 2013 – but it’s now taken on a second life as an important spark of thinking and conversations around history and segregation as ‘The Slave Tree’. Erected opposite Church Square in Cape Town and created by artist Nadya Glawé, the artwork is ‘a temporary public sculpture to mark the site of the Slave Tree, from under which slaves were once auctioned.’ Take the time to pass by and consider its significance if you’re in the city – this is a moving and beautiful piece of art with a conscience.
Find out about the The Laingsburg Watersnake Project here. Unfortunately the website that this linked to has been updated, and the article has been lost.
Created in memory of Lady Davina (queen of DPW) by the VuvuCreative, the huge white slipper that gave so many kids of all ages joy at AfrikaBurn 2011 migrated to Deer Park Café playground in Cape Town, where it was enjoyed by countless kids of all ages.
The mighty flaming vuvuzelas that provided heat and light at the first few AfrikaBurns were brought into Cape Town and placed along the Fan Walk in Cape Town for the football world cup.
If your artwork is reborn or reused, please let us know. Email [email protected]
Since AfrikaBurn began in 2007, it’s been the intention to reach out beyond the event and uplift local communities – and whilst excellent work has been done by our Development teams in achieving this since 2007, the need to grow this area of operation further has always been a priority.
After three years in process, it was a great boon in 2015 to be able to take up funding from the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) under the department’s Mzansi Golden Economy strategy. With this funding we were able to accelerate this aspect of AfrikaBurn significantly.
We’re now developing the activities of our creative community beyond the annual event, utilising the massive spread of skills and resources that are available through the AfrikaBurn network and community into all-year round operational projects.
As the event has grown, surplus funds are allocated directly back into the artistic community through our annual creative grants. The aim of this project is to make the event more accessible to vulnerable individuals and groups, by enabling their participation in public art projects. These enliven and grow collaboration as well as skills development through art projects which will appear at the AfrikaBurn event but also appear in an urban area, thus increasing access and experience in the creative economy while up skilling the participants during the construction of the artworks.
Funding from the DAC was received in mid March for five key public art projects executed at the tenth annual event ‘AfrikaBurn X’ at the end of April. The public art projects chosen for Department of Arts and Culture support included the two anchor sculptures – Clan X and Temple of |Xam, a third large burning sculpture Project O, an interactive mask and puppetry ensemble performance work Lost Couple Find God and a interdisciplinary Intercultural Story eXchange.
The projects were instigated in different locations nationwide – Lost Couple Find God in Johannesburg, Gauteng; Clan X designed in Cape Town and prepared in the peri urban south peninsula of Cape Town; Temple of |Xam, Lidgetton, near Howick, rural Kwa Zulu Natal, Project O in Sutherland, Northern Cape; Intercultural Story eXchange in Elandsvlei, Northern Cape with participation on site by Khoikhoi and San elders from Kalahari, Northern Cape, Beaufort West and George, Western Cape. This report covers the period 2 May – 30 June, during this period, two sculptures had their burn sites cleaned and returned to previous condition; one sculpture remained as a feature on the Tankwa landscape; one exchange project scattered across the Northern and Western Cape – with plans forthcoming for next year and the other performance ensemble packed up their larger than life gods, brimming with ideas to take their production forward.
For the full report on all 2016 DAC-funded projects, see the project summary DAC-Report-2016.
At our 2015 event, no less than 4 major projects got off the ground and saw members of the Tankwa community from Elandsvlei and Brakfontein, and from Sutherland – as well as artists and performers from Masiphumelele, Ocean View and Hanover Park – stand proudly amongst all other participants at AfrikaBurn as artists. In addition, the temple for 2015, ‘Metamorphosis’ included a significant amount of community building and skills transfer, in the Gauteng region. Projects of this nature are an aspect of AfrikaBurn that will continue to grow.
For information on these projects, please see the reports below. The interim and full reports with additional info are linked further down this page.
Bringing together artists whose work has featured at AfrikaBurn over the years, members of our Development & Outreach team, Kaospilots from Sweden, Iceland and Denmark, and community members from the Tankwa Karoo, the Mantis Project was initiated in 2011, and came to fruition in 2015. The project involved the transfer of craft skills, and teamwork across generations for all involved. At the centre of it was the creation of an artwork representing //Kaggen, the iconic deity that features in the mythology of South Africa’s First Nation people, from whom many members of the Tankwa community are descended.
Read the report on how the Mantis Project was rolled out here.
Photo: Unknown
Three community-based arts collectives collaborated to create the intercultural performance art piece Flamin’ Amazing Show. The work fused large puppets designed, made and manipulated under the guidance of Justin Stuart, by the Mapiko (recycled arts) crew in Masiphumelele, and a samba ghoema soundtrack by Bloka carnival ensemble from Ocean View, led by Leo Letsape. An archetypal story of good versus evil unfolded in an abstract world, through fire and circus performance by ActionArte’s youth team from Hanover Park, trained by Hanne La Cour and Marlin Roos; with narration by Riaan Smit. The process provided skills development and job opportunities for marginalised and emerging artists, living on the fringes of Cape Town.
Read the Flamin’ Amazing Show report here.
Photo: Unknown
The central effigy at our event, the Clan, is interpreted and built each year by a different artist and crew. In 2015, the structure was built in Sutherland in the Northern Cape by artist Nathan Victor Honey and a crew comprised of volunteers and Sutherland community members. Central to the build was a component of social development and skills transfer which has created employment for the project’s duration, as well as a significant amount of tools donated which will go on to enable crew members to generate income.
Read the Clan report here.
Photo: Jacki Bruniquel
Metamorphosis, the temple structure for our 2015 event, was built out over 3 months in Gauteng, and reassembled on site. It consisted of eight butterfly wings standing at eight meters high, spanning 20 meters in diameter, and was burned on the Saturday night of the event.
The Metamorphosis team set out with the intention that this be much more than just an art project. The idea was that the project live beyond the Burn, inspiring change within individuals and in people’s home communities. Part of this involved working with four artists from the Thusong Youth Centre in Alexandra township in Johannesburg. Mobadimo Mothapa, Mpumi Magqazana, Tebogo Mohlomi & Tsholo Kgwanyape were invited to train with the team’s experienced builders and learnt to use new carpentry tools. When they showed dedication and interest in the project, they were invited to see it through to completion which involved them coming to the Burn – for some of them it was their first time outside of Jo’burg!
After the Burn the team turned their attention to raising funds for and renovating the Home of Hope in Berea. The organisation gave a total makeover to two flats in a rundown building, which are home to 32 women, aged 17 to 24, all of who were rescued from abuse, poverty and sexual exploitation. The renovations were extensive and included painting both places, re-doing the kitchen, installing a new oven, fixing electrics, tiles and doors, providing new furniture, new bedding, curtains and decorating the place to make it a really beautiful home for those who live there. Mam Khanyi who runs the organisation said the team’s work had ‘helped restore the dignity’ of all the women there.
For the Metamorphosis report, click here.
The reports below feature additional information about the DAC-funded projects:
Read the interim report here.
Read the final report here.
Read the summary report here.
Many thanks to all involved in bringing these projects to fruition!
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