St John’s College hosted their inaugural Kulcha Afrika Festival on 3 and 4 August in celebration of South Africa’s rich art heritage.
The main exhibition, Bunka Kulcha, focused on up and coming artists who push various visual art mediums.
Exhibits included photographs, sculptures, creative expression, drawing and a number of other art forms. Featured artists included Dathini Mzayiya, Jennifer de Chamoy, Amber-Jade Geldenhys, Sven Christian, Byron Berry, Kobus la Grange and Lawrence Lemoana, to name a few.
The Rosebank Killarney Gazette went on a tour of the Bunka Kulcha exhibit with curator Maria Fidel Regueros.
Artist Kobus la Grange discussed two of his wooden sculptures, Remnant Boy and Remnant Girl, which were on display.
He said he used jelutong wood offcuts, the material used to produce decor at Spur restaurants, for the sculptures. The two beautiful sculptures featured various holes and gaps in the wood, which La Grange said represented a ‘large collection of mistakes’. The sculptures assumed a contemplative pose. “I chose adolescents because they are still developing and filling in the gaps,” he explained.
Sven Christian discussed his creative expression work Happy Shipwreck. The artwork featured the faces of Teletubbies inside an inflated unicorn with glitter coming out of it. The artwork mocks the comments made after Théodore Géricault’s 1819 painting The Raft of the Medusa was released, depicting a moment from the aftermath of a wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse in 1816 where all but 15 people died in the 13 days before their rescue, enduring starvation, dehydration and practising cannibalism. “A critic said, ‘Couldn’t you have painted a happier shipwreck?'” explained Christian, saying that people like to gloss over events and remember a romanticised version of the reality.
The festival also featured talks and a panel discussion with featured artists and curators as well as an art tour of South African sculptor Edoardo Villa’s artwork. The intention is to add more art disciplines to the festival each year.
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