Cape Town-based studio Room 13 Design, in association with Collabonative, has launched Madiba “The Dreamer”, a new homeware and accessories collection endorsed by the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

“This commemorative project has given us as designers the chance of a lifetime: to represent our much beloved Madiba – an international symbol of liberty and equality, to a country that sees him as the ‘Father of our Nation’, to a world that celebrates his international fight for human rights,” says Nina Berolsky, owner and Creative Director of Room 13 Design. “We wanted to create something unlike anything else – vibrant, energetic, bold and free.”

The range includes cushion covers, blankets, ceramic hanging plates, birchwood clocks, tablecloths, gift cards, posters, scarves, tote bags, placemats, coasters, wallpaper, and more.

For more information and to place an order, email hello@collabonative.com.

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A new mural in London celebrates the life of our beloved Nelson Mandela.

People all over the world considered what they would do to celebrate Nelson Mandela on Mandela Day last week. The artists at Global Street Art decided to put together something that would remind everyone of Madiba’s global relevance.

The Global Street Art project worked on this mural in Camden on the aptly named Mandela Street. The piece is 13 metres high and depicts Madiba laughing joyously. The enormous mural took a total of 12 days to complete using 150 cans of spray paint.

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The Mandela Day website has divided the activities into four sections: Education and Literacy, Food Security, Shelter and Infrastructure, and Environment. We have only selected two from each category, but there are many, many more projects to choose from.

EDUCATION AND LITERACY

Viva Township Art Project

When: Monday 18 July 2016

Where: 11 7th Avenue, Botrivier

Email: info@viva-sa.co.za

Viva is creating a new Township Art Centre in Botrivier in the Western Cape (60 km from Cape Town) and preparing for a Township Carnival in October this year. Help the Viva Township Art Team set up their new centre and participate in art projects in the under-serviced town of Botrivier.

Zoleka Mandela Foundation For Mandela Day

When: Monday 18 July 2016

Where: Orlando West, Soweto, Gauteng

Email: theirry@zolekamandelafoundation.org

Join the Zoleka Mandela Foundation as they empower the students of Orlando West High School in Soweto. Please donate sanitary towels, reading books for teenagers (14 – 18-year-olds), school chairs for their classrooms, your time to cleaning the school or helping refurbish the school library.

FOOD SECURITY

Sarmie Stack

When: Monday 18 July 2016

Where: 37 Mackeurtan Avenue, Durban North

Email: shaun@domino.org.za

Make peanut butter sandwiches for the hungry. Challenge your colleagues and family to get involved and help to make 300 sandwiches. This activity is suitable for a team of 10 people making 300 sandwiches (or more).

Chavapri “Make a Lunchbox”

When: Monday 18 July 2016

Where: East London, Eastern Cape

Email: kruger.charmaine@gmail.com

Chavapri would like to make 1 600 lunch boxes for a school in East London. You can be part of the project by taking part in the following: Donating items to put on the bread, snacks to add to the lunch boxes, volunteering time to make sandwiches, or be a sponsor for the project. The standard items the lunch box should contain is a sandwich and a snack. Chavapri staff will personally hand out these boxes on Mandela Day.

SHELTER AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

Christmas in July for Friends of Valkenberg

When: Monday 18 July 2016

Where: Valkenberg Hospital, Observatory, Cape Town

Email: events@friendsofvalkenberg.co.za

Help Friends of Valkenberg brighten Valkenberg Hospital wards with Christmas cheer, touch hearts and bring joy to 480 patients. Donate Christmas trees, lights, tinsel and bauble decorations to replenish stock for 2016. Volunteer to take stock, pack and prepare these items for distribution later in the year. Your donations and valuable time will support the recovery process for people with serious mental illnesses staying at Valkenberg Psychiatric Hospital.

Iris House Children’s Hospice

When: Monday 18 July 2016

Where: Stikland, Cape Town

Email: natalie@iris-house.org

Iris House Children’s Hospice has a broad range of items and hands-on projects for you to choose from. Please contact Natalie on 021 910 1578. Monday 18 July is a working day for Iris House, which means the playroom will be filled with happiness and children.

ENVIRONMENT

Treevolution

When: Monday 18 July 2016

Where: Cape Town

Email: nicola@greenpop.org

Join Greenpop on a planting day and get active to make a real difference – and have fun doing it! Joining Greenpop on a plant day with your group or team means getting your hands dirty, making a positive impact in an underprivileged community, and working together with children to green their school, nursery, or community centre.

Mandela Day Kennel Building

When: Monday 18 July 2016

Where: Mdzananda Animal Clinic, Khayelitsha

Email: marcelle@mdzananda.co.za

Spend your 67 minutes with the Mdzananda Animal Clinic to build kennels for the pets of Khayelitsha. Space is limited. Bring along a hammer, measuring tape, pencil and paint brushes. Cost: R67 / R167 – you choose which donation you wish to make.

Browse a variety of other worthy causes at mandeladay.com.

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JOHANNESBURG

Mandela Day Pop-Up Shop

Paballo Ya Batho is hosting a Pop-Up Shop for Homeless People on Mandela Day in the Common Grounds Park in the Maboneng Precinct. We will have clothing, blankets and toiletries for homeless people to pick and choose. Shopping for free, but with dignity and respect that every person deserves. We will also have soup and tea. You can help by donating clothes, shoes, toiletries (new) and blankets that are clean and in good condition or volunteer on the day.

Van Beek Street, Johannesburg

67 Minutes of Toy Making for Children with #CPotential

We would like to invite you to come help us make a meaningful difference in the lives of children with Cerebral Palsy this Mandela Day by joining us in 67 minutes of toy making. The children we work with have complex needs and often we need to come up with creative yet meaningful ways to help them, especially within their own environments.

13 Joubert Street, Braampark, Johannesburg

PRETORIA

Kick A Ball For Rural Communities

Our aim is to empower and unite communities by inviting them to a one-day-annual sport tournament (KABFRC) working with community partners in an effort to kick start rural, community and sport development initiatives in the individual communities.

DURBAN

Sarmie Stack at the Domino Foundation

Spend your 67 minutes at The Sarmie Stack Station and make peanut butter sandwiches for the hungry in our community. Last year we made over 4 000 sandwiches and this year we are setting a challenge of making 6 700 delicious sandwiches. Bring along ingredients, grab your friends and let’s take action, inspire change and serve our local community.

125 Adelaide Tambo Drive, Durban North

CAPE TOWN

Liesbeek Clean-Up

Join Friends of the Liesbeek and the Tsogo Sun on the 18th July from 8am – 10:30pm to help us clean the banks of the Liesbeek River. Do remember to bring gloves and boots that are up to the challenge! It’s a large space – if you don’t see us right away – rest assured, we’re somewhere along the banks getting dirty. Meet at the parking lot outside the Wild Fig restaurant.

Liesbeek Avenue, Cape Town

Iris House Children’s Hospice

Join Iris House Children’s Hospice at our premises on Mandela Day. There are so many ways you can help out. Contact our office on 021 910 1578 or info@iris-house.org for information on how you can get involved.

Our Sensory Garden Project on the 27th of June laid the foundation for a fantastic space, however there is still plenty of work to be done: planting, building planters, building a wooden bridge and much more.

Stikland, Cape Town

WESTERN CAPE

Donate Blood During Mandela Month

South Africans are urged to contribute 67 minutes of their time to a charity or any good cause. Why not donate blood?

The basic donor criteria states that you have to be between the ages of 16 and 65, weigh more than 50kgs, be medically healthy and live a safe lifestyle. Remember to eat a substantial meal 3 hours before blood donation, increase your fluid intake and take it easy with exercises on the day of donation.

For more information, visit wpblood.org.za or phone 021 507 6300.

EAST LONDON

Chavapri “Make A Lunch Box”

For Mandela Day 2015 we would like to gather and collect lunch boxes for Siyazakha HIV/ AIDS Support Group from Mdantsane in the initiative to feed at least 120 children. You can be part of the project by making and donating a lunch box. The standard items the lunch box should contain is a sandwich. An added snack or fruit is optional. To donate a lunch box, email info@chavapri.com.

PORT ELIZABETH

Steps to Educate

On July 17th, we will be hosting a steps to educate walk in Port Elizabeth that will see participants walking a 2,2km radius around a city landmark. Participants are requested to donate an item of stationery, which will be donated to pre-selected beneficiaries and for use in our literacy and maths programmes. On July 18th, we will be hosting a beach clean-up at King’s Beach from 10am until 12pm.

ALSO…

In honour of Nelson Mandela day this year, Design Indaba wants to assist those looking to make a positive change in their communities through creativity. We are going to give 67 South Africans R1 000 each to realise their vision for a better country. The first 67 people to who share their most creative plans will walk away with R1 000 for their 67-minute intervention. Even the smallest creative change can make a big difference. For more information, visit designindaba.com.

Find more ways to get involved this Mandela Day, visit mandeladay.com.

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The Mother City’s mayor, Patricia de Lille, recently opened the travelling We Love Mandela, Art Inspired by Madiba exhibition, also marking the launch of the new touring Peacemakers Museum at the V&A Waterfront’s Clock Tower.

Perched less than 13km across the way from Robben Island, where Madiba was imprisoned for 27 years, the exhibition is on until the end of February and features 70 portraits of our beloved Madiba, from his time as prisoner all the way to president. 

Depicted in a multitude of mediums by more than 20 artists, the show is beautifully showcased by seasoned curator Natalie Knight. Work by famed cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro is juxtaposed with classic, realistic portraits of Madiba. Most artists participating in the exhibition were affected by the apartheid regime before Madiba’s release – many were unable to practice their craft while others found expression through resistance art. Today, each work on the exhibition seems like a personal gesture of love and respect for Madiba. Says Natalie: “Mandela’s influence has had a lasting effect on South Africa and the world. His life and deeds have inspired the artists and they are unanimous in their love and praise for the iconic personality.” 

One especially striking portrait is by the British Royal portrait painter, Richard Stone. Having painted portraits of queens and princes, of Pavarotti as well as our very own former-bishop Desmond Tutu, Richard says painting the charismatic and dignified Madiba was a humbling experience, one he will always treasure. His original work of Madiba, painted in 2008, sold for R6.8 million a few years ago and Richard has donated a print, as well as parted with the original small study he made for the portrait, for auctioning by Stephan Welz & Co at its fine art and design auction on 25 February. The proceeds will go to the Nelson Mandela’s Children Fund (NMCF) and CIDA University in Johannesburg, set up to help disadvantaged learners. 

The exhibition includes sculptures, beadwork and photographs, as well as prints and paintings, by artists such as Wayne Barker, Richard Chauke, David Koloane, Jürgen Schadeburg, Kagisa Pat Mautloa, Billy and Jane Makhubele, Johannes Maswanganyi, Collen Maswanganyi, Rankadi Daniel Mosako, Velaphi Mzimba, Joachim Schönfeldt, Eric Sher, Alfred Thoba, Susan Woolf, Lena Woolf and Zapiro.

Cape Town can also look forward to other exhibitions at the new Peacemaker’s Museum. Plans are underway to feature Nobel Peace laureates Albert Luthuli, Desmond Tutu and FW de Klerk.

More exciting news is that talks are currently underway to open We Love Mandela, Art Inspired by Madiba in New York, on Madiba’s birthday, 18 July.

Entry to the exhibition is free, but donations are welcome and will go to the NMCF.

stephanwelzandco.co.za

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Tributes poured in, among them from ex US president Bill Clinton, who said: “I will never forget my friend Madiba,” and a touching Jan F Celliers poem quoted by Max du Preez, who founded the 1980s anti-apartheid newspaper Vrye Weekblad: “Quiet, brothers, a man is passing. He greets, and it’s goodbye. There’s but one like him; look at him well.” (own translation) Gareth also voiced his hope that today will be another opportunity for South Africans to come together as a nation, to remember all the good Madiba has done for his people and continue his legacy.

And that’s what we at VISI decided to do, to celebrate as we say farewell to our first democratically elected president, the lion who defeated apartheid and led his people to freedom. So we pay special tribute with these images of Nelson Mandela by photographer Jürgen Schadeberg who lived and worked most of his life in South Africa. He is also known for his black-and-white Drum magazine cover prints where he was chief photographer, picture editor and art director back in the 1950s.

Housed exclusively at Watershed Gallery in the Great Karoo town of Prince Albert, this collection feature some once-off images of significant stages in Madiba’s life – like him in the law office he shared with Oliver Tambo, and the 1994 photograph of Mandela looking through the prison bars of his cell on Robben Island, voted “one of the most memorable images of the 20th Century” by The Photographers Gallery in London.

Termed by some as the father of South African photography, Jürgen is especially known for his beautiful portraits, which include those he took of Mandela. Photographs are ordered directly from Jürgen in Germany where they are printed and signed before being sent back to South Africa.

Said our friend, novelist Lauren Beukes: “RIP Nelson Mandela. Your fight, your ability to forgive, your faith in all of us to live up to our humanity lives on. You weren’t a symbol, you were a man, and that’s a lot harder. May we be haunted, in the best possible way, by your spirit of reconciliation. May we live up to what you wanted for us.”

082 938 2531, www.watershedprincealbert.co.za

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Jam-packed with 10 days of events, Open Design Cape Town from 21 to 31 August 2013 aims to showcase the beautiful diversity of design and its vital impact on our lives. Here’s VISI’s selection of highlights.

Backed by a strong creative steering committee (read our interview with Tsai here) and themed “Design is for All”, Open Design pushes to demystify design by making it more accessible to the public, and showing its positive influence on society. There’s no better place to start than teaching our children. Hence Open Design’s strong educational focus; getting Cape Town school kids into the City Hall for an introduction into design as future career choice.

One of the highlights of the festival is that the Nelson Mandela Poster Project’s 95 works celebrating Madiba’s life and legacy will be exhibited in the City Hall (read our article here). Themed Iconic Design, this will be on throughout the 10 days of the festival.

Also happening at the City Hall and specially geared to young professionals during their lunch breaks is Talk100, which invites the audience to interact with speakers such as architects Mokena Makeka and Tsai, coffeenistas David Donde and Jose Vilandy, animators Shy The Sun and Triggerfish, and more.

On Wednesday 28 August at 1pm in the City Hall, VISI’s content director, Sumien Brink, will be partipating in the Lunchtime Design Session panel discussion – see you there!

Come night time, the City Hall will certainly not be sleeping. Besides the parties, one of the events to look forward to is the ever-popular PechaKucha evening. Here, as usual, people with clever ideas get to display 20 images for 20 seconds each and talk through their brilliant, world-changing ideas.

Meet the designers and the stuff they make, see furniture and light design in process, at the Western Cape’s Furniture Initiative’s In Context, one of two exhibitions showcasing the different realities of design. This one is happening at The Bank in the city centre and two musicians, Gary Morris and Marco Filby, were commissioned to put together a series of tracks with sounds they recorded while the designers were working. Sounds like welding, hitting metal, sanding wood, drills drilling, all form part of four tracks the two will perform live at the opening. Afterwards, it will be played in loop format throughout the exhibition period.

The other part, Insight, will be held at Selections Warehouse in Gardens and probes the minds of designers and how they process the constantly changing world of SA design.

There will be various studios open for visits and although these, as well as artist Chris Swift’s second solo show, Void, are happening away from the main venue, they are in close proximity and easily accessible.

Keen on it all but not keen on finding your way alone along the city streets? See.Love.Design is doing a couch tour, taking visitors to all the exhibitions around the city as well as to pop-up craft, art and design shops.

For a full programme on what’s on at Open Design Cape Town visit www.opendesignct.com.

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Today, 18 July is Mandela Day, a day we unite with the world to remember the 67 years our former president sacrificed in the fight for freedom. It is his wish that we celebrate his birthday by taking 67 minutes of our own time to give back to the community in an effort to help continue his life’s work. Forming part of this special day is the launch in Johannesburg of an art exhibition in Madiba’s honour.

Titled We Love Mandela: Art Inspired by Madiba, the exhibition is showing at the Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton City.

Sculptures, beadwork and photographs, as well as prints and paintings, by artists including Wayne Barker, Richard Chauke, David Koloane, Jürgen Schadeburg, Kagisa Pat Mautloa, Billy and Jane Makhubele, Johannes Maswanganyi, Collen Maswanganyi, Rankadi Daniel Mosako, Velaphi Mzimba, Joachim Schönfeldt, Eric Sher, Alfred Thoba, Susan Woolf, Lena Woolf and Zapiro.

According to the curator of the exhibition, Natalie Knight, many of these artists were only able to practice their craft after Mandela was released in 1990. Others found an outlet through resistance art to protest the country’s oppressive rule.

Curating exhibitions in honour of South Africa’s well-loved icon is nothing new to Natalie, former owner of Natalie Knight Gallery. This is the third show of its kind she heads. The other two were Mandela@90, she curated for the South African Constitutional Court, and the Mandela@94-z-a exhibition, which took place at Wits’ Origins Gallery.

In October, after its run in Johannesburg, the exhibitionwill be showm in London. This is in anticipation of South Africa’s 20 years of democracy and in remembrance of England’s various protest actions as well as the advocating for the abolishment of Apartheid by British leaders before 1990. After it closes in London, the exhibition will travel to other world capitals.

See the exhibition at the Stephan Welz & Co Sandton gallery (Shop L39) and at the Peacemakers museum (Shop L32) until Monday 26 August 2013. Entry to this momentous exhibition is free and the artworks are not for sale.

More info: www.stephanwelzandco.co.za

Also opening today is the exhibition of posters honouring Mandela’s 95th birthday. See some of them here.

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Initiated by two South African designers, Mohammed Jogie and Jacques Lange, the project was initially conceived as an informal social media campaign in which to honour Nelson Mandela. Picked up by Icograda (the International Council of Graphic Design Associations), which represents designers from more than 45 countries, the project has evolved to become a travelling exhibition that forms part of Icograda’s 50th anniversary.

Following the closing date for submissions on Friday 28 June 2013, an exhibition of 95 posters will be curated to make up the travelling exhibition, which will travel to Brazil, Mexico, the US, China and other countries. The exhibition will be launched online on Madiba’s birthday on 18 July (god willing that the man himself sees his 95th birthday). Following the exhibition, the posters will be donated to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital Trust in aid of establishing a dedicated children’s hospital in Johannesburg.

“In my eyes, this project gives palpable form to words expressed by Mr Mandela himself: ‘A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special’”, said Marilena Farruggia, managing director of Icograda. “Someone special inspired something special and it now resonates worldwide in the design community.”

The initiative is open to all and submitters need to agree to donate their poster(s) without charge to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital Trust, and allow the trust to exhibit and reproduce limited copies as part of its fundraising programme. The trust will respect the intellectual rights of all contributors/creators and will not sell copies of the artwork without written permission.

VISI thinks this is a wonderful outlet and platform for all of our creative readers to express their feelings about Madiba – we will certainly by making a contribution. View some of the submissions received already on the Google+ community or on Facebook.

Submissions can be mailed to jacquesL@iafrica.com (up to 6MB) or send a transfer link via Dropbox or YouSendIt to the same address for larger files. For further information, contact Jacques at jacquesL@iafrica.com or Mohammed at mo@creativeweek.pro. 

For some inspiration, watch this goosebumby video of Madiba dancing with Johnny Clegg.

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