Past Outreach Programmes

MORE ABOUT GREATMORE OUTREACH PROJECTS :

Reaching out to the community has been part of Greatmore's identity and ethos from its foundation. All visiting and resident artists are required to participate in outreach programmes in and around Cape Town. The aim of the programme is to promote awareness and understanding of the visual arts in the broader community.

Current Outreach

Archived outreach projects from 2009 back to 2001 can be accessed below.

Woodstock Art Reef

A crochet project facilitated and led by Greatmore artist, Maria van Grass

Welcome to the Woodstock Art Reef Project. This project will entail the crocheting of an installation of reef coral pieces by participants from Woodstock and beyond. The project will be accompanied by talks on the environmental significance of dying coral reefs,global warming and other related topics. All welcome to join.

Venue: Greatmore Art Studios, 47 Greatmore street, Woodstock, in the event space. NOW EVERY THURSDAY
FROM 2.30 TO 5.30pm.
If you cannot make it for the whole afternoon, please come when you can.
For more info contact Maria, Leonie or Jenny
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Maria van Gass  0726480818
Leonie Hofmeyr-Juritz 0827773205

This project is linked to the international Reef Crochet Projects of The Institute for Figuring in Los Angeles

ULRICH ROLDANUS MURAL AT GAIA WALDORF SCHOOL 2008

Towards the end of his residency Ulric Roldanus facilitated a childrenís mural at Gaia Waldorf School in Oude Molen Eco Village with the pupils.

MATEMANE PAINTING WORKSHOP

During his residency, Matemane chose to share his painting skills with a group of young men from Beth Uriel Home, a small shelter in Woodstock.

The workshop proved a success as boys who typically come from complex backgrounds, found innovative ways to express themselves.

They showed interest in realising similar initiatives themselves in the future. Art and Culture is still inadequately taught in most schools, and this makes workshops of this nature particularly important.
 

ZANDEMELA AND VIRGINIA CHIHOTA T-SHIRT DESIGN WORKSHOP

Zandemela collaborated with fellow visiting artist Virginia Chihota on a one day T-shirt design workshop with young girls ( aged 8-18 ) from a local shelter called Ons Plek Projects.The artists encouraged the girls to express themselves on plain t-shirts. Using simple fabric paint the girls engaged in a creative design, learning how to make various positive compositions. The workshop was well received by the girls and the shelter invites similar activities in the future.

NDIKHUMBULE-ART@SCHOOL

Siyazakha Primary School is situated in Philippi East outside the Cape Town metro pole. Although the school has included Arts & Culture on the curriculum, inadequate teaching methods, has meant children emerge from the school visually illiterate. With generous funding from the Finnish Embassy for six weeks over October and November 2008, six artists from Greatmore Studios and the community converged at the school to work with children between the ages of 9 and 17 years.

"What makes me want to do these workshops more is knowing that I am sharing knowledge with people that look like me and ask questions that I was asking when I was doing my foundation program of Art ."

With help from the facilitators, children learnt how to mix colours, print, coil clay to make bowls, work with lino, develop their understanding of perspective and shading. Through art making learners were invited to engage with relevant social issues. Through dance and movement, children explored their surrounding space. Unlike the previous workshop, art@school involved more artists and this meant there was a greater focus on skills development.

The workshop also benefited teachers. Few teachers have the maturity and confidence to move beyond the strict rules set in an art textbook to a place where they can experiment with new techniques and ideas of art making. Through the workshop teachers developed new ideas around art making that they could share with learners in the future. The artists encouraged the teachers to revisit basic art making techniques, adding knowledge where it was lacking.

PROFESSIONAL ART PRACTICE FOR ARTISTS

Bandoma hosted an engaging workshop with artists enrolled in the Young Creatives Programme at Cape Africa Platform. The workshop exposed participants to the necessary etiquette needed to navigate their art careers in a professional manner. Bandoma shared easy tips on how to sharpen an artist’s statement, biography and update a cv.

"An artist's statement should be an explanation of your style and subjects themes rather make your statement too short than too long, most people simply will not have the patience to read lengthy treatises, and remember it will change over time as your work changes, one should always be reviewing this statement. At its best an artist's statement reads easily, is informative and adds to understanding of an artists work."

Steve Bandoma, Congo ( D.R.C.)

[Back to top]
Steve Bandoma
COSMOS, 2008, batting, ropes, rubbers, silicon and fund objects, Installation, variable
by Steve Bandoma.

RAISING THE ART LITERACY LEVELS IN WOODSTOCK

"My art outreach workshop took place at Percy Bartley House for boys in Woodstock with Merid from Ethiopia. I taught basic painting techniques and encouraged the children that they do not have to necessarily become professional artists-art can be used merely to express their feelings about themselves and their environment."

Mpho Ngwenya , Soweto

"For the workshop with the kids, I asked them to draw whatever it was that they were thinking of, the subjects varied from cars to ships to shaded objects on the white paper. It was nice to see the boys find a new and constructive way to occupy their minds after a long school day...my residency in Cape Town really allowed me to share my culture with other artists in the community- I remember signing one of my artworks and getting someone ask me why I had dated it the year 2000.I told the artist that in Ethiopia we celebrated our millennium only this year...in my own way I hope I contributed to cultural exchange through these informal interactions."

Merid Tafesse, Ethiopia

Greatmore studios outreach

EXPERIENCING HIV/ AIDS THROUGH ART

"My aim was to facilitate an art workshop using printmaking techniques encouraging interaction and meaningful exchange between friends and family of HIV positive individuals. Participants were encouraged to create art in groups for support."

Mark Lumala , Uganda

MARK LUMALA
A work speaking of imminent death, hope and a life lived positively

MEMORIES IN CLAY, CENTER FOR BLIND AND PARTIALLY SIGHTED IN WOODSTOCK CAPE TOWN

"I decided I'd like to do my outreach at a centre for the blind and partially sighted in Woodstock. The Cape Town Society for the Blind is a centre that provides blind and partially sighted members of the community with training in various professional skills including basket weaving, furniture making in cane, carpet weaving and computer training. They then work at the centre using these skills and selling their products in the shop. My interest in this comes from the tactile nature of my work.

"Together with the coordinators at the centre, we came up with the idea that I would help them build some "tactile memories" of some of their buildings that had recently been demolished... the participants were very responsive during the workshop and it think it was beneficial for the community to share memories of the past and do something different from their everyday routine. I found it really interesting having to adjust to the needs of those that are blind or partially sighted and very much enjoyed hearing their stories."

Helen Barff, UK

BODY MAPPING AT BETH URIEL

Andrew Matseba facilitated a workshop with young men living at Beth Uriel, a home for young men aged 14 to 24 years old in Woodstock. Participants had fun as they had an opportunity to explore shape and colour through body mapping. It was a fun exercise for the young men to develop their painting techniques and express themselves creatively.

Andrew Matseba, Botswana

NORTHCLIFF HIGH SCHOOL - LUTANDA MWAMBA

During Lutanda's residency, he was involved in an outreach workshop in Johannesburg with Northcliffe High School, where he was involved in a printmaking workshop as well as attending the schools' exhibition. Further outreach work in which Lutanda was involved was within the One City Festival workshop where he painted the faces of many local children throughout the day.
[Back to top]

TRUWORTHS - SOCIAL ARTS TRANSFORMATION PROJECT - CAW4 PRINTING PROJECT

Four artists who have studios at Greatmore, were involved in a printmaking workshop along with eight other professional artists from Cape Town. The lessons learnt through this workshop being held at Greatmore were as follows: We need to really focus on the function of Greatmore Studios as professional studio space. Although this workshop involved only professional artists, we found that the activity surrounding the workshop created too much distraction for the smooth running of the studios as to their purpose, as well as to those artists based at Greatmore who were not directly involved within this project.
[Back to top]

MO DIENER - VIDEO INTERVIEWS/VELILE SOHA - PRINTING LECTURE

Thirteen pupils from Masibambisane S S participated in the interviews with the video artist Mo Diener during her residency. A camera was set up in her studio where she interviewed the children individually on their depiction of beauty. The children were exposed to being interviewed in front of a camera some taking it in their stride, whilst others found it rather amusing or nerve wrecking. One very productive counter to these interviews was that whilst the children were awaiting their individual interviews, the group was led by Velile Soha into his studio. He took all the students through a talk and demonstration of the process involved in colour printmaking. They were invited to ask questions about the process and the discussion was very inspiring and informative.
[Back to top]

MARIO SALA - DO THE SPLITS

Six students from Masibambisane SS as well as artists from Greatmore were invited to take part in the site-specific photographic work of Mario Sala during his residency at Greatmore Studios. All artists and students were transported to a construction site at the Waterfront where builder's helmets were donned and a photographic session took place with specific positioning of participants to create a desired measurement. After the shoot we gathered on site where drinks and the frozen table mountain cake were offered to contribute towards an informal gathering and discussion about the work of Mario. The children's report back from this event was that they had never ever done anything like this before and that they had a great deal of fun being involved in the shoot. The students attended the exhibition.
[Back to top]

GARTH ERASMUS/JOHANNES PHOKELA - WORKSHOP AT GREATMORE

The workshop was attended by five students from Masibambisane SS and was facilitated by Garth Erasmus and Johannes Phokela. A still life was set up and Garth explained to the participants of the workshop what was involved in collage. The pupils continued for the full two hours working on a collage piece, gently guided by Garth and Johannes. There were a few pupils who were very shy and lacked confidence in their work although some excellent work was produced. The expenses of travel and lunch were covered and everyone shared their experience of the workshop in a discussion afterwards. All the students enjoyed the workshop; it was the first time that any of them were involved in an art class or workshop. They all expressed an interest to take part in other such opportunities.

On Saturday 11th and 16th June from 10h00 to 13h00 Sipho Hlati ran a workshop with 10 learners from Nomlinganiselo Primary School (New Cross Roads) at Greatmore Street Studio's.The working title is Opportunities where the products formed part of the exhibition on the 21st June 2005. The idea was to form a dialogue between himself and current resident artists through working with learners who don't have visual arts as part of their curriculum.

SLIDE & DIGITAL PRESENTATION - 20 JULY 2004 - GREATMORE STUDIOS

On Tuesday 20July we held a welcoming lunch for the visiting artists Reem Hassan (Egypt) and Fulvio Bressan (Switzerland) at the studios at midday. Reem Hassan gave a digital presentation of Classical Egyptian Artists, Youth Egyptian Artists as well as showing a half hour video of an outreach project which has been taking place over the past three years in a fishing village in Egypt. Fulvio gave a slide presentation of his own work. Afterwards we gathered in the courtyard for a light lunch and informal discussion. The event was well attended by visitors from outside Greatmore including visitors who Reem had made contact with at the SANG.

MURAL PAINTING WORKSHOP - 28 JUNE 2004 - MOUNTAIN ROAD PRIMARY SCHOOL

On Monday 28 June Ermias Mazengia, Solomon Siko, and Alex Mamacos, Robin Hart, together with 20 Grade 6 Primary school learners painted a mural on the wall of the playground at Mountain Road Primary School in Woodstock. We have not participated in outreach work with this particular school prior to this mural. Mountain Road does have an art teacher at the school. The standard of the mural produced was excellent and the children were a pleasure to work with. The mural covered an area of about 8 x 2 metres. The children mixed their own colours and towards the end were experimenting more and more with colour combinations already achieved. The children were encouraged to paint according to the themes of youth and multiculture, they further were encouraged to paint themselves and there was a mirror provided. Some of the children grouped together and did combined works, whilst others did individual work. The co-operation between the children was incredible and the works blended very nicely into each other in the end. It was amazing to see even when children had finished with their work, they kept going back to add detail, patterning, etc. This workshop was very inspiring.

VISIT - DEVON SCHOOL TEACHERS - BANQUET - GREATMORE STUDIOS

On Tuesday 13 April, 45 teachers on an educational exchange program visited Greatmore Studios for drinks and dinner. Representational works of some of the artists at the studios was hung in the gallery as well as an open studio situation where visitors could meet and talk with artists within each individual's working environment. The evening was a great success. Garth Erasmus, one of the artists from Greatmore Studios had two years prior, participated at schools in Devon - England, in this teachers exchange program.

MASK MAKING WORKSHOP - MANYANO SECONDARY SCHOOL - GREATMORE STUDIOS

On Thursday 26th February 2004, Madi, Jamie and Thomas held a mask making workshop at Greatmore Studios for a two hour period. A group of 20 youth and one teacher from Manyano Secondary School in Khayelitsha were brought to the studios by bus where they participated in the workshop and created masks out of cardboard, buttons, fabric and paint. The masks were then attached to dowel sticks so that they could be held in the hand. These masks were exhibited in the foyer of the school for a one month period. The group of youth consisted of some new, but mainly a group who has participated in previous workshops carried out by artists at Greatmore as well as on the visiting artists program. The youth, from having had no art training prior to the three workshops we have held with them, both at Manyano Secondary School as well as at Greatmore Studios, have developed focus, skills as well as interest in the arts on a deeper level.

TALKS/SLIDE SHOWS/DISCUSSIONS/LECTURES - GREATMORE STUDIOS

On Friday 6 February 2004 from 12.30-3.00pm we held a lunch/walkabout/talk at Greatmore Studios, where the three visiting artists; Jamie Emerick (US), Madi Phala (SA) and Thomas Koch (Germany), based at Greatmore Studios completing a three month artists residency (Jan-Mar 2004) invited us into their studios to look at work which they had produced thus far on the program whilst engaging in an informal discussion and explanation of their work. Artists from Greatmore attended as well as some visitors from outside the studios. The event ended with light lunch.

PAINTING WORKSHOP - YIZANI DROP IN CENTRE - CAPE TOWN

A series of workshops were conducted with youth living on the streets of Cape Town. On Saturday 4 October Jill Trappler, together with artists from Greatmore Studios, conducted a painting workshop where the youth were involved in creating paintings to be exhibited at the Capetonian Hotel later this year. Greatmore artists together with Natalie Craig, (participating on the visitor's program) conducted a follow up workshop on Saturday 25 October.


T SHIRT PRINTING WORKSHOP - JAN VICAR AND VELILE SOHA

Jan, together with Velile Soha, an artist based at Greatmore Studios, worked with the youth from Manyano High School on a printmaking workshop. On 15 September the same group of youth with whom Jesus and Lundi worked in the previous quarter, came to Greatmore to participate on the workshop. Their school had been burgled and the t-shirts they created previously were stolen, so we incorporated t-shirts again into the printmaking workshop. The youth created a design on lino, thereafter printing this onto their t-shirt. The confidence shown throughout the group since their previous workshop was remarkable and some excellent work was produced.


LECTURE/SLIDE SHOW - PAT WARD WILLIAMS

Pat Ward Williams conducted a lunch time lecture slide presentationto a group of students at Michaelis (University of Cape Town) on large format printing.


LUNDI MDUBA

As a follow up to the T-shirt printing workshop which Lundi conducted together with Jesus, the group of learners from Manyano Secondary School visited the Greatmore studios Gallery where they saw the work of Lundi in the Gallery as well as had a talk and tour around the studios.


JESUS MACARENA-AVILA

On 29 August 2003, Lundi Mduba & Jesus Macarena Avila conducted a T-shirt painting workshop with a group of 24 learners at Manyano Secondary School in Khayalitsha. This workshop was initiated and organized by the artists themselves. Jesus also did a talk/slide show and lecture at the Bellville Art Centre as well as at Community Arts Project. He participated in an instillation project at the museum of temporary art in Observatory together with an artist based at Greatmore Studios.


REBUILDING THE ZIMBABWE RUINS

On Muizenberg beach, on 29 March, Coster Mkoki and a group of artists from Greatmore Studios participated together in a project, building a sandcastle of the "Zimbabwe Ruins". "On Sunrise Beach, the team made a prayer in the reconstruction of the Great Zimbabwe ruins, that Zimbabwe be with peace again, that Zimbabwe will have team spirit and enjoy the beauty and serenity it once had because Zimbabwe has some of the most unassuming people on the planet, ready to greet and make friends and surely whats happening needs prayer, they do not deserve this. More important than winning prizes, we won in the sense that we were able to have team spirit in the building of the ruins and thus prayed together." Coster Mkoki - 1 April


SLIDE SHOW AT SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL GALLERY ANNEX

On Tuesday 25h Feburary, Basim Magdy presented a slide show and talk at the annex of the South African National Gallery where he presented and spoke about his work to a group of artists.

TALK - GREATMORE STUDIOS

Abrie Fourie (from Pretoria) conducted a talk at Greatmore studios around his work, residencies as well as images he has been working on over the past few years. The talk was well attended by artists at Greatmore Studios. Abrie also worked together with a group of artists from in and around Cape Town on a mural project, which is a continuation of ideas assembled whilst working in Khayelitsha a few years ago.
[Back to top]

FABRIC PAINTING/DRAWING - LAMBERTS BAY/SIVUYILE COLLEGE

Nkoali Eusibius Nawa of Bloemfontein participated in two outreach workshops during his visit to Greatmore Studios. The first took place in Lambert's Bay, which was funded by Surplus People Project in conjunction with DC Art Gallery. The main objective of this outreach was empowering rural women with basic skills in fabric painting. Prior to commencing with the workshop, participants were shown a video where women were involved in various mural projects as well as images of banners depicting rural women within their environment and stories reflecting their personal experiences. This stimulated participants' interest, as it was their first project of this nature. Banners were then painted by the group to inform the community about the International Rural Women's Day (14-16 October 2002). Paintings produced during the workshop were used to decorate the community hall.

Sivuyile College in Gugulethu was where Nkoali conducted his second outreach project with a group of students from the college. The objective was to work on basic elements in the art of drawing where he focused mainly on basic structures of the human figure. He also worked with the co-ordinations between Eyes and Hands. At the end of the workshop students realised how vital it is to trust the eye, improving improving observation as opposed to relying on memory. Students learnt that they must draw what they see and not what they think.
[Back to top]

TALKS/SLIDE SHOWS/DISCUSSIONS/LECTURES - GREATMORE/CAP/MICHEALIS

Edgar Heap Of Birds was involved in many different outreach talks during his stay at Greatmore Studios. He held a talk/video screening of work he has been involved in at home with a continuation of some of the aspects of painting during his time at the studios. A group of about 20 artists from CAP as well as all the artists at Greatmore Studios joined in the showing and participated in a discussion/debate thereafter around "indigenous art and artists - what classifies this?"
Edgar was also involved in a three-week lecture series at Michaelis (University of Cape Town) during his stay at Greatmore.
[Back to top]

TWO POINT PERSPECTIVE DRAWING CLASS - VUKANI PRIMARY SCHOOL

Steven Diseko of Botswana worked together with 38 children at Vukani Primary School in Lower Crossroads on a two-point perspective drawing class. The initial 2-hour session involved about 5 educators in order that the educators could be trained to help Steven during the classes. This enabled more children to participate in the drawing classes. The children continued with the drawing during their school holiday and the final lessons were carried out in the third term. An exhibition of the work was held at the school.

 
Steven was also involved in outreach work in the Marcus Garvey Rastafarian Camp in Philippi, where he based himself during his stay in Cape Town.
[Back to top]

11 SQUARES AND 11 PLACES - DULUNKU SECONDARY SCHOOL

Christian 'Guy' Tschannen (Swiss) after completing his residency at Greatmore Studios, held an exhibition at the Brendan-Bell Roberts Gallery. A group of about 40 high school children from Dulunku (meaning wisdom) S.S. in Khayelitsha joined Christan, Voyile Voyiya and Alex Mamacos at the Bell Roberts gallery where Christian spoke about his work. It was the first time the children had visited the gallery and continued on to do a tour of the South African National Gallery.
Christian also visited Ruth Prowse School of art and spoke to a smaller group of students about his work, which he is doing and specifically did during his time in Cape Town.
[Back to top]

MANY STORIES - THE ARK

Irish artist, Ann Marie-Curran and two local artists Tamsin Relly and Anthony Cawood held a painting workshop for learners at the Ark. The group of 15 teenagers from displaced backgrounds were brought together over three days, two days for working and an exhibition day. The aim of the painting workshop was to encourage the enjoyment in self- expression and to build bonds between people from diverse backgrounds, through image making.

Working on a single painting commanded co-operation and mutual respect for one another; thereby creating a work that communicates many stories. Sunday was the last day and participants participants were brought through to the studios for an exhibition and lunch, the afternoon was spent at the South African National Gallery.
[Back to top]

CHILD ABUSE WORKSHOP - MASIBAMBISANE SS

Lallitha Jawahirilal, Wonder and Tiggy Nichol were involved in facilitating a painting workshop with ten children from Masibambisane SS. The children were briefed the day before on the workshop which would involve painting around the issues of child abuse/prevention/the way forward. They spent the whole of the following day working towards a presentation which was made at Parliament where these issues were being discussed by an International delegation. The works were also exhibited at Greatmore studios.
[Back to top]