Written by Kate

Visual artist Willie Bester walks away with the Johnnie Walker People’s Choice Award – The result? A R100 000.00 grant for Greatmore Studios!

It is with great excitement that we write to announce that Willie Bester won the People’s Choice Award as part of the Johnnie Walker Celebrating Strides competition. Many thanks go to all those who supported Willie Bester and an even bigger thank you, goes to Willie Bester himself for choosing to use the R100, 000 grant prize on Greatmore’s Artist Residency Programme.

The Johnnie Walker Strides award recognizes exceptional progress made by inspirational South Africans. The five categories were – Design, Entrepreneurship, Environment, the Arts, and Leadership. Willie Bester was nominated as one out of three artists in the Arts category.

Alongside the main award was the People’s Choice award, where the general public was invited to vote for the nominee they found the most inspirational. Willie Bester received the most votes by a significant margin. Voters even sent in votes from as far a field as Canada! We are all very proud of Willie Bester and feel he is truly an inspiration to the creative arts in South Africa.

Greatmore will be able to use the money to continue its very successful Residency Programme. (Link) In this economic climate where the arts are even more marginalized, the grant could not have come at a better time. Since December 1999, 60 artists from 19 countries have taken part in the Visiting Artist Residency Program.


It is hoped that during 2009 – 2010, Greatmore Studios will be able to invite 20 more artists from diverse backgrounds and many points of the compass, to participate in this unique cultural exchange to engage in dialogue with other local and international artists. Throughout each residency, it is hoped that artists will initiate collaborative projects with other artists – both creatively and in practise.

However, the programme does not end here. All artists participating on the residency programme are encouraged to initiate outreach (Link) workshops within the community. The aim of this is to raise the level of art literacy in Cape Town. The workshops are as varied as the artists who initiate them – and in many instances serve as a powerful and necessary way of introducing art making to schools and communities where the opportunity for creative pursuits has previously not been available.