Postdoctoral fellow and artist Dr Anja Venter will launch her exhibition titled: Monsters at the Cape of Good Hope on March 4.

The exhibit will be peer reviewed and submitted as a subsidy-bearing creative output to the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET).

“This is only the second such output that our faculty (Informatics and Design) will produce, and we are very excited about that”, says Associate Professor Izak van Zyl from the Department of Applied Design.

The exhibition will launch simultaneously at Artist Admin at 79 Roeland Street in Cape Town and online at www.nannaventer.co.za/monstersatthecapeofgoodhope.

Venter has been collecting old prints of colonial artworks for years and paints surreal monsters into them.

“I'm a big fan of Kaiju (Japanese giant monster media) and I really enjoyed envisioning a past where the project of colonialism was thwarted by some dormant supernatural creatures,” she explains.

“When I was offered a post-doctoral fellowship, one of the first things my mentor, Prof Izak van Zyl, mentioned, was that I could do a creative output for DHET credits, and I immediately started working on expanding the concept into something a bit more substantial. The process involved working very closely with the Iziko archivists to find public domain images of colonial era Cape Town, researching what kind of local monsters we had in Cape Town, and experimenting with materials.”

Venter says monsters are near universal cultural phenomena adding that media theorists have argued that the conjuring of monsters “is often a metaphor for our own monstrousness: they force us to confront what we perceive as being natural; as being human”.

“Since the onset of Western colonialism, writers, artists, and explorers reported on encounters with ‘monsters’, whether sea creatures, mermaids, cannibals, troglodytes, fanged demons or simply foreign races. These lurid tales confounded any efforts of acknowledging humanity in the Other. In no place was this truer than in the project of colonising Africa.

“With Monsters at the Cape of Good Hope, I wanted to take historical images and challenge the viewer to look at them anew: I placed ancient Southern African monsters as lead characters into these mixed media paintings: Grootslang, |Kaggen, Impundulu, Inkanyamba and Dingonek. The work is about invasion, ownership, displacement, the destructive forces of ‘progress’ and the monstrosity of our imperial past.”

 Venter, who studied graphic design, has always viewed herself as more of a visual communicator than an artist.

“But as the years have passed, I've dabbled in all sorts of visual outputs: from commercial work, to comics, to video games, animation, graphic design, fashion design, branding and fine arts. I've done work for the likes of Apple music, Nike, Mr Price and Nedbank, and post most of my creations onto instagram (@nannaventer) or my website (www.nannaventer.co.za). My style is predominantly inspired by comics and pop art - it's punk and feminist and defiant.”

Written by Ilse Fredericks

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Faculty of Informatics and Design is celebrating the success of two academics today, both of whom were awarded their doctorates during Monday afternoon’s ceremony.

Nicholas Pinfold, from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, was awarded a Doctor of Applied Arts in Design. His thesis is titled Testing middle ground: Facilitating community transition to sustainable land governance.

His supervisor was Prof Masilonyane Mokhele.

Veronica Barnes from the Department of Applied Design was awarded a DTech Design. The title of her thesis is: Empathy in practice: A grounded theory in Industrial Design.

Her supervisors were Prof LJ Theo and Dr Vikki Eriksson.

Pinfold said doing his doctorate had been thrilling and demanding “with deep reflection and unwavering dedication”.

“I believe finishing my doctorate is a significant way to wrap things up considering I will be retiring next year.”

He expressed his “sincere appreciation and indebtedness” to Mokhele, “for his unfailing interest and his ever-ready guidance and advice throughout my research”.

Pinfold said he spent the initial twenty-five years of his career, working in both the public and private sectors within the geomatics profession before embarking on a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of the Free State.

He joined CPUT in 2008.

He said given his academic focus on community engagement, the most rewarding aspect of his journey has been contributing to the development of communal settlements in the Western Cape.

“Community engagement stands as one of the three foundational pillars of higher education in South Africa, alongside research and teaching/learning. I have found great satisfaction in integrating these pillars, through my research in community engagement, and conducting service-learning projects within the Department of Urban and Regional Planning.”

Barnes said completing doctoral studies is a test of endurance, and “a testament to your support network who need to carry you often”.

“I am so grateful for the care I received from my family and friends during this studying period.”

She said studying part-time while continuing her duties as an academic brought its challenges.

“When studying part time as an academic with classes of students, those real people easily demand the best of your attention and it's difficult to prioritise your own studies. However, I love discovering new things, and this is what research is all about. My topic related to empathy and design was vague, contentious and troublesome, and wrangling with that intricacy was very satisfying ultimately (even though it often felt awful in the middle).”

She said her supervisors were excellent at asking difficult questions, which she appreciated.

Written by Ilse Fredericks
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.