#GNAP2016 #StoriesOfRain
Following on the success of previous events hosted by the South African Site_Specific Land Art Collective this collective will be presenting the Global Nomadic Art Project South Africa 2016 (GNAP) with the subtitle Stories of Rain in September and October this year.
GNAP 2016 takes on the format of a tour from the Cradle of Humankind to the foot of Table Mountain tracing the legacy of the first nomadic people but also with the opportunity of creating temporary land art in response to the varied landscape and the World Heritage rock art of South Africa.
Nine renowned land artists from Germany, Hungary, India, Iran, South Korea and Sweden will join local artists such as Hannelie Coetzee, Sybrand Wiegers, Izanne Wiid, Kai Lossgott, Grietjie Lee, Janet Ranson, Cha Davenport, Katie Barnard du Toit and Emma Willemse in this project.
The visiting artists – Ko Seunghyun, Kim Soonim and Lee Jasmine (South Korea), Mahmoud Maktabi (Iran), Atul Bhalla (India), Ulrika Sparre and Marie Gayatri (Sweden), Eröss Istvàn (Hungary) and Imke Rust (Germany) – will travel along different routes in small groups, meeting and staying with local participating artists and supporters along the way. The tours will commence on 8 September and culminate in an exhibition opening at the Chavonnes Battery Museum at the
Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town, on Thursday 6 October.
From left to right: Anni Snyman, Looking down, looking up. (2014) Andato’s well near HyupJe Beach, South Korea, during the first leg of the Global Nomadic Art Project, April 2014. // Strijdom van der Merwe, Drawing Ley lines. Namtib, Namibia. Strijdom was invited to Global Nomadic Art Project INDIA in November 2015 // Janet Botes, 'Take Care', Molundae Cliff, Hwaam/Jeongseon, South Korea. During the Global Nomadic Art Project's second leg in Korea, August 2015.
“In this time of palpable climate change we find ourselves at the cusp of profound natural and cultural transformation,” says Anni Snyman, one of the coordinators of GNAP 2016. “The dual disciplines of creative imagination and mediated thinking practiced by artists can be extremely valuable in this transition.”
GNAP 2016 offers local artists the opportunity to influence contemporary cultural attitudes towards nature and to explore avenues for understanding in an increasingly fractured paradigm. Snyman’s line of thinking ties in with the methodology purported by the YATOO Nature Art Association of Korea that invited her to attend the Korean pilot tour for the GNAP in South Korea in April 2014.
Erica Lüttich and facilitators from the Boitumelo project will lead a multidisciplinary team from the Hillbrow Outreach Foundation in a series of creative workshops and initiate local events along the way, facilitating local artist participation. These events include a visit to Maropeng and the Malapa site with Anthony Paton, a land art day at the Credo Mutwa Park in Soweto including an Ubuhle Bobuntu Art Show and a public workshop as well as workshops along the route in De Aar, Richmond, Loxton, Natures Valley, Matjiesfontein, Prins Albert and Cape Town.
Strijdom van der Merwe, Snyman, Lüttich and a group of volunteers launched the first Site_Specific International Land Art Biennale in Plettenberg Bay in 2011 followed by a second Biennale in 2013.
In 2014 they created the Snake Eagle Thinking Path in Matjiesfontein in the Karoo, a geoglyph (170 x 58 m) that was inaugurated on 5 September 2015.
Strijdom van der Merwe, Anni Snyman, Janet Botes and Erica Lüttich are coordinating the Site_Specific land art collective – more than 30 South African artists who are hosting the South African leg of the Global Nomadic Art Project.
For more information about the project and to arrange for interviews, please contact:
katty vandenberghe
Site_Specific Collective
#StoriesOfRain #GNAP2016
media@sitespecific.org.za
SMS 084 828 7370
