The Outset Partners Grants Programme 2023 awarded a Transformative Award to the Stellenbosch Triennale, which takes public art in Stellenbosch, South Africa to new heights in terms of its international reach, the scope and variety of the art to be showcased as well as its intention to place creativity in critical dialogue with society. The Triennale marks an intentional and purposeful attempt to use creativity, imagination and public space as a meeting point in engaging with the collective and distinctive milieu of our past, present and future existence and all its complexities - a place where we imagine futures.
The Stellenbosch Triennale aims to make Stellenbosch the primary destination of multi-disciplinary art in Africa by tapping into the creative impetus that is reverberating across the continent. The Triennale turns Stellenbosch into a curated public laboratory for creative expressions and engagements in response to society’s questions now, then and there; what kind of people do we want to be? What relations to nature do we cherish? What knowledges and technologies do we deem appropriate? What aesthetic values do we hold?
Andi Norton, Founding Trustee and Project Director said:
“Receiving the Transformative Award from Outset Partners is an honour and a privilege. It allows the Stellenbosch Triennale to continue showcasing the best contemporary art from Africa, by some of the most exciting established and emerging artists, in a non-commercial space at the southern tip of the continent. The Stellenbosch Triennale celebrates and encourages exploration, innovation and curiosity. It is a platform for artists to expand their imaginations without worrying about sales and commissions. At the same time, it encourages and invites audiences to engage in critical dialogue and reflection, resulting in conversations and debates which, while sometimes uncomfortable, pave the way for new ways of thinking and exciting paradigm shifts.”
Khanyisile Mbongwa, Head Curator said:
“In curating the Stellenbosch Triennale, I am interested in finding ways of curating an international festival that carries the markings of where it is from - a site at the Southernmost tip of Africa, engaging the diasporic movement of Africans as a result of colonialism, slavery, ongoing crises, and other fantastic curiosities. As we prepare for the Triennale we are going within and towards the ecological, to find out what it might mean to work with a sense of care and compassion - for the environment, for our practices, for a global indigenous community. This award will allow us to develop and extend this practice of caring, by engaging with festival-making as a form of rehearsal for things that can happen in the real world.”
