CAPE TOWN - Suspended 22m above the ground in rain and against a driving wind on a cherry-picker, street artist Nadia Fisher, also known as Nardstar*, recently completed a huge covid-19 awareness mural “Ubuntu” in Philippi.
Along with assistant Bernard Greybe, it took the pair 15 days and around 120l of paint to complete the 360 square metre mural, as part of the Open Society Foundation for South Africa’s (OSF- SA’s) Covid-19 awareness campaign.
“OSF-SA is primarily a grantmaking organisation and talking to our grantees and partners in the field, we noted that many people in the communities in which they worked were struggling to embrace the more formal messaging contained in traditional COVID-19 awareness campaigns,” says OSF-SA spokesperson Maxine Case.
“We decided to launch this mural project in selected communities in Cape Town as part of a pilot project that looks at more creative ways of entrenching messages around COVID-19.”
OSF-SA contracted several artists to work in communities including Tafelsig, Philippi, Lavender Hill and Langa.
All artists were encouraged to liaise with the communities in which their works would be set to understand their issues and challenges around COVID-19.
As the creator of an eye-catching mural in the OSF-SA offices, Nardstar was a natural choice to be included in the project.
The location of the work is the old cement works in Philippi, where the ribs of the old factory jostle with the more recently built Philippi Village. Nardstar* is no newcomer to the area and several of her works, alongside that of other artists, adorn the walls near to the silo.
“When the community of Philippi was asked about what could possibly be a positive outcome of the pandemic, they all spoke about the spirit of Ubuntu. Like so many South Africans, they had lost jobs and loved ones and, as a result, the community started helping each other. I wanted this mural to be a constant reminder and a celebration of their fighting spirit and that, when they are faced with challenges, they choose to stand together and strengthen each other,” said Fisher.
“We used roller paint for the bigger patches of colour and cans for the smaller shapes. It’s a logistical thing to cut time because of the size. I simplified the colour palette to make the painting process less complicated.”
She then created a full colour reference, “so we wouldn’t waste any time thinking about what colour needed to go where. Bern had his own copy of the full colour reference and we kept all the paint in between us for easy reach”.
The two worked from a cherry picker that was on site for the duration of the project and which enabled them to access the higher reaches of the tower. The finished height of the mural was restricted by the cherry picker’s reach – or else it would have been even bigger, Fisher said.
Cape Times