*Flying to South Africa for the first time, I took notice of the name of the airport I would fly to and realized it had been named after ANC activist Oliver Tambo. The Airport was renamed O. R. TAMBO International Airport in Gauteng. This was in 2006 with new signs implemented to reflect change at the airport.
The airport is the busiest airport in Africa and is the fourth-busiest airport in the Africa–Middle East region. Arriving, I could not but notice his life-size statute adorning the arrival area at the airport.
OUR ROOTS had documented a few ANC activists including Oliver Reginald Tambo in black and white and it was high time to update Oliver Tambo featured in the cartoon panel in color. I had a talk presentation planned in Cape Town at the diverse Pinelands High School, so I planned for the Art students to include OUR ROOTS about Oliver Tambo in my PowerPoint presentation. Whilst in Johannesburg, I tweaked my presentation before flying to Cape Town.
OUR ROOTS is not only about documenting history but also a digital art form to inspire art students, aspiring artists, and art enthusiasts. It was a rewarding experience being able to speak to two groups of South Africa Art students and letting them know how to bring up to date their wonderful works of art which I had noticed in the school’s art room and to move their works into the digital art age.
Brandan Reynolds
One of South Africa’s prolific Cartoonists, Brandan Reynolds with also a graphic design background, had arranged my visit to Pinelands High School and was at hand to assist as he arranged my travel around Cape Town. We first met in Ethiopia some years back at the gathering of African cartoonists and we have been good friends and colleagues since then. Brandan was born in Cape Town and he studied fine art in CT at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 1988, and then later at the Ruth Prowse Art School in Woodstock. In the year 2000, he was in the U.S. for two years and was the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s graphic artist, where he produced cover illustrations for a fringe publication named ‘Creative Loafing’. His cartoons feature daily in South Africa’s Business Day which gave him work as their cartoonist on his return to SA. Back in Cape Town whilst there, Brandan together with Zapiro held a reception for my visit. Grateful.
TAYO Fatunla whose work has been featured on MSN.com via EURweb.com is an award-winning British-Nigerian Comic Artist, Editorial Cartoonist, Writer, and Illustrator and is an artist of the African diaspora. He is a graduate of the prestigious Kubert School, in New Jersey, US., and recipient of the 2018 ECBACC Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award for his illustrated OUR ROOTS creation and series – Famous people in Black History – He participated at UNESCO’s Cartooning In Africa forum held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and the Cartooning Global Forum in Paris, France and has held a virtual OUR ROOTS cartoon workshop for SMITHSONIAN- National Museum of African Art, Washington D.C. His Fela Kuti image is prominently featured in Burna Boy’s mega-Afrobeat hit song “Ye.” – https://www.instagram.com/tfatunla123
MORE NEWS ON EURWEB: TAYO Fatunla’s SOUTH AFRICA Diary – Vilakazi Street Where Two Nobel Peace Prize Winners Advanced Their Fight Against Apartheid
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