Nelson Mandela University

The Department of Visual Arts is part of the School of Visual and Performing Arts in the Faculty of Humanities at Nelson Mandela University. As the oldest art school in South Africa, established in 1882, we have a rich and proud history.

A comprehensive selection of programmes is offered, including a Bachelor of Visual Arts, Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours, a Master of Visual Arts, and a PhD in Visual Arts. All our courses offer a blend of theoretical studies, practical studio-based skills, and entrepreneurial practices.

The following Bachelor of Visual Arts degree majors are available:

  • Ceramics
  • Fashion and Textile Design
  • Graphic Design
  • Painting
  • Photography
  • Printmaking
  • Sculpture

Visual Arts Postgraduate Studies:

Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours

Our Honours programme cultivates and promotes elevated creative and professional development levels within the visual arts. Over one year, students will embark on a self-directed project, which culminates in a group exhibition.

Master of Arts: Visual Arts

The master's degree program spans two years and involves conducting advanced research independently. This research culminates in a written dissertation for a theoretical or empirical study or a research report and a significant body of creative work for practice-based studies.

PhD in Visual Arts

A PhD in Visual Arts is a research-focused program that offers advanced training to students interested in pursuing a career in academia or the arts. Through rigorous coursework, critical analysis, and creative production, students develop their artistic practice while engaging in contemporary debates in the field.

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The design brief: A phenomenological and decolonised approach to undergraduate architectural studies

AuthorInstitution
Harmse, KimNelson Mandela University
Basson, Jean-PierreNelson Mandela University
Kotzé, RiëtteNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Architecture & Built Environment
The design brief.pdf

As architectural education evolves, integrating sustainability demands more than technological solutions; it requires an experiential understanding of physical and spatial design qualities. However, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in architecture has often been shaped by Global North-centric technical approaches, promoting one-size-fits-all solutions. A more holistic understanding, incorporating the cultural and environmental realities of the Global South, remains underexplored. This research investigates how sensory perception, informed by Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and phenomenology, can enhance architectural ESD by fostering contextually grounded design approaches.

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South African telephone wire art as a catalyst for community engagement: A case study in collaborative exhibition design

AuthorInstitution
Gigaba, MuziwandileNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Graphic Design & Visual Art
South African telephone wire art as a catalyst for community engagement.pdf

This paper analyses the co-curatorial role in iNgqikithi yokuPhica/Weaving Meanings: Telephone Wire Art from South Africa, an exhibition launched at the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) in Santa Fe in November 2024. It examines how collaborative, dialogical, and multidisciplinary approaches foster engagement in exhibition design, focusing on South African telephone wire art from KwaMashu and Siyanda. The exhibition exemplifies New Museology by embracing collaborative curation and shifting authority to community participation. Its narrative is deeply rooted in Siyanda’s artistic legacy, tracing the evolution of telephone wire art from traditional forms to contemporary creations such as izimbenge (wire baskets).

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Many worlds, shared futures: Creative-science-community collaboration

AuthorInstitution
Cook, Shashi CullinanNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
Many worlds, shared futures.pdf

In this paper I discuss opportunities for creative collaboration in sustainability science, more specifically Social-Ecological Systems (SES) – in which social and ecological concerns are treated as having the same weight. These transdisciplinary fields involve ‘non-scientists’ in solution-oriented approaches to sustainability challenges. The purpose of this paper is to highlight for design educators the potential of building stronger networks and partnerships in sustainability science contexts. The deep and attentive focus on nature, systems and communities in sustainability science offers a well of inspiration and purpose for creative practitioners, who in turn offer novel pathways for scientists and communities to imagine and share their work and knowledges.

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History and policy in design education: The proposed development of an interdisciplinary Master of Design History in South Africa

AuthorInstitution
Haines, Richard JohnNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
History and policy in design education.pdf

This paper examines the relative paucity of curriculum offerings in design history and design education programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in South Africa. The neglect of design history suggests a wholesale under-appreciation of the role of history and design development in industrial and economic production within the country in recent decades, as well as a disconnect between the relevant policy makers and the tertiary institutions in the country. The inexplicable lack of realisation of and response by business, state and society to the closure of the National Design Institute of South Africa in the early 2020s is an example of this disjunction.

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Fostering criticality through transdisciplinary collaboration

AuthorInstitution
Basson, Jean-PierreNelson Mandela University
Harmse, KimNelson Mandela University
Kotzé, RiëtteNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Architecture & Built Environment
Fostering criticality through transdisciplinary collaboration.pdf

The study investigates how discipline-specific, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary collaboration fosters criticality in architectural students, drawing on Barnett’s (2015) framework of critical reasoning, self-reflection, and action. It identifies a gap in understanding what role the different collaboration methods play in promoting criticality and not just promoting technically sound graduates, but socially just, critically aware graduates in the built environment. A comparative case study design was used to collect data across three architecture cohorts, each engaging with a different collaboration mode. Data were collected through student self-reflection narratives and analysed through a deductive process using Barnett’s framework.

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Developing a co-created knowledge hub to advance sustainable and inclusive design teaching in architecture

AuthorInstitution
Kotzé, RiëtteNelson Mandela University
Harmse, KimNelson Mandela University
Basson, Jean-PierreNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Architecture & Built Environment
Developing a co-created knowledge hub to advance sustainable and inclusive design teaching in architecture.pdf

Architectural education must evolve to equip students with the sustainability literacy and critical thinking needed to translate global goals into locally relevant design strategies. However, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) frameworks often originate in Global North contexts, overlooking Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and the specific learning needs of students in South Africa and the broader Global South. At the same time, current architectural cohorts seek digitally mediated, socially meaningful learning experiences that many studio pedagogies fail to provide.

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Autochthonous design and the mapping of Afrikanness

AuthorInstitution
Cadle, BruceNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Graphic Design & Visual Art
Autochthonous design and the mapping of Afrikanness.pdf

In the current milieu approaches to the design and creation of visual art and design artefacts by Afrikans, no longer follows the application of Euro-American ideologies and methods, stylised with Afrikan-inspired effects so that they are palatable to a Western audience. Colonial era atavism attempted to erase Afrikanness from Afrikans' cosmologies, citing the superiority of Western Enlightenment reasoning and their more 'sophisticated' society as preferable. Afrikan aetiologies now supersede in contemporary creative practice in Afrika, grounded in values, heritage, genealogy, mythology, prolepsis and systems that are intrinsically Afrikan, and favour that which is authentically representative of the continent.

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Pluriversal Design in Action: Collaborative Approaches to Education, Practice, and Community Building

AuthorInstitution
Botchway, NiiNelson Mandela University
De Raedt, AmyNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Research
Botchway - Pluriversal design in action.pdf

This paper reflects on multidisciplinary, collaborative engagement projects conducted over the past five years, initiated in 2021 during the global COVID-19 lockdowns. These projects – primarily facilitated between our University’s School of Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) and Engagement Office – saw collaborations between Graphic Design students, Photography students, faculty members, Engagement Office staff, and community partners. These collaborative engagement projects provided unique challenges and opportunities, allowing for the emergence of meaningful lessons in response to the question “how are we designing for engagement through collaborative, dialogical, or multidisciplinary approaches to design education, practice, and community building?”

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Textualising visual stimulus: A visual methodology to encourage innovation in fashion design education

AuthorInstitution
anse van Rensburg, MiekeNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Fashion, Jewellery & Textile Design
JansevRensburg - Textualising visual stimulus A visual methodology.pdf

Fashion design and its pedagogy is fundamentally centred around visual representation. A core conceptual component of the fashion industry and design education is mood boards, concept boards or trend boards, which purpose is to communicate design direction or intent and to provide a starting point for the design process. Content for these boards relies predominantly on visual data; due to the internet and social media, students and designers have unlimited access to visual stimulus. Reflecting on personal design constraints and teaching experiences in fashion design at a leading South African design education institution, it became clear that the influx of visual data, both through the use of these boards and freely available images on social media, affects original design thinking.

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Celebrating Afrikanness: Proposing a design approach that foregrounds Afrikan cultural identity and Afronowism

AuthorInstitution
Cadle, BruceNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
Cadle - Celebrating Afrikanness Proposing a design approach that foregrounds Afrikan.pdf

Starting in the 1990s in South Africa, according to Sauthoff, designers in general and graphic designers in particular have sought to create an inimitable design style that is imbued with a recognisable (South) Afrikan cultural identity. This is in reaction to the entrenched hegemonic influence of Euro-American design practices. Names like Saki Mafundikwa, Karabo Poppy, Garth Walker, and Sindiso Nyoni are on the influential list of designers bracketing a so-called African design aesthetic. How is this ‘aesthetic’ related to design that is culturally significant, according to Twigger Holroyd, and that lends authenticity to an artefact, positioning it as representative of Afrikanness?

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BIM as an alternative architectural teaching device

AuthorInstitution
Basson, Jean-PierreNelson Mandela University
Allen, ChrisNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Architecture & Built Environment
BIM as an alternative architectural teaching device

Are traditional architectural studio-based teaching methods and tools still applicable, or are they causing a communication barrier between a student and a lecturer? In architectural design studios, promptly submitting projects is a problem. The paper is based on a study conducted by the author between 2016 to 2018 and aims to determine whether information technology (IT), such as building information modelling (BIM), opposed to the conventional method (CM), can improve informed design communication during conceptual design critique sessions. Therefore, contribute to prompt studio-based design project submissions. The research's objectives include understanding BIM as a design tool compared to a visualisation tool to facilitate early design decision-making.

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Towards a Pragmatic Code of Ethics for Design Research

AuthorInstitution
Munro, Allan JVaal University of Technology
Economou, IngeNelson Mandela University
de Lange, Rudi WTshwane University of Technology

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Research
Towards a Pragmatic Code of Ethics for Design Research

Research ethics committees (RECs) at universities evaluate applications for ethical clearance through ethical research lenses shaped by positivist and interpretivist paradigms and cultural constructivist thinking. Such lenses predominantly follow reasoning strategies that could include inductive or deductive reasoning. Research ethics committees further interrogate applicants’ methodology and monitor their actions to determine whether they meet extant research ethics principles.

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From Experiment to Social Action: The shift in critical design

AuthorInstitution
Cadle, BruceNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
From Experiment to Social Action: The shift in critical design

Critical design has been philosophically positioned as that which opposes the affirmative role of design as the status quo, offering itself as social critique located in the formalised spaces of museums and galleries. This paper contests that reasoning by firstly showing that in the contemporary sphere, criticality in design now resides in a more socially aware and humanistically engaged space. Design propositions can be expressed from the perspective of modes of enquiry that ask both What if? and How else? questions in the vein of Malpass and Slotnick. These then propose alternative ways of considering design not as a way of seeking answers but as a way of asking questions.

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Slow Design (Into Eyilwe Ngokwendeleyo): The Potential for a Decolonized Space Through Graphic Design

AuthorInstitution
Muir, MargotNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Graphic Design & Visual Art
Slow Design (Into Eyilwe Ngokwendeleyo): The Potential for a Decolonized Space Through Graphic Design

Abstract

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Student Perceptions on Curriculum Change: Art and Design Theory within a New Bachelor of Visual Arts Degree at Nelson Mandela University.

AuthorInstitution
Collet, RachelNelson Mandela University
Economou, IngeNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
Student Perceptions on Curriculum Change: Art and Design Theory within a New Bachelor of Visual Arts Degree at NMU

This paper seeks to describe changes made to the Visual Studies course at the Nelson Mandela University in light of calls for the decolonisation of curricula, and to assess the impact of these changes by reviewing student responses to the revised curriculum. Using this course as a case study, the paper   reflects on students’ experiences of attempts at decolonisation, and seeks to contribute directions for further change.

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A Decolonial Academy? Addressing the Oxymoron: How a Series of Performative Art-Science Creative Encounters Might Serve as a Toolbox of Ideas

AuthorInstitution
Duker, MaryNelson Mandela University
Neustetter, MarcusNelson Mandela University
Cowling, Richard MNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
A Decolonial Academy?

Disciplinary practitioners are challenged to respond urgently and positively to calls to decolonize the academy. There is an expectation that the learning experience as well as the curriculum content needs to be fundamentally reshaped in response to the socio-political-economic realities of this century. To add to the complexity, as daily newscasts confirm, outside the ivory towers there is a growing sense that all is not well with the world, and that there is a need for radical social change.

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Re-representation: Addressing objectifying media portrayals of women in South Africa

AuthorInstitution
Economou, IngeNelson Mandela University
de Lange, Rudi WTshwane University of Technology

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Media & Communications Design
Re-representation: Addressing objectifying media portrayals of women in South Africa

Objectification imparts harm to women and sets a detrimental precedent for self-objectification. This is particularly true for young women who are seeking information to assist them in the process of identity construction. Experimental studies indicate that objectification in media causes negative body esteem, an unnecessary drive for thinness, eating disorders and related psychological problems. Globalised media trends emphasise and value women for their physical appearance. These trends de- personalise women, depict them as objects to be gazed at, and style them as decorative, rather than a person with a mind, aptitude, intellect, personality and a ‘voice’.

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The Myth of Unified Global Culture: transcoding national cultures within website interfaces

AuthorInstitution
Swanepoel, MikeNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Software, UX & Game Design
he Myth of Unified Global Culture: transcoding national cultures within website interfaces

This paper probes two areas relating to transcoding culture in a website interface development context. Firstly, culture is interrogated through the lens of current anthropological models of dimensions (traits/tendencies) of national culture. Secondly, transcoding anthropological models of dimensions of national culture into culturally adaptive website interfaces through the graphic design process.

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Problematic motifs: portrayals and identity construction of women in visual consumer media

AuthorInstitution
Economou, IngeNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Photography, Film & Multimedia

Considerable  criticism  has  been  levelled  at  problematic  visual  portrayals  of  women  in  consumer  and  popular media.  Current  Western  media  landscapes  feature  images  of  women  that  engender  problematic  ‘narrow’ identity constructs – marginalising agency and intellect, promoting physical idealisation, sexual objectification, and commodification  – and, as such,  reproduce  patriarchal  discourse.  Despite  the rise of feminism  and the resultant  increased  awareness   of  and  advances  in  the  area  of  gender  equality,  stereotyped   images  of sexualised,  objectified  and  idealised  women  seem  to  persist  globally  and  in  South  Africa.  Images  exert discursive power and have the ability to shape people’s identities, beliefs, and behaviour.

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Critical Design as critique of the design status quo

AuthorInstitution
Cadle, BruceNelson Mandela University
Kuhn, SimonNelson Mandela University

Keywords: 

Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy
Critical Design as critique of the design status quo

Contemporary design practice (and theory) is growing up. There is evidence to support the emergence of a new breed of designer who is able to reflect on her or his role in society, and to be critical of what they make and what the resultant consequences of that may be.

Design is often used as a vehicle to criticise and comment on issues, highlight problems and shortcomings in society, and present views and perspectives. This suggests that design is at a distance and impartial, but the truth is otherwise. Design is ideological and an expression of the values mediated by the designer and commissioned by others. This is the status quo: affirmative design. When design steps away from this position and critiques itself, critical design is the result.

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