Change the world

07/02/2022

Reasons to be Proud - #R2bP: Honours in Visual Arts student, Luke Rudman, has been selected from more than 380 entries to participate in South Africa’s most prestigious creative developmental programme

One of 40 participants in Design Indaba’s Emerging Creatives Class of 2022, Luke uses performance art, photography and painting to explore queerness. He does so specifically within the context of the environmental movement, from which queer perspectives have traditionally been absent. 

Design Indaba’s Emerging Creatives platform has been supporting South Africa’s fresh talent for 17 years. The young designers handpicked for the 2022 edition will be introduced to the public via an extended virtual exhibition and Design Indaba’s thriving social media channels.

The Class of 2022 will also benefit from masterclass sessions with international and local experts, like UK-based Artsthread, documentary video sessions, and dedicated personal profiles on designindaba.com. The Emerging Creatives programme is designed to hone talent and provide participants with strategies to take their work to the next level and to market. 

Over the years, this platform has successfully launched the careers of a number of gifted creatives, including our own Textile Design Alumnus, Laduma Ngxokolo.

The Class of 2022 was selected by curators Lukhanyo Mdingi and Ditiro Mashigo - both well-known fashion designers who also happen to be former Emerging Creatives themselves. Both were impressed by the high quality of the submissions. 

The curators’ agenda was to seek out "innovation in design-led problem-solving and an honest point of view from South African emerging design talents on issues of climate change, socio economics and equality." 

Luke has also created and performed work for Greenpeace’s ‘Protect the Oceans’ and ‘Pole-to-Pole’ campaigns as well as for Greenpeace Africa’s campaign against air pollution. In 2020, he was invited to ‘take-over’ the Greenpeace Africa Instagram page where he released a series of works created for their Break Free from Plastic campaign.

In addition, Luke has worked with other environmental organizations, such as the Sustainable Seas Trust, presenting the theory behind his approach of art-as-activism in both informal spaces and academic settings such as the Commonwealth Litter Programme Conference in Cape Town in December 2019.

Read more: An interview with Luke on the Design Indaba website.