A benchmark in functional art
● No doubt the biggest name on the social scene this week was that great South
African who would have turned a century old on Wednesday.
But if you couldn’t join in on birthday celebrations ranging from listening to former US president Barack Obama deliver the 16th Nelson Mandela annual lecture or cough up a small fortune for the “Night of a Hundred Words” dinner, you can mull over Madiba’s legacy by sitting down on a bench the size of his Robben Island prison cell.
The iMadiba bench, designed by artist and photographer Erhardt Thiel, was unveiled on Thursday at Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton in a carnival atmosphere. The rectangular structure has been touted as a “micro-museum” dedicated to the Father of the Nation, with various iterations now dotted across the land, including one at the Nelson Mandela Museum in Qunu.
The Sandton bench, though, is just a few metres from that giant bronze of Mandela doing the Madiba jive, with his head looking a bit out of proportion.
“That’s what I love: functional art,” said Carolyn Steyn — enigmatic insurance billionaire Douw Steyn’s wife, whose “knitwits” crochet blankets in honour of Madiba’s legacy — talking about the bench as one of the speakers on the day.
Erhardt told us the bench is part of his mission to “create conversation stations — conversations for action, conversations for change”.
Someone who I hadn’t chatted to in a while was Rachel Tambo, wife of Dali, who has had an eclectic career ranging from gifting guests cushions on his People of the South TV talk-show to entering into mining ventures with slain magnate Brett Kebble. I ask the former thespian what hubby is up to these days; she tells me he’s “in heritage”.
Turns out Oliver and Adelaide Tambo’s son makes a living propping up statues just like the square’s bronze, all over the land, including a collection of 100 in Tshwane called The Long March to Freedom.
A lass who knows the value of walking for lithe limbs is TV presenter Lalla Hirayama, who shook Instagram a couple of days ago after posting a pic in London which showed off her toned pins. “All thanks to travelling,” she says. Also in attendance was a delegation of powerful US businesswomen led by
India Martin, the Washington DC-based founder of Leadership for Life, whose visit was timed to take in most of Madiba’s 100th birthday celebrations, including the Obama lecture and a private dinner hosted by Maki Mandela — all arranged with the help of one of this town’s most connected imports, entrepreneur Allana Foster-Finley.
After the launch, we all retired to Septimo, a restaurant on the square, where we were served meze platters, pasta dishes and a baklava with ice-cream dessert.