Themes

Getting Started

All about the language of art. Finding out about abstract art.

Faces

Identity and image: how we see ourselves. Portraiture and masks.

Bodies

The expressive body. Figure-drawing, carving & construction. Society and gender.

Things

Objects & their meaning. Still lives. Found objects in art. Collecting & consuming.

Places

Art and the environment. Landscape, site specific art. Land and its meaning.

War Zones

Art and warfare, art and resistance. Narrating history; multiple viewpoints.

Inner Worlds

Art in ritual, custom & religion. Symbolism and the surreal in South Africa.

Springboards

The origins of art: the spirit world

Aerial perspective

Objet trouvé: The beginnings of the “found object” in European art and in Africa

So, what is portraiture?

Reading images, finding clues

Three Guernicas

Walls that tell stories

The Bana ba Pelego child-figures of the North Sotho

A cry of comfort for ancient rituals

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Artists

Noria Mabasa

Roy Lichtenstein

Paul Emmanuel

Bongi Dhlomo Mautloa

Durant Sihlali

Siyabonga Sikosana

Cyprian Shilakoe

Marlene Dumas

Esther Mahlangu

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Activities

Keeping a weekend journal

Drawing Sound

Lines of gesture

Picturing our lives

Making a mural

Objects tell stories

Discovering proportion

Figure drawing

Create a ritual for your time

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Videos

Teachers Adventuring into Art: what are the books about?

Teachers Adventuring into Art: looking at art

Teachers Adventuring into Art: drawing and painting

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Book roll-out teacher workshops

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The MTN Foundation and Imbali Partnership

The Adventuring Into Art series of resource books - produced partly in response to the lack of good art images and books in under-resourced rural and township schools, and officially launched in June 2018 - is the product of Imbali's 30 years of experience in working with teachers at schools across the country. The MTN Foundation provided the initial grant for developing this series; and much of the material that formed the backbone of these books was drawn from Imbali teacher training workshops funded by the MTN Foundation from 2001 to 2009. Many of the artworks featured and referred to in the books are from the MTN Art Collection. This longstanding and successful partnership between Imbali and the MTN Foundation now, in addition, offers this online platform in support of the valuable series of resource books.