Funders

Funders

Much of our work has been made possible by support from state and NGO funding bodies. We have received just over R770,000 in grants for our work to date, between 2015 and 2020. Download an overview.

Have a look at some of the reasons to fund us, get in touch if you’d like to find out more, and see some of past grant funders below.

Maker Library – We received a small grant for a wire artist workshop and exhibition at Design Indaba in 2014 on the British Council’s Maker Library platform (run by our frequent collaborators Thingking in Cape Town). This was the first public exhibition of Starling 1.0! Maker Library later contributed to the development of Starling 1.1, exhibited at the Vitra Design Museum, and our African Robots in London exhibition in 2015 was at a Maker Library.

Department of Sports, Arts and Culture – We received our first major funding from SA-UK Seasons, a collaboration between the South African DSAC, and the British Council, to fund projects that connected partners in South Africa and the UK.

National Arts Council – We have received two large grants from the NAC, starting with an award in 2017 that enabled work towards our pop-up exhibition in Cape Town African Robots vs SPACECRAFT, and again in 2018 for our largest work to date, Dubship I – Black Starliner (2019), a 6-metre long, 500kg music-making spaceship sculpture exhibited suspended in the atrium of the Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town.

Business and Arts South Africa – BASA first funded African Robots founder Ralph Borland’s residency in South Korea in June 2019, when he applied the African Robots model in the city of Gwangju for the ISEA2019, resulting in the work Anthropophagic Octopus. African Robots went on to design the trophies for the BASA Awards in October 2019, and we were awarded a BASA grant ourselves to support the production of the Zizi Night Light in December 2019.

British Council – Through the ConnectZA programme, the British Council co-funded our collaboration with Tech Will Save Us and Hirsch&Mann in 2015 to produce the Little Bird circuit board. They were also the funders of the Maker Library Network who were involved with the first exhibition of our work.

ProHelvetia – The Swiss Arts Council arts-funding body has funded us twice through their Ant Funding award for cross-border travel in Southern Africa: first for workshops and an exhibition at the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe in 2015, and then in 2019 for our collaborative workshops with wire artists in the FEIMA Market in Maputo, Mozambique.

Why fund us?

Apart from us just being damn cool, you mean? 😉 We get good press, and have good public outreach through conferences and exhibitions, and on our digital platforms. Here are some of the reasons to fund us:

• We allow funding to reach workers in the informal economy, who are otherwise hard to reach through formal channels
• We offer income to self-employed artisans in a region with low levels of formal employment
• We democratise access to technology and education, sharing knowledge of mechanics, electronics and computing
• We are an arts project, catalysing and supporting the creation of new forms of wire art
• We engage in design, from wire-art products, to interactive electronic kits for artists and other users
• We put an African face on technology, combining vernacular practices with new tools and processes
• We are a social enterprise, building a creative business to support livelihoods
• We are a social and cultural project, building connections between communities, artists and audiences
• We bridge popular culture and fine art, connect handcraft with digital processes, and mix art with science
• We are well-placed to support STEAM education initiatives, putting the Art in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths
• We do research and write papers, on subjects such as Futures Studies, Southern Theory, and Ethnomathematics
• We work with waste materials, and are interesting in exploring the reuse of e-waste
• We depict local birds, animals and insects, and these subjects can be used to promote environmental awareness
• We are increasingly exploring remote experiences on digital platforms, and devising safer ways of working

If any of this appeals to you or your organisation, please get in touch!