Funding

Much of our work has been made possible by support from state and NGO funding bodies, as well as commissioned work. We work hard for the money! We have received just over R800,000 in grants for our work to date, between 2015 and 2020. Download an overview. In addition, we’ve taken in over R400,000 in commercial work, for a total income in excess of R1.2 million.

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.

Department of Sports, Arts and Culture – This South African government department supported the upgrade of this very website, as well as our other digital platforms, through Covid-19 relief funding in 2020. And, we received our first major funding through a project they partnered with British Council to produce, SA-UK Seasons, which supported projects that connected partners in South Africa and the UK (we worked with Tech Will Save Us and Hirsch&Mann).

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.

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. The NAC lists us as one of their ‘Success Stories‘.

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.

African Culture Fund – We were grateful to receive a small Covid-19 relief grant in 2020 through the Solidarity Fund for Artists and Cultural Organisations in Africa. The award enabled us to digitise our work Dubship I – Black Starliner (2019) to produce the artwork Digi-Dub Club (2020) in social Virtual Reality, for remote access and limitless possibilities…

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 can get funding to 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, subjects that 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!