Angela Mac Pherson: KuruFynbos

ANGELA MAC PHERSON / KURUFYNBOS

Using my sculpture to activate social, environmental and cultural healing, I am pushing into new possibilities of collaborations between the natural world, myself and my fellow humans.

I co-create large scale outdoor sculptures that aim to bring into focus the beauty and vulnerability of our indigenous ecosystems, bringing awareness to the unique intelligence that each creature processes, and drawing attention to the richness of our local cultures. All of which face extinction due to excessive urban development and the effects of centuries of materialist western mono-cultural monopoly.

Working in Cape Town, with an extraordinary restoration and education organization, FynbosLIFE, under the banner KuruFYNBOS, (Kuru means creation, in Kora, one of the Cape’s original Khoi languages) I am exploring the use of natural materials in the representation of endangered Fynbos creatures that inhabit the seven different biomes within the Fynbos Floral kingdom. This unique, highly diverse and extremely vulnerable floral kingdom is only found in the Cape Province of South Africa.

I teach while I work, and frame each piece as a co-creation, guiding small groups of new and skilled artists through the creative process of public sculpture making. Developing creative confidence in others and building an understanding of the immense creative power that each of us humans possess to affect our environment. We are learning to take responsibility for our personal power and to understand that we can make creative choices that facilitate a living world for all our futures.