A vervet monkey peeks out behind a wall at the entrance to the workshop. Image: Shelley Christians/UWCWhen Professor Premesh Lalu (UWC) and Dr Kurt Campbell (UCT) curated the evocative exhibition “Holding a Thought – the puppetry of Ukwanda” at the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis Galleries, their intent was clear: to reframe puppetry not as spectacle, but as a profound intellectual and artistic gesture.
“Ukwanda’s puppetry is not just performance - it is a form of thinking,” he explained, “a way of holding space for shared reflection.”
This exhibition, developed with Dr Kurt Campbell, was a highlight of the Michaelis School of Fine Art’s centenary and brought into focus an approach to pedagogy rooted in the tactile and the theatrical.
At the centre of this creative undertaking is the Ukwanda Puppetry and Design Art Collective, born on the edges of Cape Town in Masiphumelele.
Founded by Luyanda Nogodlwana and Ncedile Daki, and later joined by Sipho Ngxola and Siphokazi Mpofu, Ukwanda emerged with a quiet defiance, honing their art while apprenticed to the Handspring Puppet Company during its globally celebrated War Horse project. Their mentor-mentee bond with Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler forged a path that was as rigorous as it was imaginative.
The Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) has been instrumental in nurturing Ukwanda’s journey. With support from the Handspring Trust and the CHR’s NRF Flagship, and more recently as resident artists in UWC’s Iyatsiba Lab, Ukwanda’s creations became symbolic centrepieces of the annual Barrydale Reconciliation Day Festival — an event co-convened by Net vir Pret, CHR, Handspring, and Ukwanda itself. Prof Lalu describes their work as “the puppetry of holding” — an act of living through questions rather than declaring answers.
Ukwanda’s theatrical repertoire, produced in the UWC CHR Iyatsiba Lab in Woodstock, includes acclaimed titles such as Qawe, Warona, and Maxeke: This work is not for yourselves. Their awards include a Fleur du Cap for Best Puppetry Design and a Standard Bank Ovation Award, affirming their status as innovators on stage, in public arts, and in studio.
Then came The Herds - a climate-focused epic convened by the Walk Productions. Over 20 000 kilometres and 600 puppets later, Ukwanda’s procession from the Congo to the Arctic Circle has drawn millions into a global arts intervention on the threat of climate change.
Under the artistic directorship of Nisar Zouabi, The Herds has garnered global attention as one of the largest public arts projects on the consequences of the planetary climate crisis for phenological patterns. With the CHR’s visionary curatorship anchoring their philosophical core, Ukwanda proves that the work of kinetic objects can be instructive for understanding how thought is predicated on movement, and why the education of the senses will prove indispensable to our changing planet.
