Durban public art project spreads its wings across the country

Soaring among the trees in Durban’s Bulwer Park is a load of old rubbish, in the form of a 5m-high sculpture of Vulturine fish eagle.

The imposing bird of prey, which has a 7m wingspan, was hoisted onto its plinth in December. And now this public art project has spread its wings across the country.

A second, smaller vulture, made from the same recycled supplies, flew off to Potchefstroom earlier this month, where it now hangs in the faculty of Education Sciences at the University of the North West.

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The Bulwer Park Community Public Sculpture Project was behind the birds, which were made exclusively from waste materials provided by Oricol Environmental Services. The sculptures were designed and created by Umcebo Design.

“This sculpture project celebrates partnerships that provide artistically credible, interesting and informative public art,” says project curator Bren Brophy.

Spokesperson for Oricol, Lindsay Wayman said that much of the artwork was created from non-complaint materials. “That includes anything dodgy that comes into the country, items with health and safety issues or shoddily made goods,” she said. “We recover as much of the products as we can but we also thought it would be a great idea to use some of the items to create a work of wildlife art; it’s not been done anywhere else in the world.”

The Vulturine fish eagle, also known as the palm nut vulture, is found along the KZN coast in the vicinity of the Illala palm. It is an unusual vulture because most of its diet comprises fruit from the palm trees. “It’s the only vegetarian vulture in the world,” says Robin Opperman, director of Umcebo Designs, “although I hear it sneaks the odd fish.”

He describes the choice to build an ecologically sensitive creature out of the stuff that often ends up ruining the environment as “whimsical.” And, he adds, they have been faithful to the form and makeup of the bird. “We even found red insulator parts so we could copy the red rings found around their eyes.”

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By chance, the project has gone national. “We had made a second bird, an exact replica of the public artwork,” says Opperman. “I had worked on a project with the University of the North West and so I decided to gift them with the mini bird as a way to cement our ongoing relationship and to thank them for having faith in us.”

Professor Robert Balfour, dean of the faculty of Education Sciences at the university said that the relationship with Umcebo began when the faculty decided to reinvent the elephant, their symbol for education. “It has long been our mascot but in a post-apartheid era it needed to stand for empowerment, inclusion and for what education can be.”

Balfour contracted Umcebo to guide those involved in the creation of a 7m-high elephant from recycled materials. The project which included students, academics, community members and school children, took a year from conception to delivery.

The elephant stands in the Faculty of Education Sciences’ quad, a triple volume area that has thousands of students passing through daily. The bird hangs alongside.

“It shows that Durbanites can not only make good public sculpture, but can reach out to other provinces,” says Opperman.