FROM SCRATCH is an exhibition of the work generated in a Young Digital Artists Programme conceptualised by CodeMakers and the KZNSA LAB.

KZNSA LAB is the newly formed education centre of the KZNSA, providing art courses and learnerships in numerous mediums.

Kids and adults signed up for a six week Saturday programme with the theme of Our 2050 Future. Learners took part in a set of interlinked drawing, painting, cardboard making, Photoshop, and computer coding classes with the aim of bringing together analogue and digital art to tell their stories.

Participants enjoyed the mentorship of acclaimed artists, Janet Solomon, Joseph Manana, Jessica Nicholson and Colwyn Thomas, and were taught coding in Scratch by CodeMakers founder, Justin Yarrow

The cardboard making session was Durban’s largest entry in the 2016 Global Cardboard Challenge (http://imagination.is/our-projects/cardboard-challenge/), and was attended by over 50 participants of all ages, revelling in creativity and handmade construction using recycled materials. Many of these objects became sets and props in subsequent computer animated stories.

Most of the participants of our programme are grade 8 and 9 learners from Umkhumbane Secondary School in Cato Manor who have worked with CodeMakers over the last 1-2 years.  Learners have attended afterschool and curriculum-integrated coding classes and some have participated in cardboard engineering and robotics workshops.

CodeMakers is a science, technology, engineering, arts and maths (STEAM) education NPO that believes in learners and their incredible curiosity and need to create. CodeMakers puts the tools of creation, whether computer coding software or cardboard cutting scissors, into the hands of learners and helps them tell stories, make animations, and create games. In the process learners practice logic, solve puzzles, and gain confidence that technology can be a tool for creation. CodeMakers works with learners in schools in Cato Manor, Lamontville and Chatsworth.

Learn more about this and other programmes at www.codemakers.org.za and www.facebook.com/codemakers, and follow KZNSA LAB activities on http://www.kznsagallery.co.za and https://www.facebook.com/KZNSA/

Thanks to the following organisations for material and equipment donations, and technical support: Corruseal, Wildlands Conservation Trust, Waste Centre Fabrics, K-RITH, Thusa

Photographs by Paulo Menezes