Projects:

IMAGINE – MADIBA BAY

Imagine – Madiba Bay is a project sponsored and directed by New Ground Communications.  It includes poetry, music, art and photography – all from the Madiba Bay area, and featuring the region’s best-known poets, musicians, artists and photographers.

The project incorporates a book and a DVD live recording of performing artists. It is a mixed-genre presentation, in which the poems and music will be blended with images of the region, and stories of the lives of the artists themselves.

Imagine - Madiba Bay performed, to critical acclaim, at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival and will be performing on the 20 september 2007 in the Barn, Port Elizabeth.

Imagine – Madiba Bay celebrates the art of an increasingly important region of South Africa

No single record yet exists of the poetry currently being written in the Madiba Bay region, in all of the languages:  English, Afrikaans, IsiXhosa.  The project brings together over 20 poets and artists, as diverse as Sheila Fugard (novelist and poet, and wife of the renowned playwright Athol Fugard), and rap and kwaito artists, as well as traditional Xhosa imbongi (praise-singers). It includes new young voices from the region, and established, internationally known poets like Mzi Mahola, Mxolisi Nyezwa, Vince Olifant, Brian Walter, Cathal Lagan and others.

Renowned Port Elizabeth artist Michael Barry is the featured visual artist, and well-known musican Errol Cuddumbey and his trio are among the featured musicians.

Imagine – Madiba Bay is a unique celebration of the vitality of the arts in the Eastern Cape region, and a tribute to the old and young who have worked to make it vital.

To date sponsors of the project include:

Imagine – Madiba Bay will be released in December 2007