Burundi-born sculptor and painter, Serge Alain Nitegeka, has been awarded the Tollman Award for the Visual Arts 2010.

Nitegeka was born in Burundi in 1983 and lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. He completed his undergraduate studies in 2009 and is currently finishing his Master’s degree at the University of the Witwatersrand. This is the first occasion that the award has been given to an artist not born in South Africa, reflecting the changing relationship between South Africa and the rest of the continent.

Nitegeka’s...

Burundi-born sculptor and painter, Serge Alain Nitegeka, has been awarded the Tollman Award for the Visual Arts 2010.

Nitegeka was born in Burundi in 1983 and lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. He completed his undergraduate studies in 2009 and is currently finishing his Master’s degree at the University of the Witwatersrand. This is the first occasion that the award has been given to an artist not born in South Africa, reflecting the changing relationship between South Africa and the rest of the continent.

Nitegeka’s work focuses on the politics of forced migration. Through the use of drawing, installation, sculpture and performance the artist seeks to explore particular experiences of human travel. He uses the motif of second-hand crates to communicate multiple issues around carriers and those carried across borders.

Nitegeka’s previous awards include the Robert Hodgins Prize at Wits University in 2008 and the Fondation JP Blachère Prize awarded at the Dakar Biennale in 2010. He was recently awarded a grant by the Goethe Institute to produce a work entitled …A Hundred Stools, which comprises of seats used by the many migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who stand in long queues every day at the Department of Home Affairs’ refugee centre in Crown Mines, Johannesburg.

Nitegeka will also have a solo exhibition at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in 2011.

The annual Tollman Award for the Visual Arts was founded in 2003. A grant of R100 000 is given directly to a young artist who has received critical recognition but is hampered by finances in realising the potential of his or her work. Recipients may spend the award as they wish, to produce new work, travel, study or produce a publication.

Past award winners are Wim Botha, Churchill Madikida, Mustafa Maluka, Zanele Muholi, Nicholas Hlobo, Paul Edmunds and Sabelo Mlangeni.

Selection of the awardee is assisted by Michael Stevenson, who, after consultation with artists and curators, offers a shortlist to the Tollman family. The family in turn selects an artist whose work resonates with its members.

The award is an acknowledgement of the family’s commitment to the extraordinary creativity of South Africa art. Toni Tollman, on behalf of the family, said that offering the awards for South African artists has been a defining moment for the family whose members have, for the past 40 years, been major collectors of South African art and filled their homes and hotels with works by South African artists.

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