CHRIS THURMAN: The ZA Project will boost future artists’ portfolios

For those of us who work in the higher education sector, this time of year brings a certain level of professional and personal angst.

It’s not just the digital or paper mountains of exam marking we have to climb (wading through a bog is perhaps a better metaphor). It’s that, once the marks have been moderated and the external examiner has presided over the borderline cases and the end of the academic year is in sight, a quiet voice whispers: what was this all for?

We don’t doubt the quality of the learning experience we offer to students. We don’t doubt the value of the material we teach. Perhaps, increasingly, we doubt our ability to assess students’ aptitude without resorting to the contrived environment of an exam hall, which is hardly a suitable mechanism for testing real-world application of skills and knowledge (even if it is the only guaranteed way of preventing cheating AI).

Yet what really drives our anxiety is an intensification of a phenomenon that has been developing for decades: the disconnect between having a university or college qualification and actually being employable. The old contract between parents, sponsors, students and institutions promised, “Get a degree and you’ll find a job.” Social and economic pressures have long since dispensed with that equation. But, especially for graduates in the arts and humanities, technological pressures now also weigh heavily on employment prospects.

Preoccupied by these thoughts, it was with a heavy head and heart that I drove to Franschhoek last week. As you can imagine, this is a mood that is hard to sustain when you’re surrounded by mountains and vineyards. I felt the heaviness lifting when I approached La Petite Ferme, a favourite wine farm high up on the road leaving town as it winds its way towards the Franschhoek Pass. A glass of bubbly on the lawn also helped.

The real reason for my improved frame of mind, however, was the occasion I was there to observe: the announcement of the winner of The ZA Project, an exciting collaboration that enables professional experience for a group of art students who will graduate with a commercial notch already marked in each of their belts.

The story starts with a winemaker’s challenge. Owner of La Petite Ferme, Karim Charaf, is Swiss but has professed South African passion for many years — an enthusiasm extending to our country’s signature varietal, the pinotage. So it was that winemaker Wikus Pretorius found himself traversing the Western Cape in search of the perfect old-vine grapes, which he found in Piekenierskloof near Citrusdal.

The vintage was 2024. The name of the wine would be suitably patriotic: The ZA. It would age in the bottle for a few years. But how would it be presented to the world?

That’s where the students came in. Members of the 2025 final-year cohort from the Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography were commissioned to create a label for this limited-edition pinotage. Research, conception, execution — and then, of course, practising another professional skill needed in a densely competitive marketplace. Pitch … and wait.

Five designs were shortlisted before last week’s announcement, and Jolien Koen emerged as the winner. Her design is a whimsically symmetrical scene that fuses various South African landscapes, from desert to coastline, emphasising fauna, flora and terroir. My attention was also drawn to Amelie du Toit’s label, which deftly arranges the elements of vineyard, mountain, river and plain into a composition that mirrors our national flag.

While the prize and privilege of seeing her work adorn all 800 bottles of the 2024 batch belongs to Koen, the greater victory here is a collective one for students and staff at the Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography. The ZA Project will now become an annual undertaking, spurring the creative practice and boosting the professional portfolios of graduates in the years ahead.

One of the academy’s lecturers described to me the “skill-stacking” that they encourage their students to pursue — seeking out a wide range of experiences within and outside the curriculum to prepare themselves for life beyond their formal studies. It will be tough making their way as commercial artists. But initiatives such as The ZA Project certainly help.