South African art and design competition PPC Imaginarium Awards announced its overall winner, category winners and runners-up at a gala event hosted last month at the University of Johannesburg’s Art Gallery, in Auckland Park.

The winners were selected from the 55 finalists who submitted their art and design works across the categories of sculpture, industrial design, fashion, jewellery and film. No architecture submissions made it to the finalist round this year.

Last year, up-and-coming jeweller Mignon Daubermann scooped the top prize with her “exquisitely crafted” pair of tinted cement rings. This year, emerging artist Mziwoxolo Makalima impressed the judges with his thought-provoking sculpture submission titled ‘Doubt-Queuing’, securing him the 2017 PPC Imaginarium Overall award and Sculpture award, as well as a cash prize of R150 000.

Makalima’s sculpture, which is fashioned out of concrete and mild steel, aims to be “the voice of a voiceless, subjugated society”. ‘Doubt-Queuing’ represents a group of community members who have stood for so long waiting and hoping for change, and who, nonetheless, have remained as strong as concrete. The concrete represents the strength of the community that has had to endure queues of “unfulfilled promises” that seem to have been extended since the dawn of democracy and its promises of social equality.

Makalima further explains the concept behind his work: “For our society, it is time to let go of ‘rotten’ reinforcing. By doing so, this does not mean our concrete society has lost its strength. It only means it can make a stand.”

The competition’s category winners and runners-up also fared well in terms of cash prizes, each walking away with R50 000 and R15 000 respectively. All winners are also afforded extensive public exposure by way of a nationwide travelling exhibition, media exposure and mentorships.

The Industrial Design award went to Handre de la Rey, the Fashion award to Cara Jade Bezuidenhout, the Jewellery award to Zanele Vilakazi and the Film award to Stefanus Nel.

The 2017 winners were selected by a panel of industry experts, including architect and PPC Imaginarium Awards director Daniel van der Merwe, fashion and design consultant Allana Finley and curators Stephen Hobbs and Zanele Mashumi.