Sharing our Vision

Zolani Mahola was born in a Port Elizabeth township called Kwazakhele in 1981. She left the city in 2000 to study a Theatre and Performance degree at the University of Cape Town. It was at this institution that she met with musicians with whom she would later form the band Freshlyground.

The band has to date opened for BB King, Hugh Masekela, Vusi Mahlasela and Robbie Williams and have shared stages with such legends as Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Clegg, Oliver Mtukudzi, Salif Keita and Annie Lennox to name but a few. They were also the first African band to win a European MTV award. Zolani is well known as an actress for her role as Boniswa in the inspirational SABC drama series Tsha Tsha. She lives in Cape Town with her husband and son.

Beezy Bailey was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He received a degree in Fine Art from Byam Shaw School of Art in London in 1986.  Bailey has been the driving force behind several art auctions, such as the Art for Africa auctions that benefitted Ikamva Labantu among others. Raising over R2.5 million with auctions held in Cape Town, Johannesburg and London, a fourth Art for Africa auction is to take place in New York later this year. The New York auction will bring together, for the first time, works by leading contemporary South African and UK artists under the name of Art for Africa.

A mythical figure in the South African art world, Barend de Wet was born in Boksburg, Gauteng in 1958 and completed his education at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town in 1990. De Wet’s oeuvre encompassed traditional media, craft skills and fanatical hobbyism creating sculptures, ‘knitted paintings’, performances and productive collaborations. Died in 2018.

After matriculating at the Johannesburg School of Art, Ballet and Music, Marion Geiger obtained Art degrees from the Cape Technikon, the Stuttgart University of Graphics and the New York Art Institute.  Marion participated at her first exhibition in 1986 at the SA Association of Art and, over the following 15 years, she was exhibited internationally (from New-York to Prague) more than 35 times, including solo shows that she held in Johannesburg, Stuttgart, Lisbon and Paris. 

Since 1999 Marion has painted mainly on commissions and sold many works privately. She was also inspired while traveling often to Indian Ocean Islands where she had open-studio events in Mauritius or at her family Game Lodge in the Greater Kruger Park, Motswari, where her works are exhibited permanently.

Friederike von Stackelberg is a photographer living and working in South Africa, Johannesburg.  She was born in Berlin, grew up in Kenya and matriculated in Germany.  Von Stackelberg studied photography in Berlin and worked for the German press agency. She lived for 7 years in Japan, 4 years in Taiwan and moved in 2002 with her family to Johannesburg.  She loves diversity, people, nature and captures that in her artworks.

Chad Cocking began frequenting the Greater Kruger Park before he could even walk, and it started a love affair with the area that he has been unable to shake.  Visiting his family’s holiday home on Ingwelala – the property adjoining Motswari – since 1984, it soon became Chad’s childhood dream to become a ‘game ranger’ and live out his days in the African bush.  After studying a BSc Honours in Geography and Environmental Management in Johannesburg, Chad’s new found love of photography drew him to the Timbavati, and in 2007 he joined the Motswari family where he planned to spend “a year of his life”. 

As the years moved on, photography became an increasingly more important part of Chad’s life, and he took every opportunity he could to share the marvelous sights he was exposed to on a daily basis.  Chad’s images ended up in calendars and magazines across South Africa, as well as being published in a number of photographic books.

Zapiro (aka Jonathan Shapiro) is South Africa’s best-known and most-awarded cartoonist. His career began in the late 1980s and is today recognised internationally as an influential social commentator through his political cartooning. He works as the editorial cartoonist for Daily Maverick. In 2016 he was listed as one of the top ten cartoonists in the world by Top Teny online lifestyle magazine, New York. He was honoured for his contribution to press freedom and social commentary with the renaming of NY 106 as Zapiro Lane in the Name Your Hood Campaign in Gugulethu, Cape Town. He was recently awarded the 2018 Standard Bank Sikivule Newspaper Journalism Award for Editorial Cartooning.

Top German twin models, presenters and personalities, Nina and Julia Meise.

“We will never forget how it felt to watch and connect with this poor orphaned rhino. We want to be able to show these beautiful animals to our grandchildren one day,” says Nina Meise.

“Through our European public influence and career, we will do everything we can to end these senseless rhino killings. It has to STOP,“ adds Julia Meise, before Nina concludes, “We could not be prouder to start our journey to help these amazing animals with Rhino Disharmony.”

Born in the Venetian islands, Gloria started playing the piano at the age of 4 under the guidance of Daniela Vidali. She performed her first public recital at 5 and made her debut with the Venice Symphony Orchestra at the age of 12 with Margola piano concerto. In 2014, she was awarded a fellowship by the London’s Borletti-Buitoni Trust, the first Italian female pianist to receive such an honor. Her debut CD was launched in 2013 and she has another album out in 2018.

Philippe spent the last ten years exploring and probing the intimate, closed and protected worlds in Japan. Born in 1962 in France, he became interested in photography at a young age.
In 1992, he founded a company specializing in the processing of advertising and fashion photography in South Africa. 2007 marks the beginning of his works and solo exhibitions in Africa, France and Japan.
Winner in 2010 of the SCAM Roger Pic Prize. Resident in 2011-2012 of Villa Kujoyama, Kyoto, Japan

Having studied fine art sculpture, Andre has made a career in the clothing design and manufacture. He’s also a published author, “Moffie” based on his experiences doing compulsory National service in South Africa. Other achievements include a number of artwork installations for public spaces as well as for Africa Burn. Andre’s passions include architectural conceptualisation and adventure holidays either with his expedition ready Land Rover or on motorcycles.

Adi Bensmaia was born in Switzerland, grew up in Algiers and Paris before moving to South Africa in 1992. Since then he has been running his own production company and pursuing his personal photographic work which has been exhibited in Cape Town several times. In 2010 he traveled to Namibia and partnered with Save The Rhino Trust to raise funds for the NGO and worked on a photographic project during a bush patrol in Damaraland. This project motivated Rhino Disharmony to offer him to work on another project but this time in the Greater Kruger National Park at Motswari as a director for a short movie. He currently lives in Cape Town and is a proud ambassador of Rhino Disharmony.

Charles Moore specialised in environmental filmmaking for over 30 years producing television inserts and documentaries for the SABC and M.Net as well as for the international film market including the National Geographic, Discovery Channel and Al Jazeera

Amongst his achievements were the Star Tonight Award for best documentary on SABC and MNet for “Back to Africa” a story about elephants returning to Africa. Several nominations for the “Environmental Journalist of the Year” awards inserts produced for MNet’s Carte Blanche programme. His last focus was as an independent documentary producer.

A world class sculptor with his own School of Ceramics in Cape Town, Guy has had a fully immersive artistic journey from the likes of commercial art to extreme special effects sculptures for movies. Guy is a passionate wildlife enthusiast and creates magical rhino pieces to help get the message out there about the plight of these ancient creatures.

Henry is a Canadian born South African with a passion for wildlife and conservation. Having taken a year to do a field guide course, Henry quickly fell in love with the bush and found himself at Motswari as a Field Guide. This is where he flourished and grew professionally and personally as well as finding his passion for rhinos. The slaughter happening around him made him think about his personal contribution and what that looked like. Returning to Canada to go through fire-fighting training to help protect the forests of British Columbia, known as “mother nature’s” lungs, Henry underwent a different type of transition. The remoteness and solitude has enabled him to understand that Africa is home and he will return upskilled and ready to join the boots on the ground in rhino conservation in 2019 as a microlight pilot, once more training has been completed.

Inquisitive as a small boy, Harry was very much in touch with nature. But it was his sensibility and kindness to others that transcended everything; he could never stand by to see a friend unhappy or sad and was instantly there to give that rare gift of human comfort and warmth.

He marvelled so much at the beauty of nature, that when he was a child he would spend hours looking at small flowers, insects, fish and other creatures, climbing trees and lying in fields gazing at the clouds passing relentlessly through the sky.  Later on, he couldn’t resist photographing it and then filming it , which for him was a way to share the beauty he saw. Indeed there was something about his ability to see an image where others could not -the beauty of shape, of colour, of wilderness, how they came together in that perfect image, and life itself. Harry was passionate about conservation and wildlife and the sole goal of his too short life was to make a difference and be the ambassador of our most precious gift: nature in all its diversity.

Sara is a fashion photographer with a passion for rhinos and wildlife conservation. She has been in the photography world for over 30 years and decided to merge her passions after the horrendous attack on the Thula Thula Rhino Orphanage in February 2017. Sara used to be one of the many sponsors of the orphans, helping fund their rehabilitation and care so the attack and brutal murder of the orphans was devastating on many levels. This was the catalyst to Fashion Says No being born. The purpose of such an initiative was to use fashion photography as a vehicle to communicate the rhino crisis to a whole new set of eyes, in an innovative and creative way.

Sara is on the Board of Directors for The Council of Contributors as well as being an Ambassador for Helping Rhinos and we are delighted to welcome her as an Ambassador to Rhino Disharmony. There is tremendous synergy between Sara and Rhino Disharmony, using art to transcend cultural boundaries and language barriers. Her photography is evocative, intuitive and brilliantly inspiring, harnessing her love of rhinos and bringing it to the very forefront of the fashion world.