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By TREVOR HOGG Images courtesy of Chocolate Tribe. Nosipho Maketo-van den Bragt, Owner and CEO, Chocolate Tribe After initially pursuing a career as an attorney, Nosipho Maketo-van den Bragt discovered her true calling was to apply her legal knowledge in a more artistic endeavor with her husband, Rob Van den Bragt, who had forged a career as a visual effects supervisor. The couple co-founded Chocolate Tribe, the Johannesburg and Cape Town-based visual effects and animation studio that has done work for Netflix, BBC, Disney and Voltage Pictures. “It was following my passion and my passion finding me,” observes Maketo-van den Bragt, Owner and CEO of Chocolate Tribe and Founder of AVIJOZI. “I grew up in Soweto, South Africa, and we had this old-fashioned television. I was always fascinated by how those people got in there to perform and entertain us. Living in the townships, you become the funnel for your parents’ aspirations and dreams. My dad was a judge’s registrar, so he was writing all of the court cases coming up for a judge. My dad would come home and tell us stories of what happened in court. I found this enthralling, funny and sometimes painful because it was about people’s lives. I did law and to some extent still practice it. My legal career and entertainment media careers merged because I fell in love with the storytelling aspect of it all. There are those who say that lawyers are failed actors!” Chocolate Tribe hosts what has become the annual AVIJOZI festival with Netflix. AVIJOZI is a two-day, free-access event in Johannesburg focused on Animation/Film, Visual Effects and Interactive Technology. This year’s AVIJOZI is scheduled for September 13-14 in Johannesburg. Photo: Casting Director and Actor Spaces Founder Ayanda Sithebe (center in black T-shirt) and friends at AVIJOZI 2024. A personal ambition was to find a way to merge married life into a professional partnership. “I never thought that a lawyer and a creative would work together,” admits Maketo-van den Bragt. “However, Rob and I had this great love for watching films together and music; entertainment was the core fabric of our relationship. That was my first gentle schooling into the visual effects and animation content development space. Starting the company was due to both of us being out of work. I had quit my job without any sort of plan B. I actually incorporated Chocolate Tribe as a company without knowing what we would do with it. As time went on, there was a project that we were asked to come to do. The relationship didn’t work out, so Rob and I decided, ‘Okay, it seems like we can do this on our own.’ I’ve read many books about visual effects and animation, and I still do. I attend a lot of festivals. I am connected with a lot of the guys who work in different visual effects spaces because it is all about understanding how it works and, from a business side, how can we leverage all of that information?” Chocolate Tribe provided VFX and post-production for Checkers supermarket’s “Planet” ad promoting environmental sustainability. The Chocolate Tribe team pushed photorealism for the ad, creating three fully CG creatures: a polar bear, orangutan and sea turtle. With a population of 1.5 billion, there is no shortage of consumers and content creators in Africa. “Nollywood is great because it shows us that even with minimal resources, you can create a whole movement and ecosystem,” Maketo-van den Bragt remarks. “Maybe the question around Nollywood is making sure that the caliber and quality of work is high end and speaks to a global audience. South Africa has the same dynamics. It’s a vibrant traditional film and animation industry that grows in leaps and bounds every year. More and more animation houses are being incorporated or started with CEOs or managing directors in their 20s. There’s also an eagerness to look for different stories which haven’t been told. Africa gives that opportunity to tell stories that ordinary people, for example, in America, have not heard or don’t know about. There’s a huge rise in animation, visual effects and content in general.” Rob van den Bragt served as Creative Supervisor and Nosipho Maketo-van den Bragt as Studio Executive for the “Surf Sangoma” episode of the Disney+ series Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire. Rob van den Bragt, CCO, and Nosipho Maketo-van den Bragt, CEO, Co-Founders of Chocolate Tribe, in an AVIJOZI planning meeting. Stella Gono, Software Developer, working on the Chocolate Tribe website. Family photo of the Maketos. Maketo-van de Bragt has two siblings. Film tax credits have contributed to The Woman King, Dredd, Safe House, Black Sails and Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning shooting in South Africa. “People understand principal photography, but there is confusion about animation and visual effects,” Maketo-van den Bragt states. “Rebates pose a challenge because now you have to go above and beyond to explain what you are selling. It’s taken time for the government to realize this is a viable career.” The streamers have had a positive impact. “For the most part, Netflix localizes, and that’s been quite a big hit because it speaks to the demographics and local representation and uplifts talent within those geographical spaces. We did one of the shorts for Disney’s Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, and there was huge global excitement to that kind of anthology coming from Africa. We’ve worked on a number of collaborations with the U.K., and often that melding of different partners creates a fusion of universality. We need to tell authentic stories, and that authenticity will be dictated by the voices in the writing room.” AVIJOZI was established to support the development of local talent in animation, visual effects, film production and gaming. “AVIJOZI stands for Animation Visual Effects Interactive in JOZI [nickname for Johannesburg],” Maketo-van den Bragt explains. “It is a conference as well as a festival. The conference part is where we have networking sessions, panel discussions and behind-the-scenes presentations to draw the curtain back and show what happens when people create avatars. We want to show the next generation that there is a way to do this magical craft. The festival part is people have film screenings and music as well. We’ve brought in gaming as an integral aspect, which attracts many young people because that’s something they do at an early age. Gaming has become the common sport. AVIJOVI is in its fourth year now. It started when I got irritated by people constantly complaining, ‘Nothing ever happens in Johannesburg in terms of animation and visual effects.’ Nobody wanted to do it. So, I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, and four years later I have lots of gray hair!” Rob van den Bragt served as Animation Supervisor/Visual Effects Supervisor and Nosipho Maketo-van den Bragt as an Executive Producer on iNumber Number: Jozi Gold (2023) for Netflix. (Image courtesy of Chocolate Tribe and Netflix) Mentorship and internship programs have been established with various academic institutions, and while there are times when specific skills are being sought, like rigging, the field of view tends to be much wider. “What we are finding is that the people who have done other disciplines are much more vibrant,” Maketo-van den Bragt states. “Artists don’t always know how to communicate because it’s all in their heads. Sometimes, somebody with a different background can articulate that vision a bit better because they have those other skills. We also find with those who have gone to art school that the range within their artistry and craftsmanship has become a ‘thing.’ When you have mentally traveled where you have done other things, it allows you to be a more well-rounded artist because you can pull references from different walks of life and engage with different topics without being constrained to one thing. We look for people with a plethora of skills and diverse backgrounds. It’s a lot richer as a Chocolate Tribe. There are multiple flavors.” South African director/producer/cinematographer and drone cinemtography specialist FC Hamman, Founder of FC Hamman Films, at AVIJOZI 2024. There is a particular driving force when it comes to mentoring. “I want to be the mentor I hoped for,” Maketo-van den Bragt remarks. “I have silent mentors in that we didn’t formalize the relationship, but I knew they were my mentors because every time I would encounter an issue, I would be able to call them. One of the people who not only mentored but pushed me into different spaces is Jinko Gotoh, who is part of Women in Animation. She brought me into Women in Animation, and I had never mentored anybody. Here I was, sitting with six women who wanted to know how I was able to build up Chocolate Tribe. I didn’t know how to structure a presentation to tell them about the journey because I had been so focused on the journey. It’s a sense of grit and feeling that I cannot fail because I have a whole community that believes in me. Even when I felt my shoulders sagging, they would be there to say, ‘We need this. Keep it moving.’ This isn’t just about me. I have a whole stream of people who want this to work.” Netflix VFX Manager Ben Perry, who oversees Netflix’s VFX strategy across Africa, the Middle East and Europe, at AVIJOZI 2024. Netflix was a partner in AVIJOZI with Chocolate Tribe for three years. Zama Mfusi, Founder of IndiLang, and Isabelle Rorke, CEO of Dreamforge Creative and Deputy Chair of Animation SA, at AVIJOZI 2024. Numerous unknown factors had to be accounted for, which made predicting how the journey would unfold extremely difficult. “What it looks like and what I expected it to be, you don’t have the full sense of what it would lead to in this situation,” Maketo-van den Bragt states. “I can tell you that there have been moments of absolute joy where I was so excited we got this project or won that award. There are other moments where you feel completely lost and ask yourself, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ The journey is to have the highs, lows and moments of confusion. I go through it and accept that not every day will be an award-winning day. For the most part, I love this journey. I wanted to be somewhere where there was a purpose. What has been a big highlight is when I’m signing a contract for new employees who are excited about being part of Chocolate Tribe. Also, when you get a new project and it’s exciting, especially from a service or visual effects perspective, we’re constantly looking for that dragon or big creature. It’s about being mesmerizing, epic and awesome.” Maketo-van den Bragt has two major career-defining ambitions. “Fostering the next generation of talent and making sure that they are ready to create these amazing stories properly – that is my life work, and relating the African narrative to let the world see the human aspect of who we are because for the longest time we’ve been written out of the stories and narratives.”

Architizer’s Vision Awards are back! The global awards program honors the world’s best architectural concepts, ideas and imagery. Submit your work ahead of the Final Entry Deadline on July 11th! Behind the term “paper architecture” hides a strange paradox: the radical act of building without, well, building. Paper architecture is usually associated with speculative design projects, presented in the form of drawings, which can also be considered art pieces. However, even though it is often dismissed as a mere utopian or academic exercise, paper architecture has historically served as a powerful form of protest, advocating against political regimes, architectural orthodoxy or cultural stagnation. Unbound by real-world limitations such as materials, regulations and budgets, paper architects are free to focus on the messages behind their designs rather than constantly striving for their implementation. In parallel, due to its subtleness, paper architecture has become a platform that enables radical commentary via a rather “safe” medium. Instead of relying on more traditional forms of protest (such as strikes or marches) this powerful visual language, combined with scrupulous aesthetics and imagination can start a more formidable “behind-the-scenes rebellion”. Unearthing Nostalgia by Bruno Xavier & Michelle Ashley Ovanessians, A+ Vision Awards, 2023 Perhaps the most well-known paper architects, Archigram was a radical British collective that was formed in the 1960s in London. Their work Walking City or Plug-In City showcased visions of a playful, technologically driven architecture that deeply contrasted and, by extent, protested against the rigid regime of post-war modernism and its extensive bureaucracy. This pop-art-style architecture served as a powerful critique towards the saturated idea of functional monotony. Additionally, the Russian architect, artist, and curator, Yuri Avvakumuv introduced the term “paper architecture” within the restrictive cultural and political climate of late Soviet Russia (1984). Having to deal with heavy censorship, Avvakumuv turned to competitions and speculative drawings in an attempt resist that dominance of totalitarian architecture. Poetic, deeply allegorical and oftentimes ironic architectural renderings, critiqued the bureaucratic sterility of Soviet planning and the state-mandated architectural principles architects had to follow. Consequently, this profound demonstration of un-built architecture within the specific setting, turned into a collective cultural wave that advocated artistic autonomy and expression for the built environment. Klothos’ Loom of Memories by Ioana Alexandra Enache, A+ Vision Awards, 2023 The Amerian architect Lebbeus Woods was also one of the most intellectually intense practitioners of paper architecture, whose work touches upon global issues on war zones and urban trauma. His imaginative, post-apocalyptic cities opened up discussions for rebuilding after destruction. Works such as War and Architecture and Underground Berlin, albeit “dystopic”, acted as moral propositions, exploring potential reconstructions that would “heal” these cities. Through his drawings, he rigorously investigated and examined scenarios of ethical rebuilding, refusing to comply to the principles of popular commerce, and instead creating a new architectural practice of political resistance. Finally, operating within a very male-dominated world, Zaha Hadid’s earlier work — particularly on Malevich — served as a protesting tool on multiple levels. Influenced by Suprematist aesthetics, her bold, dynamic compositions stood against the formal conservatism of architectural ideas, where the design must always yield to gravity and function. In parallel, her considerable influence and dominance on the field challenged long-standing norms and served as a powerful counter-narrative against the gender biases that sidelined women in design. Ultimately, her images – part blueprints, part paintings – not only proved that architecture could be unapologetically visionary and abstract but also that materializing it is not as impossible as one would think. (Your) My Bedroom by Daniel Wing-Hou Ho, A+ Vision Awards, 2023 Even though paper architecture began as a medium of rebellion against architectural convention in the mid-20th century, it remains, until today, a vital tool for activism and social justice. Operating in the digital age, social media and digital platforms have amplified its reach, also having given it different visual forms such as digital collages, speculative renders, gifs, reels and interactive visual narratives. What was once a flyer, a journal or a newspaper extract, can now be found in open-source repositories, standing against authoritarianism, climate inaction, political violence and systemic inequality. Groups such as Forensic Architecture (Goldsmiths, University of London)  carry out multidisciplinary research, investigating cases of state violence and violations of human rights through rigorous mapping and speculative visualization. Additionally, competitions such as the eVolo Skyscraper or platforms like ArchOutLoud and Design Earth offer opportunities and space for architects to tackle environmental concerns and dramatize the urgency of inaction. Imaginative floating habitats, food cities, biodegradable megastructures etc. instigate debates and conversations through the form of environmental storytelling. The Stamper Battery by By William du Toit, A+ Vision Awards, 2023 Despite being often condemned as “unbuildable”, “impractical” or even “escapist,” paper architecture acts as a counterweight to the discipline’s increasing instrumentalization as merely a functional or commercial enterprise. In architecture schools it is used as a prompt for “thinking differently” and a tool for “critiquing without compromise”. Above all however, paper architecture matters because it keeps architecture ethically alive. It reminds architects to ask the uncomfortable questions: how should we design for environmental sustainability, migrancy or social equality, instead of focusing on profit, convenience and spectacle? Similar to a moral compass or speculative mirror, unbuilt visions can trigger political, social and environmental turns that reshape not just how we build, but why we build at all. Architizer’s Vision Awards are back! The global awards program honors the world’s best architectural concepts, ideas and imagery. Submit your work ahead of the Final Entry Deadline on July 11th! Featured Image: Into the Void: Fragmented Time, Space, Memory, and Decay in Hiroshima by Victoria Wong, A+ Vision Awards 2023 The post Paper Architecture: From Soviet Subversion to Zaha’s Suprematism appeared first on Journal.