Awards 2022

Determination, imagination and cooperation: this was the grit that kept this year’s BASA Award winners on the road through a challenging 2021, the year during which the awarded projects took place.

‘We are proud to celebrate the corporates and artists who have collaborated to keep the light shining during a time of darkness and turmoil,’ says Hollard’s Head of Group Marketing Joanna Mondon.

Over the past 25 years, the Awards platform ‘has evolved to create space for amplifying and showcasing SA’s rich contemporary creative landscape and heritage,’ says BASA CEO Ashraf Johaardien.

This year’s finalists demonstrate the power of collaboration in difficult times, and a growing understanding by business of the role the arts can play in reaching markets and stakeholders.

The judges of the BASA Awards bring diverse skills and real-world experiences to the table as we emerge from the pandemic with fresh perspectives on the value of collaboration.

The commissioned artworks – a series of paper cuttings – created by Mariapaola McGurk for the winners of this year’s BASA Awards are titled A Mother’s Window: Finding the Light.

Together with BASA podcast host Samm Marshall, our guests dissect both the implicit and explicit value of being judged by a jury of one’s peers – and where the advantages lie.

Past Awards adjudication panelists share their keen understanding of the powerful role that the arts and creativity can play in reaching markets and stakeholders.

The year 2021 marked the 24th year of the BASA Awards and the second year that the Awards were presented online. Inspired by the great Maya Angelou poem Still I Rise, the theme RISE was both a celebration and a call to action. The ceremony celebrated the resilience of the arts sector and the business partnerships that helped them endure.

The indelibility of the arts sector was highlighted in one of the century’s most challenging years, 2020. For the first time in its 23-year-long history, the BASA Awards were presented online.