When her name was announced as the winner of a presidential award, she was in awe. Rita Mapeshoane, the operations manager for digitisation in Arts, Culture, and Heritage: Community Development, is a Golden Award richer. She won the presidential award for animator of the year at the prestigious Public Relations Institute of South Africa (Prisa) Prism Awards.
The awards ceremony was held recently at Melrose Arch, Joburg. “I nervously walked on stage to accept my award. The first person I called afterwards was my mom, and we both jumped up and down with joy,” she explains.
Mapeshoane considers it an honour that the portfolio of work she submitted was nominated among other bright creatives like herself. She entered independent freelance work. Her portfolio included 2D and 3D animation work, design and compositing, typography, and motion graphics. The highlight of it for her was a 3D animation short story about a hungry rabbit and a slightly possessed carrot.
She joined the City in May 2022. What she loves most about her job is playing her part in transforming the municipality into a Smart City.
“Digitising our museum collections motivates me because we’re preserving our history for future generations,” she says with excitement.
Mapeshoane hails from Bloemfontein, Free State, and relocated to Johannesburg for her studies.
She received a study bursary from the National Film and Video Foundation in 2015, which she used to complete her diploma in 3D Animation and Multimedia Studies at Boston Media House in Sandton.
She is an experienced and skilled creative. She worked in the design and animation field for five years, where she was employed full-time, while freelancing and growing in her craft. She finds motivation in looking back on her career journey and seeing how much she has grown and improved. She adds that “I recognise my dedication, and it motivates me to learn new ways to excel”.
Mapeshoane discovered her love of art in general in primary school. “I won my first award in grade 3 from a competition I had entered where we had to draw our ideas of how the new building for a specified company would look. My mother’s office would be where I’d spend my weekends drawing and creating stories that never really ended. I’d keep writing and writing,” she bursts out laughing.
When she isn’t working on her next creative project, she enjoys spending time in nature, hiking, or simply relaxing by a fountain, which is where she is happiest. She draws inspiration from the natural colours and sounds and is a firm believer that we all need time to reconnect to feed our creativity.
Mapeshoane is looking forward to working with augmented and virtual reality in the City.
“There are plans that are currently in motion to have virtual museums and augmented exhibitions that will be accessible to the world at large,” she adds, while not revealing too much.
Written by Brümilda Swartbooi
30/08/2022