I arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, about 4 days before our Mandela event as the “Lone Ranger” from Circle Up Now, as the rest of my team was in Athens, Greece, and Los Angeles, California, creating the aerial artwork for Amnesty’s Global Day of Action. As Associate Producer, it was my responsibility to make sure everything was on track and to work with the schools and partner organizations on behalf of my team.



I had a lot of work to do in the first few days to prep, but I truly had mixed emotions about being there without the rest of my team. I was excited about experiencing South Africa, but I was a little nervous too — about being on my own in a place where a number of violent crimes had been recently highlighted in the news. This was the farthest I have ever been from the United States, and it was definitely the longest flight I have ever taken! It was winter in South Africa during our summer in the States, so I knew that weather would be dramatically different, but I was not sure what to anticipate otherwise.



Helping me to feel welcome and at home almost immediately was our on-site producer, Samantha Skyring, who was brought on to handle local logistics leading up to the event. Her involvement added far more than this however, as she operates another non-profit called Twenty Thousand Drums, which brings cultural drumming back into communities that was banned during apartheid. We plan to incorporate this cultural drumming into the image and ceremony of the event day. Samantha and I attended meetings with Action Aid to plan out final logistics and make arrangements for press.

I also met and worked with Barbara King, who arranged for the local artist, Mntunzi, who was composing the official sketch for the aerial artwork.

The day before the event was the busiest day of pre-production. We began early in the morning with in-school briefings to prep the participating students and teachers of Kwebekilanga and East Bank High schools. We informed them of what the day would look like and how it would run, as well as enrolled them in the purpose of getting out there and making this statement together.

Our Aerial Art Director, John Quigley arrived with our program coordinator, Onyay Pheori, later that afternoon. We revisited the schools with John to let him explain the artform to the students. I was able to capture their excitement on film as they sang and chanted for Mandela (also known as Mediba).



At the end of the student meetings we recruited 10 student volunteers, who were strong in math, to be our “aerial art team.” These students went down to the cricket pitch with John and Mntunzi and worked for hours to set-up the lines for the circle and mapped out the grid for the artwork, as I facilitated the fencing necessary to enclose the heli-pad as well as some other early logistics. We finished the day as the sun set on the side of the cricket pitch, overlooking Alexandra, excited about the next day’s events!