Adrian Van Wyk
Adrian Van Wyk is a Cape Town-based artist, filmmaker, and cultural historian working at the intersection of documentary and fiction film, installation art, and creative research. He holds an MA in History from Stellenbosch University, where his dissertation, From Jamaica to the Cape Flats: Reflecting on the Manifestations of a Cape Town Hip Hop Culture, explored the diasporic influence of Hip Hop and its role in shaping cultural life in Cape Town. Building on this foundation, Adrian is currently co-directing and producing Notes From The Underground, a feature documentary supported by the South African National Film and Video Foundation. The film extends his ongoing interest in cultural practices and memory work.
A recognised Mail & Guardian Top 200 Young South African in Arts and Culture, Adrian collaborates with artists and cultural workers to build platforms that support collective expression and interdisciplinary storytelling. In 2023, he researched and produced What The Soil Remembers, a short documentary that premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and won the Ammodo Tiger Short Award. The film also won Best International Short Documentary at the Regina International Film Festival, Best Short Documentary at the 30th Ningbo Short Film Festival in China, and the Critics’ Choice Award at the Siberian International Film Festival. That same year, he was selected as an artist-in-residence at the Singapore Art Museum, where he presented an installation as part of Singapore Art Week. In 2024, Adrian produced Flores (Flowers), which premiered at Sheffield DocFest and won the International Short Film Competition.
Adrian continues to collaborate with long-time partners, Jirafica – a film collective based in Cuenca, Ecuador – with whom he has developed award-winning work grounded in anti-colonial, surrealist, and transnational approaches to filmmaking. His broader practice includes installations with The Black Archive and other creative research interventions that engage with historical memory and ancestral knowledge systems. Adrian remains committed to remixing the archive and challenging dominant narratives through collaborative storytelling approaches.