In 2017, Tayla Horn from the Fashion and Textiles department was named the Emma Smith Art Scholarship Award winner.
Horn was part of the nine students from the Faculty of Arts and Design that were competing for the R50 000 scholarship prize which can be used for various things to advance the winner’s career.
When introduced in 1920 by KwaZulu-Natal Sugar Industry Magnate Sir Charles Smith and named after his mother, Smith’s endowment was made in appreciation of the work of visionary Art School Head, John Adams.
The original intention of the scholarship was to allow winners to go overseas to study. The award has been extended to include a variety of purposes or projects proposed by the candidates. These include community-based workshops, further study in South Africa or the African continent and or solo exhibitions. The competition is open to students from the full range of design, visual and performing arts programmes offered at DUT. Members of the judging panel are drawn from leading practitioners in the various disciplines; nominated by heads of department.
From the outset when Horn joined the long list of recipients of the prestigious Emma Smith Art Scholarship Award she was adamant that she wanted to use her winnings towards her tuition fees at Central Saint Martins, which is a world-famous Arts and Design College, in London.
Three years later, she is currently studying at Central Saint Martins doing her second year of her Master of Arts in Material Futures Degree – an interdisciplinary course where design, technology and science are combined.
She said, “The Emma Smith Art Scholarship is an incredibly prestigious award that provides the necessary financial support as well as the encouragement to realise one’s creative vision. I will always be eternally grateful for this award because it gave me the start I needed to pursue my masters at Central Saint Martins.”
Horn’s journey to Central Saint Martins’ hasn’t been easy. In 2018 before she could enrol at the esteemed institution, a large portion of her tuition funding fell through which meant that she couldn’t proceed. However, she didn’t let that discourage her. She looked for a job, which she managed to find. That is how she saved for the amount she needed and in 2019 was accepted again and she was able to register.
“These challenges made me realise the importance of perseverance. At times it is tough to come to terms with the fact that there is no seamless path to any goal. My advice to anyone would be that there are always going to be times where you may be the only person who believes in your dream that is enough – you don’t need to convince or explain it to anyone else,” she said.
After completing her Masters Degree, Horn plans on pursuing a PhD because she believes that research and practice are disciplines that when combined both compliment and extend one another.
Nkosingiphile Dladla
