Basil Jones
| Artist Name: | Basil Jones |
| Nationality: | South African |
| Artist information: | Basil Jones (b. 1951, Kimberley) is a theatre director, writer, and producer, best known as co-founder, with Adrian Kohler, of the Handspring Puppet Company (1981). Trained in fine art at the University of Cape Town, Jones moved into experimental theatre as a means to explore political and social questions through performance during apartheid South Africa . Whereas Kohler focused on carving and design, Jones has been central to Handspring’s dramaturgy, writing, and collaborative vision. Together, Jones and Kohler have created a body of work that merges sculpture, text, and performance to investigate themes of human conflict, memory, and reconciliation. Their most celebrated production, War Horse (2007), achieved international acclaim for its emotional and technical innovation in puppetry. Jones’s intellectual and dramaturgical contributions underpin works such as Dogs of War (ca. 1993–94), now in the Constitutional Court Art Collection. While the physical carving was Kohler’s, the pair’s longstanding collaboration frames the piece as part of their joint creative language, investigating how puppets, as liminal objects, hold symbolic power. In the context of the Court, Dogs of War resonates with South Africa’s transition from apartheid, embodying a warning against the unleashing of destructive energies while affirming art’s role in dialogue and justice . By situating Dogs of War in the CCAC, Jones and Kohler extend their practice beyond the theatre stage into a civic space of memory and law, affirming the Court’s belief that art can both reflect and shape the democratic imagination. References
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