Voting Line sculpture – a symbol of the1994 elections

WWhen you walk around the base of the giant sculpture at the Donkin Reserve in central Port Elizabeth, you find yourself almost being part of one of those legendary voting queues.

It's a 38m-long metal sculpture of South Africans – of all shapes and sizes – connected together to make what is simply entitled the Voting Line. To give it that distinct coastal flavour, there are even a couple of black metal seagulls hovering about the voters' heads. At the end of the queue is a metal cut-out of Nelson Mandela standing tall and victorious, his fist in the air.

This unusual tribute to South Africans and their charismatic talisman is but one of a number of artworks recently set up at the Donkin Reserve as part of the Mandela Bay Development Agency's (MBDA) urban revitalisation project.

TThe Mandela figure is actually the new logo for the Nelson Mandela Foundation's Madiba Trust, who gave permission to the MBDA for the Voting Line artists, Anthony Harris and Konrad Geel, to incorporate it into their work.

The Donkin Reserve is a public park proclaimed by the founder of Port Elizabeth, Sir Rufane Donkin. Besides the new artworks spread about the park, the most remarkable item is the Donkin Memorial, opposite the lighthouse. It's a pyramid-shaped structure built in honour of Donkin's wife, Elizabeth. He loved her so much he named the city after her.

The Voting Line sculpture now completes the historical timeline of Port Elizabeth, with the Donkin Reserve celebrating both the founding of the city and the founding of a new South Africa.

It also forms part of the MBDA's Route 67 initiative, a public display of 67 pieces of art celebrating each year that Nelson Mandela gave to public life and the people of South Africa.