Carol (Baker) Hofmeyr is a humanitarian and fine artist with a background in medicine. She views healing in the broadest sense, and her humanitarian work is grounded in a belief that there is alchemy where art and science meet. Before anything, she believes in equality and inclusivity.
Baker qualified with an MB Bch from Wits University in 1973. After working as a medical officer at Baragwanath Hospital and McCord Zulu Hospital in 1975, she moved to the (then) Transkei to become a medical officer at Holy Cross Mission Hospital. Between 1978 and 1988 she worked as a medical officer at Alexandra Clinic and at the Coronation Hospital (now Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital) paediatric developmental assessment clinic.
Pursuing her interest in the humanities, Baker later studied English and psychology through UNISA and fine art through Witwatersrand Technikon (now University of Johannesburg). In 1993 she graduated from Witwatersrand Technikon with a Higher Diploma in Fine Art and, between 1995 and 2000, worked on the Department of Arts and Culture Aids Awareness Campaign, using art as an educational tool.
In 2001, to help address problems of extreme poverty, learned helplessness and eroded self-esteem through lack of opportunity in the remote communities of Hamburg, Ntlini and Bodiam, Baker set up the Keiskamma Art Project (KAP) and began teaching art skills and embroidery to about 100 women and a few young men from the three villages. The Project has achieved international renown and KAP artworks have toured to many parts of the world. The iconic Keiskamma Altarpiece has been seen in the US, Canada, UK and Europe, while on exhibition in cathedrals in Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington State, Seattle, San Francisco, and London. The piece has also been exhibited in Hamburg, Germany and many cities in South Africa. KAP has been the subject of multiple academic publications and textbooks, has featured in South African school text books and matriculation examinations, and is documented in the book: The Keiskamma Art Project: Restoring hope and livelihoods by Prof Brenda Schmahmann (Print Matters Heritage, 2016).
In the same year, 2001, Baker founded the Keiskamma Health Programme. This initiative developed as a response to the poor health care in the community of Hamburg in 2001 and has grown to become a successful not-for-profit organisation (NPO) offering support to government programmes in the area and facilitating patient care where there are shortfalls in the state programmes. Prior to the start of the national HIV treatment program, the Health Programme provided in-patient care for AIDS patients who were ill and unable to travel and initiated treatment in these patients. Over 600 patients were initiated on ARVS and care was provided for the poorest people in the community who were infected and affected by the disease. Most of these patients would not have survived without these interventions.
In 2010, under Baker’s guidance, KAP produced a major work depicting community outrage at the slow management of HIV/AIDS and the health service in the Eastern Cape. This work was successfully exhibited at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (Makhanda) in June 2010. After its purchase by the Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) City Council, it was subsequently displayed at the Red Location Museum, Gqeberha, and later travelled to the Venice Architectural Biennale.
In 2004, Keiskamma Art Project became the flagship project of the overarching Keiskamma Trust. In addition to the art and health programmes, the Keiskamma Trust runs an education programme and the Keiskamma Music Academy, which has performed locally and internationally to high acclaim.
Baker became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, UK (FCP) in 2012 and in 2013 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the university currently known as Rhodes University, South Africa. She has also received the Eastern Cape Herald Citizen of the Year Award (2006); the Eastern Cape Premier’s Award for Art and Health (2006); the Shoprite Checkers / SABC 2 Award for Art, Culture and Communication (2007); and the Ellen Kuzwayo Award from the University of Johannesburg (2011).
As an artist Baker is known by the name Carol Hofmeyr. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in South Africa and abroad. Her work as part of the Keiskamma Art Project collective has also been documented in two SABC-commissioned documentary films by Miki Redelinghuys entitled Keiskamma: A Story of Love and Once upon a River. Keiskamma: A Story of Love was also broadcast on Al Jazeera.
