Look Behind the Scenes at 21Icons Portrait of Mandela

Take a look at this moving behind-the-scenes footage of the shooting of the first #21ICONS portrait, featuring South Africa’s former President Nelson Mandela, in which Mandela admits he never thought he would ever leave prison. Scroll down for Video.

The 21 Icons Global Project is the brainchild of an award-winning Australian photographer and film-maker, Adrian Steirn. It is a visual celebration and intimate personal chronicle of the most iconic men and women of the 21st century.

After growing up in Australia, playing Marco Polo in the swimming pool (where one child with eyes shut shouts ‘Marco’ and the others shout ‘Polo’ so he can blindly try to catch them), Adrian was sitting one day at Bakoven in Cape Town where he saw children of different races playing a similar game in the water below…but the first child was shouting ‘Nelson’ and the reply was ‘Mandela’.

Adrian wondered then if “South Africans playing a game of Marco Polo thirty years ago could have ever envisaged a mixed race game of Nelson Mandela with the joyful abandon of these two tiny protagonists.”

It led him to wonder whether Mandela truly envisaged what he had created in his fight for freedom. Most certainly he would be aware of the new democracy he created, but “did he ever think that a generation of children would embrace him in the simplest of games without question or murmur.

“His bridging of the gap between freedom fighter, father of a nation and most iconic person in our world had transcended into popular children’s culture,” says Adrian.

And that realisation made Adrian wonder “how many other icons of our world had passed through unnoticed?” He decided then that these icons should be celebrated while they are still living, still a part of society’s tapestry, “part of a lesson learnt, a comforting reminder of our humanity.”

The results of Adrian’s 21 Icons Global Project can be viewed on SABC 3 on Sunday evenings.

VIEW VIDEO OF BEHIND THE SCENES WITH NELSON MANDELA, #21ICONS