The Owl House and Camel Yard represent South Africa’s foremost example of outsider art.The Owl House and Camel yard were created by Helen Martins and her assistants, mostnotably, Koos Malgas; and became well-known after the internationally recognised AtholFugard play, ‘The Road to Mecca’ in 1984, a play that is still performed worldwide. It wasafter this play that visitors started looking for the Owl House. Helen Martins is internationallyrecognised as one of the top ten female and top 13 outsider artists in the world and the OwlHouse has become a significant tourist destination for the Eastern Cape and South Africa.The Owl House, Camel Yard and context of Nieu-Bethesda form a coherent unity andcannot be considered separately. On the property is the concrete manifestation of thestrange and unique world that outsider artist Helen Martins and her assistants (mostprominent among them, Koos Malgas) created. The site also acknowledges the role thatKoos Malgas played in the making of the sculptures and the collaboration which he sharedwith Ms. Martins and stands a testament to artistic practice during a time where this sort ofcollaboration between members of different race groups which was not encouraged.
