94-481: The Africa Centre , in Cape Town, South Africa , is structured as a not-for-profit organisation whose purpose is to provide a platform for Pan-African arts and cultural practice to function as a catalyst for social change. All the projects it conducts, facilitates or supports have some social intention. These projects are supported by a variety of Pan-African artists. The Africa Centre was formally established in 2004 as
188-515: A prison where people were isolated, banished, and exiled for nearly 400 years. It was also used as a leper colony, a post office, a grazing ground, a mental hospital, and an outpost. The Cape Peninsula is a rocky and mountainous peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the continent. At its tip is Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope . The peninsula forms
282-510: A severe water shortage from 2015 to 2018. According to Oxfam , "in the face of an imminent water shortage, the city of Cape Town in South Africa successfully reduced its water use by more than half in three years, cutting it from 1.2bn litres per day in February 2015 to 516m litres per day in 2018." In 2021 Cape Town also experienced a violent turf war between rival taxi firms which led to
376-407: A Non-Profit Section 21 Corporation by Tanner Methvin, Ralph Freese and Adrian Enthoven in Cape Town , South Africa. This group became the original board of directors. The process began, however, in 2003, with the creation of a land development policy framework, a spatial planning analysis, a feasibility study and a financial model devised to determine possible directions and potential support for
470-597: A decentralised approach to project creation and manifestation throughout Africa and its Diaspora. The artist in residency programme is a collaboration with residencies in Australia, Brazil , Ethiopia , Finland , Netherlands , South Africa, Turkey and the United States of America in which the Africa Centre conducts an Africa-wide search for 13 (previously 10) artists each year, across disciplines, to participate in one of
564-603: A few other towns. Industry and commerce is largely in service of the area. After the Cape Peninsula, Helderberg is the next most mountainous part of Greater Cape Town, bordered to the north and east by the highest peaks in the region along the watershed of the Helderberg and Hottentots Holland Mountains, which are part of the Cape Fold Belt with Cape Supergroup strata on a basement of Tygerberg Formation rocks intruded by part of
658-671: A flood of immigration into South Africa. In 1895 the city's first public power station, the Graaff Electric Lighting Works , was opened. Conflicts between the Boer republics in the interior and the British colonial government resulted in the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. Britain's victory in this war led to the formation of a united South Africa. From 1891 to 1901, the city's population more than doubled from 67,000 to 171,000. As
752-404: A hothouse for avant-garde ideas, sewing original avenues for exchange and debate; a brain trust with the capacity to project manage, partner with other organisations, sponsor, curate and develop an archive of resources. It wants to be a curious citizen that is committed to social activism and a sustainable future, as well as has the capacity of art and cultural expression to enhance the full range of
846-532: A major gap at the Fish Hoek–Noordhoek valley. In the south much of the area is a low sandstone plateau with sand dunes. Maximum altitude is 1113 m on Table Mountain. The Cape Flats (Afrikaans: Kaapse Vlakte) is a flat, low-lying, sandy area, area to the east the Cape Peninsula, and west of the Helderberg much of which was wetland and dunes within recent history. To the north are the Tygerberg Hills and
940-503: A number of cities in Africa and beyond: Lubumbashi , Democratic Republic of the Congo ; Aba, Nigeria ; Touba, Senegal ; Karachi, Pakistan ; Dubai, UAE , and Guangzhou , China. Functioning as a triennial project, which started in 2008, its three-year thematic modules open ambits for exchange between participants and their audiences. The theme for the project is "Net/Works: Trans-Local Cultures in
1034-448: A number of satellite towns, suburbs and rural areas such as Atlantis , Bellville , Blouberg , Brackenfell , Durbanville , Goodwood , Gordon's Bay , Hout Bay , Khayelitsha , Kraaifontein , Kuilsrivier , Macassar , Melkbosstrand , Milnerton , Muizenberg , Noordhoek , Parow , Philadelphia , Simon's Town , Somerset West , and Strand among others. The Cape Peninsula is 52 km (30 mi) long from Mouille Point in
SECTION 10
#17331064464971128-461: A platform for exploring contemporary Pan-African artistic practice as a tool for social change. Infecting the City is an integral part of the city, challenging audiences to notice hidden spaces and perspectives of Cape Town and providing an arts and cultural voice in Africa, for Africans. The festival started as Infecting The City Performing Arts Festival in 2008 with a "singular aggressive aim – to infect
1222-567: A real Misplaced Pages evening of Africa's thought leaders. The Media component takes the benefits of the Live events to a broader audience by creating mini-documentaries of compelling participants from the Talking Heads live events. These mini-documentaries are filmed and edited in such a way as to bring to life the information and expertise present from Africa's thought leaders to the broadest pool of people possible. Cape Town, South Africa Cape Town
1316-406: A reference group of internationally recognised visual and performance artists, scholars and curators to determine the philosophical goals of the centre. The members of this group were: Over a period of 18 months, members of the group held several colloquia and workshops in Africa, North America and Europe. These meetings gave rise to a series of position papers focusing on the contextual framework,
1410-656: A strong wind from the south-east, known locally as the south-easter or the Cape Doctor , so called because it blows air pollution away. This wind is caused by a persistent high-pressure system over the South Atlantic to the west of Cape Town, known as the South Atlantic High , which shifts latitude seasonally, following the sun, and influencing the strength of the fronts and their northward reach. Cape Town receives about 3,100 hours of sunshine per year. Infecting
1504-694: Is the legislative capital of South Africa . It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa . It is the country's second-largest city, after Johannesburg , and the largest in the Western Cape . The city is part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality . The city is known for its harbour , its natural setting in the Cape Floristic Region , and for landmarks such as Table Mountain and Cape Point . In 2014, Cape Town
1598-518: Is the valley of the Steenbras River, in which the Steenbras Dam was built as a water supply for Cape Town. The dam has been supplemented by several other dams around the western Cape, some of them considerably larger. This is almost entirely a conservation area, of high biodiversity. Bellville , Brackenfell , Durbanville , Kraaifontein , Goodwood and Parow are a few of the towns that make up
1692-533: The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 . The city became the capital of the newly formed Cape Colony , whose territory expanded very substantially through the 1800s, partially as a result of numerous wars with the amaXhosa on the colony's eastern frontier. In 1833 slavery was abolished in the colony freeing over 5500 slaves in the city, almost a third of the city's population at the time. The Convict Crisis of 1849, marked by substantial civil upheaval, bolstered
1786-742: The Battle of Salt River , the Portuguese admiral Francisco de Almeida and sixty-four of his men were killed and his party was defeated by the "Goringhaiqua" in Dutch approximate spelling) using cattle that were specially trained to respond to whistles and shouts. The Gorinaiqua were one of the Khoikhoi clans who inhabited the area. In the late 16th century French, Danish, Dutch and English, but mainly Portuguese, ships regularly continued to stop over in Table Bay en route to
1880-695: The Cape Supergroup , of which parts of the Graafwater and Peninsula Formations remain, were uplifted between 280 and 21S million years ago, and were largely eroded away during the Mesozoic. The region was geologically stable during the Tertiary, which has led to slow denudation of the durable sandstones. Erosion rate and drainage has been influenced by fault lines and fractures, leaving remnant steep-sided massifs like Table Mountain surrounded by flatter slopes of deposits of
1974-672: The Far East . Jan van Riebeeck 's arrival on 6 April 1652 established the VOC Cape Colony , the first permanent European settlement in South Africa. Cape Town outgrew its original purpose as the first European outpost at the Castle of Good Hope , becoming the economic and cultural hub of the Cape Colony . Until the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the development of Johannesburg, Cape Town was
SECTION 20
#17331064464972068-496: The Fort de Goede Hoop (later replaced by the Castle of Good Hope ). The settlement grew slowly during this period, as it was hard to find adequate labour. This labour shortage prompted the local authorities to import enslaved people from Indonesia and Madagascar . Many of these people are ancestors of modern-day Cape Coloured and Cape Malay communities. Under Van Riebeeck and his successors, as VOC commanders and later governors at
2162-576: The Northern Suburbs of Cape Town. In current popular culture these areas are often referred to as being beyond the " boerewors curtain," a play on the term " iron curtain ." UNESCO declared Robben Island in the Western Cape a World Heritage Site in 1999. Robben Island is located in Table Bay, some 6 km (3.7 mi) west of Bloubergstrand, a coastal suburb north of Cape Town, and stands some 30m above sea level. Robben Island has been used as
2256-595: The Southern Suburbs , close to the mountains, rainfall is significantly higher and averages closer to 1,000 mm (39.4 in). Summer, which lasts from December to March, is warm and dry with an average maximum of 26 °C (79 °F) and minimum of 16 °C (61 °F). The region can get uncomfortably hot when the Berg Wind , meaning "mountain wind", blows from the Karoo interior. Spring and summer generally feature
2350-615: The Table Mountain group sandstones that were deposited on the eroded surface of the granite and Malmesbury series basement about 450 million years ago. The sand, silt and mud deposits were lithified by pressure and then folded during the Cape Orogeny to form the Cape Fold Belt , which extends in an arc along the western and southern coasts. The present landscape is due to prolonged erosion having carved out deep valleys, removing parts of
2444-562: The 19th century came to an end, the economic and political dominance of Cape Town in the Southern Africa region during the 19th century started to give way to the dominance of Johannesburg and Pretoria in the 20th century. In 1910, Britain established the Union of South Africa , which unified the Cape Colony with the two defeated Boer Republics and the British colony of Natal . Cape Town became
2538-521: The 2008 xenophobic violence. The artists were asked to look at human displacement, migration, immigration, refugees and identity. Named after the government department that processes immigrants to South Africa, "Home Affairs" had works on the programme that deepened audience understanding of these complex and often disturbing issues. For a week, Infecting the City transformed Cape Town into a cutting edge theatre featuring works from local and international artists. The programme included three artworks that were
2632-491: The Atlantic Ocean with significant precipitation and strong north-westerly winds. Winter months in the city average a maximum of 18 °C (64 °F) and minimum of 8.5 °C (47 °F). Winters are snow and frost free, except on Table Mountain and on other mountain peaks, where light accumulation of snow and frost can sometimes occur. Total annual rainfall in the city averages 515 mm (20.3 in) although in
2726-621: The Cape was considered a " Coloured labour preference area", to the exclusion of " Bantus ", i.e. Black Africans. The implementation of this policy was widely opposed by trade unions, civil society and opposition parties. It is notable that this policy was not advocated for by any Coloured political group, and its implementation was a unilateral decision by the apartheid government. During the student-led Soweto Uprising of June 1976, school students from Langa , Gugulethu and Nyanga in Cape Town reacted to
2820-464: The Cape, a wide range of agricultural plants were introduced to the Cape. Some of these, including grapes, cereals, ground nuts, potatoes, apples and citrus, had a large and lasting influence on the societies and economies of the region. With the Dutch Republic being transformed into Revolutionary France 's vassal Batavian Republic , Great Britain moved to take control of Dutch colonies, including
2914-472: The City Infecting the City is a public arts festival in. Cape Town , South Africa. The festival is committed to making art freely available to everyone. The festival hosts a range of different types of site-specific art , art intervention and performance art in the central part of the city. Each year the festival takes on a social issue or theme which the participating artists respond to. In 2011,
Africa Centre - Misplaced Pages Continue
3008-526: The Diaspora. Currently there are more than 100 poets featured. "(Its) intention is to platform who and what Africa has to say to itself and the rest of the world." Infecting the City is a public art festival held annually in the central business district of Cape Town . For a week each year, Infecting the City typically hosts three types of artworks: collaborative works, commissioned works, and audience interventions. These works are collectively presented free to
3102-513: The Festival worked with Cape Town's artistic and cultural community to present public art under the theme of Treasure. This theme was intended to celebrate the artistic traditions and contemporary practices of the diverse communities within South Africa and to explore Cape Town's "Afropolitan" reality. Infecting the city is presented by the Africa Centre , a non-for-profit organisation that creates
3196-582: The Indies. They traded tobacco, copper, and iron with the Khoikhoi clans of the region in exchange for fresh meat and other essential travelling provisions. In 1652, Jan van Riebeeck and other employees of the United East India Company ( Dutch : Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie , VOC) were sent to the Cape Colony to establish a way-station for ships travelling to the Dutch East Indies , and
3290-729: The Making of African Worlds." This theme is about cities and the art of the deal. Its starting point is an observation: cities in Africa today are crucibles of change, movement, imagination and visions for the future. Despite immense difficulties, not least of which massive infrastructural collapse, urban spaces across the continent are put to use by a wide variety of actors as mechanisms for constructing and renovating economies, cultures and selves. Through complex intersections of migration, commerce and related diasporic practices, they are emerging with increasing strength as platforms for cosmopolitan, highly prolific engagement by Africans with, through and across
3384-625: The Man is Next to the Road) and Tuning into the Void. ITC 2009 was held from 26 February until 2 March 2008. The theme for 2008: TIME The Spier Performing Arts Festival – Infecting the City – launched in Cape Town in February 2008 with the intention to "infect the city with performance that captures the complexities of our daily lives... The underlying intention is to feature works that bravely take on new ways of expression, of collaboration disciplines, and of integrating
3478-605: The Spier Arts Trust, the organisation which produced the Summer Season, discontinued the project. The Africa Centre, with funding from Spier, decided to continue the spirit of the Summer Season by creating a week-long performance art festival in the centre of Cape Town. Brett Bailey has curated the 2009, 2010 and 2011 iterations of the Infecting The City Festival. Jay Pather curated the festival in 2012 In 2010
3572-617: The Spier Contemporary were to: Create a large-scale national exhibition, which genuinely reflects the diversity of the visual and performance arts community living in South Africa; Develop new audiences and markets for artists, which do not normally have access to 30,000+ potential buyers; Access new audiences and develop their respective appreciation of a spectrum of artistic forms; and Provide training and development for visual and performing artists and curators. The inaugural 2008 exhibition received over 2,500 artists submissions from around
3666-588: The Stellenbosch district. The Helderberg area of Greater Cape Town, previously known as the "Hottentots-Holland" area, is mostly residential, but also a wine-producing area east of the Cape Flats, west of the Hottentots Holland mountain range and south of the Helderberg mountain, from which it gets its current name. The Helderberg consists of the previous municipalities of Somerset West, Strand, Gordons Bay and
3760-566: The Stellenbosch granite pluton. The region includes the entire catchment of the Lourens and Sir Lowry's rivers, separated by the Schapenberg hill, and a small part of the catchment of the Eerste River to the west. The Helderberg is ecologically highly diverse, rivaling the Cape Peninsula, and has its own endemic ecoregions and several conservation areas. To the east of the Hottentots Holland mountains
3854-630: The Western Cape province. The official boundaries of the city proper extend between the City Bowl and the Atlantic Seaboard to the east and the Southern Suburbs to the south. The City of Cape Town , the metropolitan municipality that takes its name from the city covers the Greater Cape Town metropolitan area , known as the Cape Metropole, extending beyond the city proper itself to include
Africa Centre - Misplaced Pages Continue
3948-528: The Wishing Wall), as well as discussion forums (The Right to Respond. Participating artists came from Cape Town, Johannesburg, Grahamstown, Zimbabwe, China, UK, Greece, Germany, USA, Australia and the Netherlands. ITC 2009 was held on Saturday, 21 February until Friday, 27 February. The theme for 2009 was: HOME AFFAIRS . In 2009, Infecting the City asked artists to grapple with the national tensions revealed in
4042-509: The Zamanani Brothers. The programme was curated by Iain Harris. ITC 2010 was held from 13 to 20 February. The theme for 2010 was HUMAN RITE , which investigates the role of rites and rituals as tools for transformation and healing. The 2010 Festival was oriented around the theme Human Rite and asked artists to take a deep look at the dynamics of Cape Town society and to "creatively envision
4136-456: The area, arrived in 1488 and named it "Cape of Storms" ( Cabo das Tormentas ). It was later renamed by John II of Portugal as " Cape of Good Hope " ( Cabo da Boa Esperança ) because of the great optimism engendered by the opening of a sea route to the Indian subcontinent and East Indies . In 1497, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama recorded a sighting of the Cape of Good Hope. In 1510, at
4230-531: The balcony of Cape Town City Hall , hours after being released on 11 February 1990. His speech heralded the beginning of a new era for the country. The first democratic election , was held four years later, on 27 April 1994. Nobel Square in the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront features statues of South Africa's four Nobel Peace Prize winners: Albert Luthuli , Desmond Tutu , F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela . Cape Town has undergone significant changes in
4324-556: The best governed province and city in the country. Of South Africa's 257 municipalities, only 38 received a clean financial audit in 2022 from the Auditor-General . Of those, 21 were in the Western Cape. The city's economy has diversified, with growth in sectors such as finance, real estate, and tourism. The establishment of the City Centre Improvement District (CCID) has been particularly successful in revitalizing
4418-507: The city center, bringing businesses and people back into the area. This initiative has transformed public spaces such as Greenmarket Square , Company's Garden , and St George's Mall, attracting both locals and tourists. In 2014, Cape Town was named World Design Capital of the Year. Cape Town was voted the best tourist destination in Africa at the 2023 World Travel Awards in Dubai and continues to be
4512-509: The city centre. The legacy of Apartheid means Cape Town remains one of the most racially segregated cities in South Africa. Many Black South Africans continue to live in informal settlements with limited access to basic services such as healthcare, education, and sanitation. The unemployment rate remains high at 23% (though nearly 10 points lower than the nationwide average), particularly among historically disadvantaged groups, and economic opportunities are unevenly distributed. Cape Town faced
4606-465: The city with performance that captures the complexities of our daily lives". The Festival was born to migrate some of the experiences of the now-disbanded Spier Summer Season on the Spier Wine Farm to the central part of Cape Town. The annual Spier Summer Season first started in 1996 and included diverse performances such as opera, comedy, poetry and music over a three-month period each year. In 2007,
4700-511: The city. Strand was a series of performance pieces that wove together the stories of Cape Town as a port. It took place twice daily on the Cape Town Station. Invisible Gold , Urban Diamonds and the Number 1 Unexpected Undercover Agency were artworks who differently looked at the people who make the city work. Relics of Place and Watermarks highlighted the waste of spring water flowing off
4794-625: The collaborating residencies. The programme has been conceived to support artists from Africa who are provocative, innovative, relevant and highly engaged with both social issues and their art forms. Badilisha Poetry X-Change is a platform dedicated to showcasing poetry from Africa and the Diaspora. It is the only podcasting platform in the world dedicated to Pan-African poets. The Badilisha project started with live events in 2006 hosting 1–2 poetry festivals per year. Badilisha Poetry Radio launched on 30 April 2010 and presents new voices and poetic genres through its weekly podcasts of poets from Africa and
SECTION 50
#17331064464974888-399: The colonial possessions of the VOC. Britain captured Cape Town in 1795 , but it was returned to the Dutch by treaty in 1803. British forces occupied the Cape again in 1806 following the Battle of Blaauwberg when the Batavian Republic allied with Britain's rival, France, during the Napoleonic Wars . Following the conclusion of the war Cape Town was permanently ceded to the United Kingdom in
4982-419: The country, exhibited 95 artists in Cape Town and Johannesburg and hosted 25,000 visitors. The 2010 exhibition received over 2,700 artists submissions, exhibited 101 artists, attracted over 20.000 people in Cape Town. The winning artworks selected as part of the competition in 2010 toured four cities in South Africa and attracted 23,000 people. Talking Heads is a multi–layered, knowledge-sharing platform that
5076-414: The deaths of 83 people. Since the 2010s, Cape Town and the wider Western Cape province have seen the rise of a small secessionist movement . Support for parties "which have formally adopted Cape independence" was around 5% in the 2021 municipal elections . Cape Town is located at latitude 33.55° S (approximately the same as Sydney and Buenos Aires and equivalent to Casablanca and Los Angeles in
5170-406: The east and joins the peninsula to the mainland. The Cape Town region is characterised by an extensive coastline, rugged mountain ranges, coastal plains and inland valleys. The extent of Cape Town has varied considerably over time. It originated as a small settlement at the foot of Table Mountain and has grown beyond its city limits as a metropolitan area to encompass the entire Cape Peninsula to
5264-607: The entire bottom of False Bay exposed. During this period an extensive system of dunes was formed on the sandy floor of False Bay. At this time the drainage outlets lay between Rocky Bank Cape Point to the west, and between Rocky Bank and Hangklip Ridge to the east, with the watershed roughly along the line of the contact zone east of Seal Island and Whittle Rock. Cape Town has a warm summer Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csb ), with mild, moderately wet winters and dry, warm summers. Winter, which lasts from June to September, may see large cold fronts entering for limited periods from
5358-428: The eroded material overlaying the older rocks, There are two internationally notable landmarks, Table Mountain and Cape Point , at opposite ends of the Peninsula Mountain Chain, with the Cape Flats and False Bay to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The landscape is dominated by sandstone plateaux and ridges, which generally drop steeply at their margins to the surrounding debris slopes, interrupted by
5452-502: The festival changed its name to Infecting the City Public Arts festival to incorporate visual art, public interventions and to better reflect what the Festival represented. Public art has traditionally functioned to popularise art – to challenge the elitist art culture of the galleries and bring art into the streets. Today, public art attempts to respond to the flexibility and cross-disciplinary nature of contemporary art practice combining artistic vision and community values. Public art offers
5546-503: The globe. SPARCK through the lens of various artistic projects explores, debates, and manifests new ways of understanding this theme. The Spier Contemporary has been produced twice, both as an exhibition and as a competition in 2008 and 2010. It was conceived to provide a platform for South African visual and performance artists in every kind of medium, from the more traditional, such as painting and sculpture, to performance art and new media installations, to show their work, uncompromised by
5640-441: The human experience. As the vision developed it became clear that constructing an iconic building to house its projects was both counterproductive and counterintuitive. The Africa Centre's aspiration to work with and in a Pan-African context makes the creation of ideas and content in one city in South Africa impossible. By 2007 the Africa Centre decided that it would no longer seek to build a physical Centre, but instead would develop
5734-416: The initiative. At this time it was envisioned that the Africa Centre would be housed in an iconic building in South Africa as part of a broader housing development called the South Bank. This development was intended to create a model of sustainable living that combined mixed income, mixed use and was modelled on strict ecological principles. While the building planning was being developed, the board appointed
SECTION 60
#17331064464975828-468: The kind of society that we want to live in". The artists were invited "to ask: What cries out for transformation or healing? Who needs to be included in the social fabric of the City?; and how do we amplify and liberate the energy of the CBD? The artists confronted Cape Town's collective demons and to put them to rest, to seek out silent memories and invisible stories, and to validate them, to look for what needs to be righted, and 'rited'. To broaden and deepen
5922-486: The largest city in southern Africa. The metropolitan area has a long coastline on the Atlantic Ocean , which includes False Bay, and extends to the Hottentots Holland mountains to the east. The Table Mountain National Park is within the city boundaries and there are several other nature reserves and marine-protected areas within, and adjacent to, the city, protecting the diverse terrestrial and marine natural environment. The earliest known remnants of human occupation in
6016-407: The legislative capital of the Union, and later of the Republic of South Africa . By the time of the 1936 census , Johannesburg had overtaken Cape Town as the largest city in the country. In 1945 the expansion of the Cape Town foreshore was completed adding an additional 194 ha (480 acres) to the City Bowl area to the city centre. Prior to the mid-twentieth century, Cape Town was one of
6110-501: The limitations of technology, space and access. Artists in South Africa often work under extremely varied conditions and see the world from radically different perspectives. These differences shape the countries collective identity and unique social and cultural landscape. The Spier Contemporary has provided a platform for exploring South Africa's diversity, giving audiences insights into its complexity and thus contributing to South Africa's understanding of difference. The core objectives of
6204-400: The most important tourist destination in the country. Cape Town has been named the best travel city in the world every year since 2013 in the Telegraph Travel Awards. The legacy of apartheid's spatial planning is still evident, with significant disparities between affluent areas and impoverished townships . 60% of the city's population live in townships and informal settlements far from
6298-638: The most racially integrated cities in South Africa. In the 1948 national elections , the National Party won on a platform of apartheid (racial segregation) under the slogan of " swart gevaar " (Afrikaans for "black danger"). This led to the erosion and eventual abolition of the Cape's multiracial franchise . In 1950, the apartheid government first introduced the Group Areas Act , which classified and segregated urban areas according to race. Formerly multi-racial suburbs of Cape Town were either purged of residents deemed unlawful by apartheid legislation, or demolished. The most infamous example of this in Cape Town
6392-540: The mountain and into the sea. The Treasurers included Peter Aerschmann, Doung Dala, Catherine Henegan, Nadine Hutton, Jethro Louw, Mafuta Ink, Owen Manamela, Anthea Moys, Myer Taub, Athina Vahla and Caron von Zeil. Slices of Life was the title for the Festival's focus on eco waste. Eight environmental artists from Cape Town and Johannesburg ( Igshaan Adams , Simon Max Banister, James Clayton, Hannelie Coetzee , Brendhan Dickerson, Heath Nash, Usha Seejarim, Nomthunzi Mashalaba ) transformed recyclable garbage into artwork, with
6486-430: The mountain. To the immediate south of the city, the Cape Peninsula is a scenic mountainous spine jutting 40 km (25 mi) southward into the Atlantic Ocean and terminating at Cape Point . There are over 70 peaks above 300 m (980 ft) within Cape Town's official metropolitan limits . Many of the city's suburbs lie on the large plain called the Cape Flats , which extends over 50 km (30 mi) to
6580-399: The news of the protests against Bantu Education by organising gatherings and marches of their own. A number of school buildings were burnt down and the protest action was met with forceful resistance from the police. Cape Town has been home to many leaders of the anti-apartheid movement . In Table Bay , 10 km (6 mi) from the city is Robben Island . This penitentiary island was
6674-432: The north to Cape Point in the south, with an area of about 470 km (180 sq mi), and it displays more topographical variety than other similar sized areas in southern Africa, and consequently spectacular scenery. There are diverse low-nutrient soils, large rocky outcrops, scree slopes, a mainly rocky coastline with embayed beaches, and considerable local variation in climatic conditions. The sedimentary rocks of
6768-498: The northern hemisphere) and longitude 18.25° E. Table Mountain , with its near vertical cliffs and flat-topped summit over 1,000 m (3,300 ft) high, and with Devil's Peak and Lion's Head on either side, together form a dramatic mountainous backdrop enclosing the central area of Cape Town, the so-called City Bowl . A thin strip of cloud, known colloquially as the "tablecloth" ("Karos" in Afrikaans ), sometimes forms on top of
6862-450: The once continuous Table Mountain Group sandstone cover from over the Cape Flats and False Bay, and leaving high residual mountain ridges. At times the sea covered the Cape Flats and Noordhoek valley and the Cape Peninsula was then a group of islands. During glacial periods the sea level dropped to expose the bottom of False Bay to weathering and erosion, with the last major regression leaving
6956-408: The opportunity to challenge its audiences, breach boundaries, and shift the perspectives of public space. It is this vision of public art that the Festival aspires to. Over the years the number of artists participating and audience attending has steadily grown with the 2011 Festival including 314 artists whose artworks were seen by over 25,000 people. Each festival is based around a theme. Each year,
7050-527: The potential audiences and the content of the Africa Centre, its architectural form and the programs expected to be developed over the next five years. What emerged from the work of the reference group and the Board was an intention to create an organisation that could innovate, lead, challenge and transcend its geographical reality; to draw in new and wider audiences to novel experiences that recalibrate how we perceive and locate our society and ourselves. The intention
7144-534: The project is to embrace the lineages that shape music-making on and from Africa and to challenge the stereotypes associated with music from this continent. This project is not about connecting with African roots; it ls about exploring African cosmopolitanism in the 21st century through music. SPARCK is a Pan-African initiative of experimental multi-disciplinary residencies, workshops, symposia, exhibitions, publications and performances centred on innovative, ethically driven approaches to urban space. The project involves
7238-475: The public in the communal spaces City. Since inception in 2008 it has been experienced by more than 50,000 people, has included 814 local and international artists, and has showcased 81 different productions. This project attempts to stake a claim to what African music is and can be. The Pan-African Space Station (PASS) includes an annual 30-day musical intervention through a free-form radio station and in unexpected venues across greater Cape Town. The idea behind
7332-542: The purpose of drawing attention to valuable materials that most of us consider to be 'rubbish' and subsequently dispose of. The Music Gems featured nine musical groups on a stage on the forecourt of Cape Town Station. Each group came from a different community and represented a different culture that lives in Cape Town: Delta Soetstemme, Loit Sols, Congolese Car Guard Quartet, Mac MacKenzie's Goema Symphony, Spaza Hip-Hop, Teiko Drumming, Zimbabwe's Madzishe, and
7426-469: The push for self-governance in the Cape. With expansion came calls for greater independence from the UK, with the Cape attaining its own parliament (1854) and a locally accountable Prime Minister (1872). Suffrage was established according to the non-racial Cape Qualified Franchise . During the 1850s and 1860s, additional plant species were introduced from Australia by the British authorities. Notably rooikrans
7520-525: The region were found at Peers Cave in Fish Hoek and have been dated to between 15,000 and 12,000 years old. Various Khoikhoi groups notably the Gorinaiqua lived on these lands for thousands of years. Khoikhoi communities were some of the wealthiest groups in Africa and their lands and cattles would go on to build colonial Cape Town and the rest of South Africa. Bartolomeu Dias . Dias, the first European to reach
7614-409: The result of the six-week Collaborative Course where twelve artists from South Africa, SADC countries and beyond SADC borders shared diverse skills and created artworks relating to the festival theme. Amakwerekwere, Exile and Limbo were the artworks that resulted from this process. Commissioned works included An Histrionic, Call Cutta in a Box, Eyton Road, Incwaba Lendoda Lise Cankwe Ndelela (The Grave of
7708-479: The site of a maximum security prison where many famous apartheird-era political prisoners served long prison sentences. Famous prisoners include activist, lawyer and future president Nelson Mandela who served 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment on the island, as well as two other future presidents, Kgalema Motlanthe and Jacob Zuma . In one of the most famous moments marking the end of apartheid, Nelson Mandela made his first public speech since his imprisonment, from
7802-610: The south, the Cape Flats , the Helderberg basin and part of the Steenbras catchment area to the east, and the Tygerberg hills, Blouberg and other areas to the north. Robben Island in Table Bay is also part of Cape Town. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and False Bay to the south. To the north and east, the extent is demarcated by boundaries of neighbouring municipalities within
7896-686: The theme refers to a social issue that is applicable to all and makes both the artists and the audience look at these social issues in new and transformative ways. ITC 2011 was curated with the theme of TREASURE . The theme allowed artists to make art that highlighted the treasures from the city that the audience did not know of or had forgotten about. These treasures were then presented in four categories – cultural jewels, music gems, environmental waste and historic treasures. The categories were named: The Jewels, City Treasurers, Slices of Life and Music Gems. The festival opened on Monday, 21 February 2011 and lasted until Saturday, 26 February. The Festival Hub
7990-446: The way we experience the world we live in and to celebrate our fundamental human right to express who we are". The programme included installations that engage with Capetonians and visitors to Cape Town, choreographic works (Windows into a World, Dancing Jesus), large-scale collaborative performance art pieces (Imperfections, Meet Market, Quiet Emergency) and low key interventions (Grey Matter, Information People, Jump, Mandala for Healing,
8084-525: The west side of False Bay and the Cape Flats. On the east side are the Helderberg and Hottentots Holland mountains. The three main rock formations are the late- Precambrian Malmebury group (sedimentary and metamorphic rock), the Cape Granite suit, comprising the huge Peninsula, Kuilsrivier-Helderberg, and Stellenbosch batholiths, that were intruded into the Malmesbury Group about 630 million years ago, and
8178-479: The years since Apartheid. Cape Town has experienced economic growth and development in the post-apartheid era. The city has become a major economic hub in South Africa, attracting international investment and tourism. The Democratic Alliance (DA), a liberal political party which came to power in Cape Town in 2006, has been credited with improving bureaucratic efficiency, public safety and fostering economic development. Opinion polls show that South Africans see it as
8272-541: Was at the Cape Town Station forecourt, but public arts events occurred every day at different public spaces around the city. The Jewels consisted of 15 local community groups that displayed a ritual, rite or cultural practice. The Jewels ranged from Rieldans to Drum Majorettes, from Xhosa Stick-fighting to Ratiep , and from opera and ballet to the Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony. Each of the 15 cultural gems
8366-561: Was choreographed, by five theatre makers: Peter Hayes, Natalie Fisher, Fiona du Plooy, Celeste Botha and Sensei Ndlovu. The Jewels were performed on locally crafted Jewel Boxes (stages) twice a day. The Jewel Route led the audience from Jewel Box to Jewel Box through the city centre. There were 3 different Jewel Routes during the festival week. The City Treasurers section was made up of well known visual and performance artists who used artistic interventions, performance pieces or public art to draw attention to historic or contemporary treasures in
8460-630: Was conceived to identify, showcase and expose Africa's thought leaders. It profiles the ideas, visions and manifestations of experts, mavericks and extraordinary people living in Africa. The project has multiple dimensions, but the two primary parts are Talking Heads Live and Media. The Live events are designed to provide participants with the opportunity to have an intimate 20-minute conversation (two audience members and one expert per table) with four different experts. Each event includes 40–50 experts ranging from cosmologists , economic forecasters , futurists , to sex worker activists and nuclear physicists ,
8554-600: Was introduced to stabilise the sand of the Cape Flats to allow for a road connecting the peninsula with the rest of the African continent and eucalyptus was used to drain marshes. In 1859 the first railway line was built by the Cape Government Railways and a system of railways rapidly expanded in the 1870s. The discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West in 1867, and the Witwatersrand Gold Rush in 1886, prompted
8648-567: Was named the best place in the world to visit by The New York Times , and was similarly ranked number one by The Daily Telegraph in both 2016 and 2023. Located on the shore of Table Bay , the City Bowl area of Cape Town is the oldest urban area in the Western Cape , with a significant cultural heritage. It was founded by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) as a supply station for Dutch ships sailing to East Africa , India , and
8742-486: Was the suburb of District Six . After it was declared a whites-only area in 1965, all housing there was demolished and over 60,000 residents were forcibly removed. Many of these residents were relocated to the Cape Flats . The earliest of the Cape Flats forced removals saw the expulsion of Black South Africans to the Langa , Cape Town's first and oldest township, in line with the 1923 Native Urban Areas Act . Under apartheid,
8836-431: Was to provide a space dedicated to the celebration, creation and performance of contemporary African artistic and intellectual expression. What was paramount was the recognition that this voice is the fruit of an ever-evolving conversation, argument and counter-argument. As such the Africa Centre aims to reflect this multiplicity of identity, be proactive as well reactive and always provocative. The Africa Centre strives to be
#496503