Some buildings in the Cape Town City Bowl got a colourful facelift as artists locally and internationally added multi-story massive public artworks to the skyline of the Cape Town CBD during the International Public Art Festival (Ipaf).
The sixth edition of the Ipaf was held in the City Bowl for the first time from Wednesday 23 to Sunday 27 February.
Africa’s largest street art festival hosted by urban art non-governmental organisation (NGO) Baz-Art is themed “humanity”, with the goal of focusing on connection and community.
Alexander Tilmans, co-founder and owner of Baz-Art, says 19 artists, 11 local and seven international artists, painted 11 murals on Bree Street, Loop Street, Castle and Commercial street.
“A core aspect of the event is the immersive street art tours, which serve a dual purpose of getting the public closer to the artists and their works and supporting local tour guides. The goal is to create conversation. We are an organisation that supports artists for the freedom of speech and create that platform to engage conversation.”
Dennis Molewa, host of Ipaf 2022 and communications manager at Baz-Art, says the festival aimed to provide a boost for Cape Town’s recovering tourism industry.
“This year, visitors will get a chance to experience three different street art tours within the centre of Cape Town, two guided tours and a self-guided tour. All profits generated from our street art tours go directly to the tour guides as well as tips.”
Sheldon Peinke, Cape Town tour guide, says the tours enable international visitors to speak to South African artists and discover the meaning behind the murals. This is intended to create a feeling of connection and community, encouraging more people to partake and invest in the city and country.
This year artists added to the 133 large-scale murals that have been created throughout parts of the city. Baz-Art has also installed over 400 murals in Observatory, Woodstock and Salt River among other areas.
Isaac Zavale, an artist from Johannesburg, says this was his debut in the Ipaf. He says his art piece pays homage to women and creates awareness of gender-based violence (GBV). “The artwork that he created is a figure of a woman with a table on top. It’s dedicated to women because the city is called the Mother City, so for me it made sense to do a woman figure and raising awareness about the value of women.”
Another artist who made her debut is Jemma “little Jemms” Bortz. She says: “It’s a real privilege to be here and it’s an honour to be chosen among some really incredible artists. I feel really lucky.”
Ian McMahon, Ward 115 councillor, says the City is proud to continue its partnership with Baz-Art for the sixth edition of the Ipaf.
“Over the last six years, the festival has played an important role in beautifying public spaces in our city with large-scale murals, while also providing a platform for local artists to express their talent. In this period, when the tourism industry is steadily recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Public Arts Festival is contributing to this revival by hosting tours with local tour guides. We are also thrilled that the festival will also extend to the CBD which forms part of the City’s broader economic recovery plan.”
For the first time the Ipaf also saw the National Public Arts Conference, which was hosted parallel to the festival. It offered a unique opportunity for professionals, the public and aspiring artists to connect and exchange future-orientated ideas, knowledge and skills.
Tilmans says it consisted of six educational roundtable panels and open discussions, which were open to the public.
He says: “These roundtable discussions are designed for leaders in the creative sector to come together and reflect on opportunities that exist or can be created through public art.
“Topics like Art in the digital age, Public art and Urbanism, The State of the Arts: Considering South Africa’s Arts Institution, NFTs, Cryptocurrency and Marketing Digital Art and The Link between Arts and Youth Development were discussed.“
Tilmans says in future they hope to provide more support to artists.
“We realise more and more that street art is used in social media and artists are not benefiting from that. The goal is to bridge that gap a little better so that the artists can also benefit from the exposure we get and from the talks that are generated by the art and the murals that they’re putting up.”
He adds that people should continue supporting artists.
“People can support artists by recognising what they are doing is art. By recognising that art creates conversation and beautiful frescos. If people have houses or warehouses or a building they would like to repaint or have illustrations there, artists can do that.”
