It might have taken a while, but finally your mother/brother/auntie/friend is coming around to the fact that you didn’t study medicine or accounting and that your creative career is here to stay. Perhaps you took them to Design Indaba recently and they realised that creativity is pretty hot in Cape Town right now. Now they want to get involved. What can your parents, siblings, friends and all your extended family, not to mention anyone else you might know, do to support the local creative industries?

1. Talk to your local politicians and councillors

Too often people assume that the creative industries are a “nice to have”. Actually, the economic advantages of robust creative industries are well documented across the world.

In 2008, the World Bank estimated that the combined creative industries represented 7% of employment with annual growth rates of 10% between 2000 and 2005 globally. Entailing jobs, exports and GDP, it is estimated that the global creative economy is growing annually at 5% and is likely to triple in size by 2020.

It’s not just sophisticated, high-tech developed countries who are finding a global market for their creative wares. In fact, creative industry exports from developing countries have grown at 10.4% annually – more than double the rate of those from the developed world at 4.4% annually. However, South Africa’s creative exports have only grown at an average rate of 5.26%.

So next time you have the opportunity to bend your politician’s ear, tell them about investing in South Africa’s creative industries to bolster the country’s economic growth and get our country up to speed with the 21st century creative economy. In fact, tweet Helen Zille or Patricia de Lille now!

2. Support The Fringe

One project that is endeavouring to fast-track the creative economy in the Western Cape is The Fringe, Cape Town’s design and innovation district. With the support of public and private partners, The Fringe is an area on the east side of the City of Cape Town that has been set aside for creativity-orientated development and advanced technological infrastructure. The strategy is to put creative businesses alongside each other in an effort to drive collaboration, cross-pollination, competitiveness and sheer volume.

Perhaps when you talk to your local politician or councillor, you can mention that The Fringe is a tangible, existing means of support. But there are other ways to support The Fringe too. If you are in the creative industries, consider relocating to the area, which offers a range of different spaces tailor-made for everyone from the one-person-show and small-team start-up to the established practice and commercial outlet.

If you are simply one of the creative industries’ highly valued fans, support The Fringe by dropping in for a cup of coffee at Oh! Café or one of the famous sandwiches at {Field Office}; catch a play at the Fugard Theatre or a gig at The Assembly; or simply hire one of the many resident creatives to design your company’s next brochure. Click here for a directory.

3. Use stock material as a last resort

Instead of using stock material, hire a local creative to produce your business and personal design and marketing materials. By spending just a little bit more to hire a young – or established – designer, photographer or whatever, you’ll be sure to have something that is truly unique and that you can use for life. And your brand will never be caught wearing the same outfit as another!

4. Support the creative pages in newspapers

People often complain about the shrinking size of arts and other creative supplements in newspapers. Fact is, newspapers are not public service announcements, but (mostly struggling) commercial businesses with their primary income being advertising. The page layout is based on a strict advertising to content ratio, so the amount of content is determined by the amount of advertising.

By insisting that your advertising appears in the pages of the arts and other creative supplements, newspapers have to allocate more space to these subjects and thus write more about them. Usually bundled with the movies and TV sections, your adverts are sure to get as many, if not more, eyeballs than any other section.

5. Be a locavore, not just in diet

When the Oxford Dictionary announced “locavore” as the word of the year in 2007, the word related primarily to buying and eating food from your immediate surroundings. Through this movement, people have since then realised the value of investing in their neighbourhood beyond the environment.

For instance, buying from the small gift shop that stocks unique South African knickknacks around the corner from you, rather than the generic centralised chain store, impacts the entire supply chain – from the shop owner to the South African artisan. By preserving these unique small businesses, it also maintains the aesthetic diversity of both the urban landscape and our personal home interiors, as well as encouraging entrepreneurship – vital to any industry vying for growth.

6. Give handmade

Possibly in retaliation to generic mass-production and Westernised cultural hegemony, there is currently a worldwide movement towards buying and giving handmade gifts. Of course, for South Africa’s traditional and independent craftspeople, this is great news. Use the Cape Craft and Design Institute product finder to source that perfect gift.

7. Wear South African fashion on Fridays

Supporting the South African fashion industry keeps your wardrobe local, often handmade, certainly more affordable, and fresh and exciting. Just like the greenies are asking that you go vegetarian one day a week, how about your wardrobe goes homegrown on Fridays? Support the Wear Only South African initiative.

8. Get out there

There is a creative industry related meeting, launch or event practically every day of the week in Cape Town. To name them all would be impossible, but do check out the Cape Town Design Network meetings, the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts series of lectures and events, the Cape Town Pecha Kucha presentations or send an email to YourWDC2014@capetown.gov.za to get notifications about upcoming World Design Capital 2014 gatherings.

9. Tell your friends

There’s nothing like pushing and pushing that boulder until it reaches tipping point and starts rolling of its own accord. To reach that point, we need to reach a critical mass of everyone talking about the power of the local creative industries and slowly everyone adopting these 10 steps. So be proud to tell your friends that you’re wearing only South African today and drag them along to coffee in The Fringe before you weigh in on a World Design Capital 2014 gathering in the evening.

10. Sign up and be in the know

With so much happening in Cape Town, we know it’s hard to keep up to date. So let us do it for you: follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook and sign up to our newsletter. And when you’re not just the recipient but the source of what’s happening, let us know!

Images: Local products on sale at The Fringe Handmade market, selecting gifts at the Handmade Market; Public art on Transformer 13; a wire artist creates a gift; a clothing tag from the Cape Town Fashion Council

Change is not easy, especially change that effects over 1 million shoppers on a monthly basis. In an effort to alleviate the strain of its restorations on shoppers, Cavendish Square ingeniously turned to the classic panacea of creativity.

“To bring the elevators up to date would involve serious reconstruction in the centre over a period of four months – but art around the work by some of Cape Town’s most creative artists is designed to turn shopper irritation into delight,” explains Brenda Bibby, manager of Cavendish Square.

“The idea is to transform what would normally be the dusty congested construction area into a green haven of recycling-inspired design, motivational and tongue-in-cheek messages,” said project coordinator Ute Faure of Green Elephant Collective (GEC), which was commissioned to put together and implement the eco-friendly design project. The result: “Lifted”.

Explains GEC creative director Lizanne Visser: “The project was a wordplay on the elevators being lifted out and replaced with more energy efficient versions. At the same time we wanted to lift people’s gaze to the installations hanging from above, on the walls and in the alternative lift areas used to get to shops. Finally we also wanted to lift people’s perception of waste material being ugly and not useful to recreate something.”

Heath Nash

Internationally acclaimed rubbish designer Heath Nash installed his iconic recycled plastic bottle lampshades to hang from the central atrium in the shopping centre. “It was a chance to show my work in a semi-public space, and to show how repurposing can be elegant too,” commented Heath.

Isabeau Joubert

Cape Town’s very own yarnbomber Isabeau Joubert set about covering benches, lamp posts, tree stems and hoarding boards with her knitting. She also created tactile, textured yarn installations in some of the lift lobbies.

“It was fantastic to use yarn and hand craft to generate positivity and happy surprise in an unexpected environment like a shopping centre,” enthused Isabeau.

Keri Muller

Paper artist and creative extraordinaire Keri Muller did four installations. She wallpapered the lift waiting rooms with old books, plants and origami flowers; covered the hoarding boards with flowers made from soda cans; created a bird from rolled paperback books salvaged from the recycled cans; and built a magic forest from Col’Cacchio pizza boxes.

Said Keri: “Cavendish Square really stepped out of the box in terms of thinking with this one and it was great to be involved in a project where the focus was on using recycled materials and creating something fun and engaging for the general public to enjoy.  It was fantastic that local artists were also given a platform to engage with the public via doing these interesting installations.”

Bring in the kids

Assisting Keri with the magic forest installation were local scholars between the ages of 12 and 13 years old. The scholars pretty much added the magic, covering the pizza boxes with paint donated by Plascon from their 2012 Colour Palette.

“The hope is that the art work will be so uplifting that Capetonians will visit the centre in large numbers specifically to see it. Plascon is proud to be able to contribute to this unique renovation,” said Lauren Shantall, group PR and communications manager at Plascon.

The schools that participated were Rondebosch Boys, Springfield Convent, Bishops, Rustenberg, Reddam House, Grove Primary, SACS and Herschel.

Mak1one

Courtesy of VISI magazine, legendary local graffiti artist Mak1one dropped by on the opening morning and covered some hoarding boards using his spray can expertise. Drawing quite a crowd, Mak1one was a hit with the gob-smacked Cavendish shoppers. The primarily yellow mural also confirms the support of VISI and Cavendish for World Design Capital 2014.

Last word

“The project was AWESOME,” says Lizanne, “because it provided the opportunity to communicate design to at least 1 million shoppers who have little interaction with all the exciting designers and artists working mostly in the City Bowl. Yarnbombing a shopping centre – are you kidding me? It was just great fun to push the boundaries a little!”

What does that mean? Primarily it’s an opportunity: To get Zayd’s first-hand feedback on what it takes to lead Creative Cape Town, and to ask yourself if this is a challenge you, or someone you know, would like to take on. Intrigued? Read on.

Zayd, as the programme coordinator for Creative Cape Town, you travelled to many creative cities. What gives Cape Town its creative edge?
This really is a city of inspiration. People from the greater city come to the city centre as the de facto centre for creativity and so it’s a melting ground, a healthy collision of cultural difference. It’s also because of its famous relaxed environment that creates the climate for inspiration: It’s a city where you can work in a coffee shop, bump into someone on the street and end up doing new business. Then there’s our very interesting past and the impact of this on our music, visual and performing arts.

You’ve had a varied career. Can you tell us a bit about it?
I’m passionate about culture and cities – particularly cities in the Global South – as well as the intersection between museology (the study of museums across time) and public art practice. Before Creative Cape Town, I worked for the Robben Island Museum, District Six Museum and the Community Arts Project, as well as on a number of public art interventions, festivals, exhibitions and forums.

How did Creative Cape Town come about?
Creative Cape Town developed out of work done in 2004 on the east city, which culminated in the East City Development Conference – I presented on City Hall’s potential as a cultural space. Andrew Boraine had seen growth in the creative industries and was interested in how inclusive memorialisation could help build bridges. He approached me to join the board of the Cape Town Partnership, and I later became a consultant to the Partnership, and then the Creative Cape Town coordinator in 2008.

How did Creative Cape Town develop a vision for what was a fairly dispersed, disconnected sector at the time?
First off we scoped the landscape and, through a small study, recognised that over 1 000 creative industry entities were based in the city centre and estimated that around 18 000 people worked in the creative sector. In order to drive cohesion and cross-pollination, we instituted a regular forum for networking called the Creative Clusters (initially in partnership with Woolworths) – highly successful get-togethers where creatives could network and hear inspiring talks.

How did you turn the talking into something more tangible?
We began the publication of the Creative Cape Town Annual, now in its third edition, to document our work and the creative sector in the city and to act as ambassador beyond the Central City. In 2010 we produced a map of Creative Cape Town focusing on a selection of great places to experience the city’s heritage, live music, theatre and art, and to purchase local creative products. We launched our monthly Creative Cape Town newsletters to put the word out about the exciting creative things that are happening in our city. There’s always so much going on in Cape Town it can be overwhelming – so a big part of Creative Cape Town’s role is to consistently promote what’s happening on the cultural and creative scene.

What’s the secret to Creative Cape Town’s success?
Focus. We had a number of challenges, including budget and capacity, and so we had to prioritise our work, honing in on core areas where we could achieve results. One of those areas of focus has been on design – because so much of our local creative economy is design and there’s little coordination across the sector. We initiated the World Design Capital bid with the City of Cape Town to raise our profile as a creative city internationally. Then the Fringe: Cape Town’s Design and Innovation District was established with provincial government as a space where design industries could be developed. We supported the establishment of the Cape Town Design Network in partnership with local designers. And finally we initiated the bid to bring the Loeries, South Africa’s most important communications awards, to Cape Town.

Cape Town won the bid to host the Loerie Awards for the next three years. Would you say that the Loeries have been a creative catalyst for Cape Town?
Yes, definitely. The Loeries bid resulted in our Creative Week Cape Town project, which showcases what’s happening in the city outside of the awards ceremony, and last year crowdsourced over 60 events in the week leading up to the Loeries.

What have been your Creative Cape Town highlights?
The day Cape Town won the title of World Design Capital 2014, short-listed alongside Dublin and Bilbao; the first City Hall Sessions in September 2011 – probably one of the best music events I have been to in recent years – and every year when I hold the first print of the new Creative Cape Town Annual in my hands. I guess you could say my work has come full circle, from the East City Development Conference in 2004, to The Fringe in 2012: My new role is to lead the strategic direction of The Fringe as an important economic node in the city – and raise the finances to make it happen. I will also be driving its communication work and exciting projects like Spaza, an urban innovation festival we’re holding in Cape Town in 2014.

What are your wishes for Creative Cape Town as you move on to The Fringe?
My wish for Creative Cape Town is that it grows in leaps and bounds, especially given the opportunities that Cape Town’s World Design Capital 2014 designation brings for our creative industries. I hope it will continue to play a role in advocating for both a strong public art policy for the city centre as well as cultural and creative industry development policies for greater Cape Town. Most importantly my wish is that it holds dear to its heart the potential of an inclusive city and works to achieve it through word, image (because images speak a thousand words) and action.

Do you have what it takes to lead Creative Cape Town?

Creative Cape Town is looking for someone:

• who is passionate about the creative industries and their potential as a key economic driver
• who is a connector and a communicator
• who is a skilled project manager with a strong marketing background
• who understands brand custodianship
• who is a self-starter

If you think you have what it takes, read the detailed job specifications* and email your application to: ayiesha@capetownpartnership.co.za.

If your leadership style is less about coordination and more about curation and creation, never mind: You can still be a part of the Creative Cape Town community by engaging with us on Facebook and Twitter.

* Please note that the application deadline for this position has been extended to Friday, 31 May 2012.

Image credits:

• Zayd Minty leads a walking tour through The Fringe
• At the announcement that Cape Town will be World Design Capital in 2014 (Photo by Bruce Sutherland)
• At 86 Commercial Street, the new headquarters of The Fringe project team (Photo by Lisa Burnell)
  

Indietronica pioneer Felix Laband.

Two firsts distinguish the Cape Town Electronic Music Festival, running this weekend from Friday 30 March to Sunday 1 April. Not only is it the first festival to celebrate the burgeoning local electronic scene that is gaining international traction, but it is also the first outdoor South African music festival to be staged in an urban environment.

From legendary Kalahari Surfer Warrick Sony to emerging underground sensation Das Kapital, from Cape Town stalwarts Markus Wormstorm, Felix Laband and Sibot, to mainstream heroes Goldfish and Black Coffee, the 100% South African line up of 38 artists includes some of the country’s biggest names as well as the fastest rising stars.

Drum'n'bass duo Hyphen & SFR.

The scale and diversity is indicative of a creative industry tipping point, organiser Duncan Ringrose confirms: “[The festival] is a logical progression for the scene as a whole. We drew inspiration from urban festivals around the world, in particular Sonar in Barcelona and Detroit Electronic Music Festival.”

Besides the public side of the festival entailing three days of performances on the Breakwater parking lot rooftop in the V&A Waterfront, the industry component of the festival comprises three days of workshops in association with Red Bull Studio. Until Thursday 30 March, the business and knowledge sharing aspects of electronic music will be discussed by artists, promoters, managers, agents and journalists in free public forums.

Glitch-hop artist Dank.

“Hopefully the festival will be received as intended and seen as a pulling together of most of the electronic scene into one platform for a period of time. The workshop aspect, which is vital to this, feeds the grassroots growth and development while the performance side of CTEMF showcases how far it has come,” continues Duncan, himself a powerhouse of the local music industry as co-founder of sSHADOWWORKs music agency.

Besides showcasing and invigorating the local music industry, the festival is also targeted at the growing international phenomenon of the “music tourist”. A variety of music events around the world have started creating circuits for music lovers who travel to exotic, far-off places for the chance to indulge in a unique musical experience. To these ends, Duncan says: “We are tying into some international platforms and this should push more focus on us as a scene and a music tourist destination.”

Legendary Kalahari Surfer Warrick Sony.

With a panoramic view of Table Mountain, recently voted one of the New7Wonders of Nature, tourists will surely find far more than a music festival when they visit Cape Town. Like, for instance, that the city is World Design Capital in 2014 and host to a word-class community of creatives.

Serendipitously emphasising this point, the designer of the World Design Capital 2014 supporters’ logo, Bruno Morphet of PlanB is not only one of the headline performers, but also responsible for the CTEMF logo. Bruno says that the logo was inspired by the festival’s tagline: “Rearrange Your Sonic Geography.” The shape of the letters suggest the shape of Africa, with the orange square representing Cape Town. The letters seem to be folded, “symbolising a re-folding of the world map and, more broadly, people’s perceptions about where good electronic music can be found.”

The logo designed by Bruno Morphet.

Want to rearrange your sonic geography?

A full weekend pass costs R200, while a day pass costs R100. Both can be bought from Webtickets. Check out the full programme online: www.ctemf.com.

What is the City Hall series and where does it come from?
During 2008, the City of Cape Town and Cape Town Partnership were in discussion towards a long-term leasing of City Hall to a non-profit entity, to manage it as a cultural space and development hub. The music programme was conceived as a catalyst of flagship concerts, to put the venue on the map and schedule world-class events alongside existing local initiatives and promotions. The lease plan fell away, but in the interim, the proposal for the music programme was awarded a grant from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund.

How did you get involved?
In 2008 Zayd Minty of the Cape Town Partnership asked me to assist during the embryonic stages of the project. My background is music – initially clubs (Scratch, The Base, Jazz Den) and community cultural events during the 1980s, then touring as sound engineer and road manager with Basil Coetzee, Sakhile, Caiphus and Letta while in exile. Early in the 1990s I set up Making Music Productions with two partners, did lots of public open space events with City and government. The Re-connection project especially brought many African performers on their first visits after our political settlement in 1994. The challenge has always been to build performance platforms for South African and African music here at home, for a home audience. If our music can’t be heard in our back yard, how can music survive, and how can we talk of an industry?

What excites you about City Hall as a music and cultural venue?
City Hall is iconic, so flowing a diversity of music and audience through that space can project a powerful statement for and about Cape Town.

Tell us about the acoustics in City Hall.
The acoustics in the auditorium are great for classical music and opera, but awful for amplified music or percussion. That places much contemporary popular and indigenous music at a disadvantage when working in this beautiful hall. There are workarounds which we propose (and precedents internationally) to offset some of the reverberation. Our NLDTF grant includes resources to take some first steps to make the venue more versatile, and we hope that some of these can be implemented with the City during the maintenance downtime in 2012. We purposefully selected a lineup which we hope will be manageable in the challenging acoustic of the City Hall. The bill pulls together Cape Town, National and international artists. We present new sounds alongside known: that’s a direction we’ll pursue in the City hall Music Series.

How do you feel the music series will contribute to contemporary culture in Cape Town?
If City Hall can become a home venue that platforms original music or compositions – classical, hip-hop, jazz, electronica, reggae, rock et al – it will share its stamp of authority affirming all genres. And affirming all citizens.

If a visitor were to hear the line-up blindfolded, do you think they’d know they were in Cape Town?
During the show, they’ll hear sounds which could locate them in Cape Town, Africa, South America, Asia, or Europe. At the end of the show – with the southeaster blowing and a moon or floodlight revealing Table Mountain, they’ll know they’re in Cape Town.

What do you think makes Cape Town such a unique music city?
Ports throughout the world are places of cultural fusion. Cape Town has layers of music, starting with the indigenous sounds, through to the influences – good and bad – which came with colonisation. It’s no coincidence that cities such as New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, Dakar or Dar es Salaam have powerful musical voices. The demographic of the Cape – with its primary groups of isiXhosa, Afrikaans and English speakers – gives us a unique flavour.

How does the live music scene in Cape Town contribute positively to the local economy?
Most benefits from live music transfer to the tourism sector, because original entertainment is a powerful drawcard for visitors. The Cape Town International Jazz Festival was cited by President Zuma in his 2010 State of the Nation address, for precisely that reason. Because CTIJF is one focused weekend, it has been possible to research its economic impact. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to research the smaller, dispersed concerts and clubs which anchor the music scene year round. I worked on a research paper for Moshito that year, and it’s clear that the music scene contributes more to the local economy than it gets from the economy.

What is the progression from September’s show to the present in March 2012?
We laid a solid foundation with September’s City Hall Sessions, with the mostly acoustic acts of Congo’s Ray Lema, Brazil’s Chico Cesar (performing as a duo) as well as Thandiswa Mazwai Trio and Kesivan and The Lights. In March 2012, we’re excited to have Senegal’s Ismaël Lô and the Azania Ghetto Sound band on the bill. It’ll be a night celebrating African and reggae music.

Why does the concert coincide with Human Rights Day?
Musicians such as those on the bill have always played their quiet, steady part bringing social issues to the fore. Reggae, internationally and very especially here in South Africa, has a powerful voice and message. On the eve of Human Rights Day, City Hall Sessions will have musical content which rings true to this context. I prefer to let the music speak, our job is to provide the platform so that it can be heard in Cape Town.

Details on the next City Hall Session:

The City Hall Sessions launches its 2012 season on Tuesday 20 March, hosting Senegal’s Ismaël Lô at the Cape Town City Hall. Joining the bill is the Azania Ghetto Sound band, the internationally active reggae group from Nyanga, Cape Town.

When: Tuesday 20 March (on the eve of Human Rights Day)
Where: Cape Town City Hall
Time: 20h00
More info: Call 021 419 1881 for more details

Tickets for this show are priced at R75 (unreserved) and R120 (reserved seating upstairs). Reserve your seat at Computicket for this memorable night.

Connect with the City Hall Sessions on Twitter @ImagineCityHall and view more information via Creative Cape Town’s City Hall Sessions page.

All photos by Sydelle Willow Smith

• Cape Town City Hall
• Zayd Minty with Thandiswa Mazwai, and Steve Gordon and Kesivan Naidoo, both images outside the City Hall in preparation for City Hall Sessions in September 2011.

What does “being in the right place at the right time” have to do with the effect that The Fringe, Cape Town’s design and innovation district, has on creative industries?

Hint one: The power of collaboration

The east city of Cape Town, between Darling and Roeland streets, is making it easier for local creative industries to capitalise on business opportunities as they arise. How? Through proximity to skilled, like-minded creative organisations (otherwise known as clustering).

“Just as your voice is stronger when joined with others, so the power of what you are able to do increases with collaboration,” says SABS Design Institute Manager Adrienne Viljoen. “The Fringe gives this to creative professionals.”

The district’s potential to be the “right place” for creative industries in Cape Town could result in it being a key driver of the economy and job growth in the region in the next 20 years. It’s for this catalytic potential that The Fringe has been identified by the Provincial Government of the Western Cape as one of five Cape Catalyst initiatives – alongside the Saldanha IDZ project, the planned health technology park in Pinelands, a port planning framework for Cape Town, and a telecommunications broadband strategy.

This authoritative nod towards the power of the Fringe effect is explained by Yehuda Raff, The Fringe project coordinator at the Cape Town Partnership: “Many people wouldn’t see collaboration as an economic driver but it’s how the creative industries can turbo-charge their growth. It’s time to make use of collective resources, common goals and shared space.”

Hint two: The practice of collaboration

The Fringe Effect was key to the Western Cape Furniture Initiative’s decision to move into the area, explains CEO Bernadette Isaacs.

“The focus of the industry is shifting to design; the main reason we want to be based in the area is to match the designer to the maker. Everything that the furniture industry needs centres on collaboration,” she explains.

“It’s becoming common practice for Fringe-based furniture designers to contact us to access our network of furniture craftsmen; these requests result in work for our members. Being part of The Fringe is a key step for us to remain competitive, and as we’re based here it means that the creative industries understand what we’re about – they know we’re keen to collaborate.”

Collaboration is the underlying ethos of The Bank, a design collective of creative companies and professionals set in the centre of The Fringe district. Based in the old FNB Cape Town head office, The Bank’s owner, Steven Harris, explains that they are setting a precedent and displaying the power of inclusive design processes.

“As head of Furnspace 3-D I can see how this helps us collaborate easily on projects, bringing something more to the table than if we were in a traditional, siloed working environment.” He mentions it took as little as six months after The Bank was fully tenanted and managed for the benefits of clustering and collaboration to start showing.

Hint three: The potential of collaboration

The Fringe is the expression of this same idea expanded to cover a whole district, says Ralph Baumgarten of Brightest Young Minds, an incubator for social entrepreneurship. “And its neighbourhood-wide scale makes it exponentially more powerful and effective. The physical incubation area of The Fringe, drawing creative talent from across the sector, encourages collaboration simply through proximity – and this fast-tracks the innovation process. It’s a globally tried and tested model, just look at 22@Barcelona where now a local creative district is a major contributor to the economy.”

“There’s a maturity reflected by The Fringe’s creative community – it advances from the typical isolated individualism of creative professionals. They understand that greater possibilities exist for everyone in this accessible environment,” notes Adrienne.

Steven points to the New Era exhibition as an example of collaborative effort bringing investment into the area. “Three weeks before the launch of this international arts exhibition they still had no venue in Cape Town. We hosted them at The Bank and the collective effort of the professional creative environment made this expo the most successful that New Era has ever hosted.

“Fifteen hundred people walked through the door three weeks later, compared to their next most popular exhibition in Milan of 450 people. The organisers are already talking about coming back to Cape Town next year.”

Hint four: The profit of collaboration

Collaboration isn’t just good for creativity. It’s good for companies and their bottom lines too. That’s why the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) is fostering both the spirit of creative collaboration and entrepreneurship amongst its design students.

“As part of their final year, design students are given a brief to earn R5 000 using industrial design, and their profit line makes up 50% of their final mark. We’ve run this course for two years now and about half the groups keep the companies they created and use them as a stepping stone into the industry. We’re training design entrepreneurs who will create jobs when they graduate,” says CPUT design lecturer Johan van Niekerk, remarking that the group to make the most money earned as much as R140 000.

The Fringe, energised each year by newly graduated design entrepreneurs, is set to contribute more than R1-billion to the provincial economy of the Western Cape, and create and sustain more than 3 500 jobs in the area during the next 20 years, according to an economic impact report prepared by Barry Standish, Antony Boting and Brian Swing of Economics Information Services.

Clearly The Fringe Effect will do more than connect companies: It is en route to establishing itself, at the right time, as the right place to drive economic growth and job creation.

Capitalise on The Fringe Effect

Are you a small business that wants to benefit from being in The Fringe? Get in touch with project coordinator Yehuda Raff at The Hostel, which boasts shared space for design and ICT entrepreneurs as well as small businesses of fewer than five people. It also has an experimental space for exhibits and talks.

The Fringe HQ
The Hostel
86 Commercial Street
T: 074 114 7772
@FringeDistrict
www.thefringe.org.za

Speak to other designers in the district:

The Bank
71-73 Harrington Street
T: 082 680 3342
@_TheBank_
www.facebook.com/thedesignbank

Western Cape Furniture Initiative
86 Commercial Street
@WCFI
www.capefurniture.za.org

Brightest Young Minds
27 Buitenkant Street
@bym_sa
http://brightestyoungminds.com

Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Corner Keizersgracht and Tennant streets
T: 021 460 3911
www.cput.ac.za

Who else is in the area? Explore the district.

Images:
Design students work at CPUT
The Fringe neighbourhood (photos by Sydelle Willow Smith)
Based at The Bank: James Bisset and Jesse Ede collaborate at Everybody Love Everybody (photo by Lesedi Rudolf)
A work space in the Open Innovation Studio, linked to Brightest Young Minds (photo by Sydelle Willow Smith)
Wayne Best of New Era and Steven Harris of The Bank (photo by One.Dog.Chicken)

While 99% – representative of the global population who have not versus the 1% who have in abundance – is mostly metaphorical, a journey through the changes and challenges we face in South Africa by way of statistics is an enlightening one.

• 25% of our national population (and 48.2% of our youth) are unemployed
• 17.8% marks the HIV prevalence among adults
• 50% live below the poverty line
• Only 7.71% of public schools have a stocked, staffed library
• 28% of Cape Town’s populations live in slums (many without adequate access to water and sanitation)
• 20% of the richest residential property owners in Cape Town occupy 41% of the residential land area
• Over 50% of Cape Town’s population are in traditional townships, run-down high rises, classified as the urban and working poor, or fall below the poverty line

In that context, what can design do?

Across the design industry and across the globe, we’re seeing a move: from designing pretty things to designing change. And transforming people’s lives through design is Cape Town’s World Design Capital 2014 promise.

As part of Cape Town’s bid for the 2014 designation, three case studies were identified as part of showcasing what design can do to reconnect, rebuild and reposition the city, and dramatically improve the lives of the 28%, the 50%, the 92.29%. Three highlights?

• The Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading project increased the safety of Khayelitsha residents, helped to reduce crime and violence and upgrade low-income neighbourhoods.
• Design Indaba’s 10×10 low cost housing project saw architect Luyanda Mpahlwa’s 54m² sustainable homes built from local materials and without advanced construction knowledge for around R65 000.
• Tsai Design’s Nested Bunk Beds are a set of five beds that can be retracted to take up the space of a single bed, meaning families living in small homes can sleep more children without compromising play and living areas.

What should design do?

The next milestone for World Design Capital 2014 is the signing of the host city agreement between the City of Cape Town and ICSID by the end of March 2012. In the interim, the City is working with a multi-sectoral task team to design the World Design Capital process and programme so that it’s inclusive and transformative. As an important step in this direction, they’ve planned a stakeholder forum on Tuesday 28 February at the CTICC, in the run up to Design Indaba, to provide clarity on the World Design Capital process going forward, and to stimulate ideas and excitement for getting involved.

Be a part of designing our path to 2014 and determining what World Design Capital can and should do for Capetonians. To be at the stakeholder forum, contact Fritz Marx on fritz.marx@capetown.gov.za (but note that space is limited to 500 participants, and preference is given to organisations over individuals if demand exceeds availability).

If you can’t make the forum, don’t worry: Mail your name, organisation, contact details and details of how you’d like to be involved in World Design Capital 2014 – as a project, event, sponsor or volunteer – to yourwdc2014@capetown.gov.za.

Design Indaba 2012: Creativity can change the world

Now in its 17^th year, Design Indaba is known for championing emerging creative and designers who help find key solutions to society’s seemingly intractable challenges – and inspiring others to follow suit.

As founder Ravi Naidoo puts it: “We do what we do because design is about more than aesthetics, it is about finding creative solutions to transform and improve the lives of people across the globe. Creativity can have the most material economic impact on a country and it is for this reason we are committed to our belief that a better world is possible through creativity.”

This year’s Design Indaba is made up of three key components: the conference, the expo and the film festival.

• The conference: A gathering of great design minds

These fairly high-profile public art incidents/accidents have forced us to ask fairly basic, but important questions: What is public art, and why does it matter?

The Free Dictionary includes a surprisingly good definition (while also going into scope, controversies and public arts’ connection to politics):

The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that has been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all. The term is especially significant within the art world, amongst curators, commissioning bodies and practitioners of public art, to whom it signifies a particular working practice, often with implications of site specificity, community involvement and collaboration. The term is sometimes also applied to include any art which is exhibited in a public space including publicly accessible buildings.

What do our local curators and commissioning bodies say about its purpose?

Jay Pather, who heads up UCT’s Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts and is curating Cape Town’s 2012 public arts festival Infecting the City, explains: “Public art is simply a way to bring the work of artists into public spaces instead of the usual expectation of the public going to theatres and galleries. This grew into a form in and of itself. Now public art is highly sophisticated and deals with ideas of public-ness, open spaces as well as developing awareness of the city and each other – thereby contributing to the wellbeing of the city’s inhabitants. In South Africa this serves two purposes: We have a history of segregated art and as a result the development of audiences has suffered – it is crucial that awareness of the value of art is raised in every possible way. We are also still a divided society in some respects. Public art brings us together into a common focus and takes what’s on the inside and makes it accessible, poetic, dynamic, vibrant.”

Jonathan Garnham, from the Visual Arts Network of South Africa, develops: “Public art enhances a city’s quality of life, making places where we live and work more dignified, interesting and beautiful. It is accessible to all and creates civic pride, reflects and promotes local identity and leaves a legacy for future generations. Public art responds to the higher needs of a community. It gets people thinking, reflecting and promotes engagement and discussion, which are important in the development of a community’s sense of self and place. It also helps with the regeneration and upliftment of an area, creating civic pride and attracting business and tourism which obviously has economic advantages.”

For Roger van Wyk, who managed the public art installations at the MyCiTi bus stops, the art form’s value is most effective when it helps people connect – which is part of why he believes in public art connected to public transport: “Public art is significant not so much for its material or sculptural qualities but rather for the opportunities that can be created for enhancing social interaction in public spaces. Art policies linking public art to public transit systems are an effective strategy proven in cities around the world. Making public transport an attractive and pleasurable experience is vital to the system’s success and is an egalitarian way to justify public expenditure. New York’s subway art programme is exemplary for decades of consistent investment in a range of public art commissions of high standard, giving the system cultural value, orientation and enhanced identity.”

What’s the state of the art in Cape Town?

Graffiti is by-and-large regarded as a public nuisance – something “unauthorised that is obnoxious or injurious to the community at large” – if you go by the City of Cape Town graffiti bylaw. Graffiti artists who don’t have the right permissions face a fine of R15 000 or imprisonment for up to three months. As Anton Visser from the City of Cape Town recently argued in an article in the Big Issue: “What happens is disorder creates disorder. Where graffiti is rampant, it invites other forms of disorder. It attracts certain elements and sends a message that it’s okay to do whatever you want there, you then have people urinating there and so on. It culminates in crime.”

If this is our legislation around street art, what’s the city’s stance on performance art, or statues or installations?

Tanner Methvin from the Africa Centre explains: “In Cape Town, our current approach to public art is via our busking rules, which dictate who can perform in public at what times. Everything else requires a permit, whether an installation piece or a performance piece. That means you need a full permit with a full plan before you can engage in any kind of public art. This kind of time consuming, resource constraining process makes it completely debilitating for artists to engage in public spaces unless you’re an organisation with capacity and resources. This keeps individual artists out. If the city wants to become a vibrant place, wants to be engaged in publicness, then we need to have a progressive and enabling (and transparent!) public arts policy.”

Jonathan elaborates: “For a city of Cape Town’s size and ambition, the situation is dire. Not enough is done by local, provincial or national government to promote and fund public art. With a population of around four million and claims of being a world-class destination, we are lagging far behind. Cape Town does not even have a public art policy in place.”

And Jay? “It is surprising that public art is not more evident – Cape Town’s environment lends itself so well to it. The reason for this is the absence of a public art policy for the city and the great bureaucratic difficulties in getting permissions. I think generally only the very persistent survive. Artists who try to do some good get lumped with large film companies who are making commercial products. Our City needs to understand that people who do public art are non-commercial, since you can’t charge pedestrians. People who do public art are doing it for the city and its residents and visitors. The City needs to realise this essential fact and act accordingly. This will help this vital art form to grow.”

How then do we ensure a more progressive stance for public art in Cape Town, one that doesn’t see it as a public nuisance?

Answer: Public policy

A public art policy – a document and an agreed-on sense of place and purpose for public art in the city – would go a long way.

Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana, MD of Cape Town Partnership, explains: “The line between legal and illegal public art is not always easy to draw, since it is open to interpretation and subject to differing views. Consensus is not easily reached. All artists must get pre-approval for their works to avoid contravening bylaws. But during the World Cup, these bylaws were interpreted in a way that resulted in a more enabling environment for public art. Installations breathe life into public spaces that would normally go unnoticed. A happy medium must be found and mapped out in policy form. In this way it will not be so much about ‘illegal’ or ‘legal’ public art from a bylaw perspective, but about a vision of how public art can enrich Cape Town’s public spaces.”

A South African city that knows this and is acting accordingly is Johannesburg. That’s right: The city of gold trumps World Design Capital 2014 (at least in this regard). You can read Jo’burg’s public art policy here for yourself, but it requires, in amongst other things, that up to 1% of all capital expenditure of R10-million or more should be set aside for public art: That is, for every R10-million public investment – a new park or building – R100 000 is allocated towards a mural or sculpture or performance of some sort.

In line with this policy, the Johannesburg Development Agency – charged with stimulating and supporting area-based economic development initiatives throughout the Johannesburg metropolitan area – has commissioned 175 new public artworks and installed them in strategic public spaces across the city.

“We should lobby local and provincial government to implement a public art policy,” argues Jonathan. “It is a public right to experience such culture. It should not only be enjoyed as an optional extra, but is actually one of our basic human rights: A principle of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, at principle 27.1, ‘Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.’”

Towards a public art policy

So how do we bring a public art policy into effect? The Africa Centre, as part of the Infecting the City public arts festival in March 2012, will be hosting a half-day conference on developing a public art policy – looking at different policies effected in cities across the world, and try to distil what makes most sense to adopt in Cape Town.

When? Around 9 or 10 March 2012, during Infecting the City
Where? Somewhere in the City Bowl
Who? You, together with the Africa Centre, the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts and Cape Town Partnership
Watch this space: www.infectingthecity.com

If you want to be a part of devising an appropriate answer to our public art predicament, be there. And until that time, look on the bright side:

“The one positive to all the rules is that there are more art projects happening in our townships,” muses art curator Shani Judes. “PASTE, the street art exhibition, went into Khayelitsha – and if you take a drive you will see some of Faith47′s pieces, some Mak1one works, even two international artists – Tika and Dal – in Khayelitsha.”

Take another look at Cape Town’s public art scene:

• Public art or public nuisance? What’s public opinion? (Read more)
• Public eye on public art (Read more)

Rosemary Lombard: “The proposed bylaw defines all public art on walls in brushstrokes too broad – if passed, positive forms of expression will be criminalised. This will not solve the problem of vandalism, but merely open up more space for illegal activity.”

Ryan Jales: “Cape Town’s emerging graf artists are being recognised internationally. Why can’t we, locally, recognise our own talent?”

Cal Bruns: “Legislation like this fails to consider the social advancement evidence in support of graffiti projects in townships. Wake up to the possibilities, politicians, and say no to this poorly crafted piece of legislation!”

Amy Lehner: “There are many beautiful murals that improve the appearance of otherwise bleak corners of our city. It is important to differentiate between these and vandalism.”

Bryn Divey: “Let’s not turn the city into another bland, aesthetically commercially controlled wasteland.”

Zola Tsotetsi: “The street is our gallery. If the city only permits big corporations to advertise their products on our places, where do individuals stand who don’t gain any monetary value from beautifying our own places.”

Richard O’Mahony: “Upon visiting Cape Town last year I was blown away by the amazing paintings and murals around the city and on the sides of buildings. Cape Town is brimming with amazing, creative people and to stifle their talents would be nothing but destructive. Cape Town is a beautiful city – all the more for its fantastic street art.”

Aiden Steenkamp: “Keep the city colourful and inspiring for all who cannot afford to go to a gallery or have the luxury of a library.”

Maciek Strychalski: “If there is to be any policy making, it should be targeted at advertisers who display signs/slogans/imagery etc that is specifically aimed at hurting people’s self-perception and breaking down community pride.”

Mirjam Asmal-Dik: “Please don’t underestimate the value of art (especially graffiti!) to enrich people’s lives and its capacity to communicate socially relevant messages”

Aksel Anker Henriksen: “Criminalising public art will only lead to a crime surge.”

Neil Steenkamp: “Art is not a crime”

Incident #1: But is it art?

The first of these involved a zebra and a mistaken identity: One of 33 zebras decorated by local artists and displayed around the Artscape precinct was realistically painted (in black and white stripes) but included red graffiti-style tagging. The artwork was subsequently “cleaned up” by city officials thinking they were removing evidence of vandalism. The artist, in an interview with Myweku, tells of how the work itself was a commentary on the city’s graffiti bylaw (which draws distinctions between murals and tagging): “My work is a commentary on the… passing of the graffiti bylaw in Cape Town as I believe too that the bylaw itself is not black and white. The fact is that the city wants to completely outlaw the art of graffiti. I deliberately tagged my own artwork in this public exhibition to prove a point, to provoke them, as I knew they would remove it and they took the bait.”

Incident #2: Who is an artist?

Shortly thereafter, Sea Point became a hotbed of activity, starting with the creation and desecration of a secret garden: Henry Young and Ernest Jacobs, who have lived on the city streets for a number of decades, grew a “garden of peace” on the Sea Point promenade – cutting down bushes, planting flowers, laying down compost – only to have it dismantled by officials. “We made this garden for the community. It is a garden of peace,” said Henry in an interview with the People’s Post. “It used to be a toilet for people from the taxi rank, but we decided to make it beautiful and nice for everyone. It used to stink a lot and nobody wanted to walk past here. Now we are just very sad. Very, very sad.”

Incident #3: Who commissioned and paid for it?

Still in Sea Point, a series of statues were hacked and then hijacked: Marieke Prinsloo-Rowe’s Walking the Road – the journey of a young girl and a dragonfly meant to stand is a metaphor for our move to democracy – caused quite a stir, both online and on the street. It started with stern criticism from a Goldsmiths’ PhD candidate Linda Stupart (published on Mahala) – in which she commented on the City’s public arts’ stance (which seemingly only allows the affluent to exhibit in public spaces, at their own expense, as was the case with Walking the Road) and the artistic value of the installation itself. Shortly thereafter, the statue’s limbs were repeatedly hacked off, and one particular statue was “forcibly relocated” to the UCT men’s residence. Linda, in a response to the vandalism, said: “I am sorry that Ms Prinsloo-Rowe’s work has been so mindlessly destroyed, an action that is violent and unacceptable. It was never my intention to incite people to vandalise the work. Rather I felt it was important to point out that the work is there because of Prinsloo-Rowe’s economic advantage rather than its artistic merit. There are, however, issues [that need to be addressed] of both transparency and transformation with regard to the Sea Point Council’s decision to erect the sculptures, as well as the decision for the work to remain.” (Read the original critique, and the follow-up on Mahala for all the details).

Anything incident or accident you think we should’ve included? Leave a comment below, or find us on Facebook or Twitter to tell us all about it.

Image: courtesy of Hanrie Bosch at the People’s Post.