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What if … imagining, creating, showcasing different outcomes

What if … is the intriguing theme of the 7th edition of Cape Town’s annual public art festival, in March 2023, where local and international artists paint the Mother City in every colour of the rainbow.

International Public Art Festival 2023 - 7th edition - 1 to 5 March - Cape Town

Looking back on the history of this aching, beautiful, achingly beautiful city, both recent and ancient, it is so easy and so hard to imagine many different outcomes.

From 1-5 March 2023 members of the public can watch a variety of artists, both local and international, bringing depictions of alternatives and possibilities to life.

The International Public Arts Festival, IPAF, with a hub at the Company’s Garden, is a carefully curated, free-to-the-public festival that includes installations, sculptures, digital artworks, outdoor pop-up exhibitions, performances, street art tours throughout the streets of the City Bowl.

The festival can be explored with the aid of the Art Route Map, which is available from the festival hub. To access added insight and knowledge about the festival, members of the public can book a Street Art Tour with one of guides or, perhaps, even join a workshop at the Company’s Garden.

More about the festival and the artists who are taking part

Talking about history, here is something we wrote in 2017 when it all started …

Oh what a wonderful world … whatever the critics say

Reclaim the space: Youngsters get creative on a wall in Dove Street dedicated to the youth of Salt River and being painted by them under the guidance of artists

February 14 2017 … The International Public Art Festival

South Africa’s first International Public Art Festival is in full swing in Salt River with artists and local children changing the suburb by the day.

Long a lover of graffiti, I have swung by a few times this week and every time have found plenty of artists at work creating gob-smacking murals.

The work is drawing children like the Pied Piper and there seem to be amore children at “work” than artists at every mural, a level of engagement that many mothers and teacher can often only dream of …

Artist Ruth Francis gets some guidance from local schoolchildren

You would have to have a heart of stone to not engage with these children, but the artists are going further than getting their opinions and letting them dab a bit of paint here and there: they are running workshops and classes away from their creations to introduce these eager young people to the creative arts.

This weekend looks like it is going to be pretty epic, with the festival wrapping up with various events, including guided tours of the new works in the suburb, focused around the Blackpool football club in Shelley Road.

How Baz-Art came to create South Africa’s first International Public Art Festival

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Ingrid Bothe
Ingrid Bothe
19th February 2017 5:30 am

Well balanced article. A little research goes a long way; what a shame that it’s so quick and easy to declaim. The almost 15 year old and I look forward to the tour and events.

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