Artists bring Festival spirit to Makhanda’s streets

By Sue MaclennanJuly 9, 2021Updated:July 9, 2021No Comments3 Mins Read

Within 10 days of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s declaring the current Level 4 lockdown, the National Arts Festival made the superhuman switch from partly live to all digital in 10 days.

Well, almost all digital.

Makhanda residents have the benefit of seeing in action four Artists in Residence in action in ‘Nature is Louder’, a project focused on 2D Street Art in Makhanda.

With the provocation “Nature is always louder”, the Festival invited four street artists to Makhanda for a two-week period of listening and making. It started mid-June and will be completed during the now virtual National Arts Festival 2021.

The sites are at first walls; however, the programme curators explain, “We consider the wall, the surrounding environment, the living and non-living in the environment, the memory, the promises, the subjective and intimate experiences of the artist, all as part of the site the artists are invited to work in.

“The site then is alive and full and the artist brings themselves into this as another layer.”

Each artist is on their own site, but the artists’ processes are understood as being in conversation with each other.

SmilingSouth (for GMDirect) stopped by at the Link Street taxi rank site, where Lisolomzi Pikoli aka Mr Fuzzy Slipperz was preparing the side of a wall for what two weeks later had turned a busy, functional space into an opportunity to stop and feed tired eyes, and maybe spirits.

Find out more about street art and these artists

At 2pm on Tuesday 13 July the Festival will host a shaped conversation about the project in a webinar format. Here are the details:

ARTS LOUNGE AFRICA | NATURE IS LOUDER STREET ART PROJECT

The artists LISOLOMZI PIKOLI, MOOK LION, RALARNO COUTTS AND SANELISIWE SINGAPHI come from different parts of the South Africa and are participating in the Nature is Louder 2D street art project in the city of Makhanda during the festival.

In this discussion, the artists talk about their artworks created at specific sites in Makhanda, as well as street art in general.

The conversation will be chaired by Lifang Zhang, member of the Arts of Africa and Global Souths research programme at Rhodes University.

ARTS LOUNGE AFRICA is hosted by the NRF/DSI Chair in Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa and the Arts of Africa and Global Souths research programme at Rhodes University, Makhanda.

People need to register to attend but it is free: https://nationalartsfestival.co.za/show/artlounge-nature-is-louder-street-art-project/