Get extra insights relating to Culture Connect experiences from these blogs.
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Salt River’s battles & beauty (past & present)
I have been enjoying getting to know this hidden, gem of a neighbourhood. Initially it was the street art that drew me here, now it is much more - its past and the people who live and work there. Here is a history and a bit about changes and challenges now. First why...
Street art thriving in Covid but it’s pre-historic
Throughout the ages, humans have had the urge to make marks. Public art, as it is now called, is enjoying a resurgence in these Covid times. But it is a very ancient art form. There is rock art on about every continent. In South Africa it is sometimes called Bushman...
Art Deco – South Africa’s architectural gem
Flapper girls, fire-stations and the fantasy world of Hollywood - Art Deco was everywhere and still is. You'll find stunning Art Deco in Prince Albert, a Karoo "dorpie" (small town) to skyscrapers in the big African metropolises. Afterall, Art Deco design was...
Senryū: a selection by Tony Ullyatt in lockdown
Michèle Betty and I are planning a poetry evening later this year in Cape Town where she is based. Michèle is the founder of Dryad Press and editor of New Contrast: South African Literary Journal. Tony won the 2019 South African Award for Poetry for An Unobtrusive...
Cape Town’s castle as a centre of our stories
Being in lockdown has made me long for some of my favourite Cape Town sites. I love looking down on the city bowl from the top of Table Mountain, or standing in the courtyard of the Castle of Good Hope looking back up. I know that the Castle reminds us South Africans...
Lady Anne Barnard “locked-in” Cape Town
Confined to barracks – Lady Anne wouldn't have had a problem with lockdown, especially in her later years when she lived like a recluse. She arrived in Cape Town 1797 and initially lived in the Castle of Good Hope where the barracks were (and still are). Lady Anne set...
Bo-Kaap Culture Connect review
We met on a clear and sunny Saturday morning on the steps of the Iziko Bo-Kaap Museum at 71 Wale Street. The museum has just recently opened an exhibition after scholar Halim Gençoĝlu uncovered new details about the house’s history and connection with the notable...
Political art in South Africa – overt and subtle
At a recent Parliament Tour, one Culture Connector asked: “Isn’t all art political?” This transported me back to my days as an art history student in the 1980s at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, where I first saw art through the prism of Marxism, feminism...