Creative Week is just that, a week of creativity. That week was 9 days long in 2011 to fit in all our friends.
The ethos of dedicated days of celebration, creativity and innovation is forward propulsion of productivity and inspiration in an inter-dependent ecosystem. Creative Week exists through individual events that others put on, hosting some of its own and supporting and marketing the movement with a dedicated campaign designed by Design Infestation (who won a coveted design award for the Cape Town for World Design Capital bid book).
The result is uplifting – every person, every project, every point of interaction and exchange during Creative Week is the result of a city designing itself, a system discovering and building itself, a society of creative professionals working together. But just because it’s finished, doesn’t mean that we’ve reached the finish line.
We look at what was said and what we learnt during Creative Week, in reverse order.
A city as productive and creative as this doesn’t have ad breaks (Unless of course it’s the Loeries).
Image: Sarah Scott (www.hallucinarium.com)
The Loeries were our partner in prime time creative showcasing during Creative Week. Spoilt with two nights of award giving in the CTICC’s cascading auditorium and incredible screen and sound system, the Creative Cape Town team went along in suits and sexy dresses, and applauded an entertaining and well-produced ceremony that inspired and enlightened.
The media and communications field speaks volumes of local talent and storytelling, using every medium under the sun to promote products and services. It stands to reason that even young students (exhibiting at the Adobe Student Portfolio in the Slave Church on Long Street) were inspired to take a creative approach to even the most absurd and annoying circumstances that still required the brief to meet on time and to standard.
A young Mr van der Walt (visual communicator) had his portfolio stolen hours before his exhibition. What did he do? He accepted reality and overcame it. Thinking like a destitute person that he felt himself to be, he produced a new portfolio out of cardboard, creative ideas and wit. We’ll remember this one as he rises in the ranks. A Loerie in 2012, MW?
Doodle Creative Space entered the spirit of the week by opening their space up to the public during the day and mixing material and medium during the night to give everybody the chance to explore their inner artist in an attractive and receptive environment. Read wordsmith Leila’s review.
Walking and interior tours were big news with various parties participating in the meet-and-greet guided tour that covered graffiti art, photography in action, the heritage of District Six.
Caroline Wood Jordan curated a fantastic design oriented tour series with support from VISI and Cape Town Design Network. She gives her insider’s view of the sneak peeks into design studios across Cape Town. Insert link to Meet The Makers overview by Caroline
A group photography exhibition at Rococo Gallery showed the results of a creative and cultural exchange between inner city dwellers and residents of Blikkiesdorp. Creative Week supported this by posting the images on Facebook, and every image sold. This helped turn a philanthropic arts workshop into a sustainable short course for Delft creatives. Sydelle Willow Smith, anthropological photographer and aspiring cinematographer, says “Cape Town is a melting pot of creatives, organisations and collectives like Creative Cape Town. Creative Cape Town gives us some much-needed structure in getting our acts together, getting out there, exposing our expressions to wider audiences, letting the art out. We salute you.” Right back at you, Sydelle. (See her work in the Creative Cape Town Annual 2011 as well).
The Music City music documentary film festival told the stories of Cape music through the eyes of a camera. Few realise that we have a veritable audio-visual library of local music, but in this instance, seeing was believing.
Covering genres and idioms from the plaasrock of Fokofpolisiekar to Afrikaaps, the selection of quality documentary films ran over a series of days during Creative Week with the support of Encounters Documentary Film Festival, The Cape Film Commission and Cape MIC. A student film from the Film and Media Departments of the University Of Cape Town was screened before each film, giving a fresh take on subject matter that doesn’t often enjoy the attention of the big screen.
Another film that surprised and enlightened, but with subject matter from further afield was Nha Fala, a 2002 film by award winning African film director Flora Gomes. It screened as part of the Learn Africa, Love Africa programme from the African Arts Institute (AAI). Sue Northam was there to learn about her continent from the comfort of a cinema seat.
Image: Sarah Scott (www.hallucinarium.com)
Other art that enjoyed unusual impact was the glass draped upon those at the Wearable Glass Art exhibition. We considered the use and novelty of a material rather more used to holding flowers than tracing bare necks.
Zavick, self-made artist and self-titled social entrepreneur, opened Studio 41 Gallery with talks from those who practise creative thinking and design in a variety of disciplines and industries.
But what is a celebration without a party? There were many of those during Creative Week, including an intrepid party dedicated to a website but one in particular captured the spirit of the city in one of its main streets. We went looking for fun at Fiddle East and found, instead, that a chicken is not a chicken, and a pig is not a pig with these jigs and jocks around.
And what is a party without a post party pick-me up? Sue Northam popped over to the Look & Feel Good expo, and discovered that an innovative event of this magnitude requires a creative approach to get what it has to give.
So there you have it, no rest for the intrepid. Be inspired by this as we are, and celebrate your diversity and importance by being a growing part of self-propelled creative Cape Town industries.
