Infecting The City 2015 was curated by a team with diverse ideas about how art engages audiences and functions in public space. The Festival had strong and defined Programmes, providing audiences with a variety of different types of experiences.
Several key things about the 2015 Festival:
Routes On and Off
There were daytime and evening performances, and much of the Festival was designed as routes. In 2015, some of the routes were planned around hubs of activity – central spaces that were activated for the whole day with various installations, participatory artworks and performances. Beyond the scheduled performances, there were artworks that ran throughout the Festival, as well as artworks that were mobile, without time or place, and that could only be experienced if stumbled upon.
Performance Times
The Programme indicated the locations and order in which works were presented on the respective routes, as well as the timeframes for these presentations. We had to use timeframes, as moving audiences from artwork to artwork along a route made it impossible to publish exact starting and ending times for each performance.
Festival Information
In 2015, we had two Festival Information Centres on St George’s Mall, between Wale and Waterkant Street. These offered detailed Programme and Festival information.
Dinner Time
The evening Programmes were structured to include a dinner break, where audiences were treated to a broad range of food and drink delicacies thanks to the creativity of one our key donors, Spier.
Youth Development
In previous versions of Infecting The City, youth attended workshops and were brought in largely as spectators. In 2015, they actively participated in the Programme throughout the week as well. See YouthScapes.
Public Art Symposium
The Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) hosted Remaking Place from 8-14 March 2015. Members of the public were invited to attend. Admission was free.
Whether as an active participant or more detached observer, and whether participation in a route was planned or incidental, audience members were able to engage with the spaces of Cape Town in ways that were transformed by their experiences of public art.