Cape Town - Cape Town is the latest city to form part of the longest human chain in the world.
The International Public Art Festival (IPAF), one of Africa’s largest public arts festivals, announced the launch of the Beyond Walls project by Saype.
The chain is depicted through pairs of local hands painted on land, which intertwine from town to town. The murals represent unity, mutual aid and common effort beyond geographical constraints.
The project previously depicted hands in Paris, Andorre, Genève, Berlin, Ouagadougou, Yamoussoukro, Turin and Istanbul.
Cape Town represents the ninth stage.
Beyond Walls symbolises the breaking down of political and social barriers among communities with the hope to encourage positive dialogue. The hands will intertwine beyond inequality in three different areas of the city.
Each artwork has been produced by the artist, Saype, the first on Sea Point promenade, then in Philippi Village and a third in Langa.
The project kicked off at the Sea Point promenade on Monday as a precursor to the IPAF Festival, which runs from February 10-14.
It is carried out in collaboration with the Embassy of Switzerland in South Africa, the City of Cape Town and Baz-Art.
Baz-Art co-founder Alexandre Tilmans said: “Cape Town is an ideal flagship destination for this project. As a city that prioritises openness, peace and mutual respect, we need to keep having courageous conversations, especially in this harsh climate created by the pandemic.
“Artworks like this spark important dialogues and messages of hope for all citizens.”
The artist Guillaume Legros, alias Saype (a contraction of Say Peace) is a Swiss-based artist who creates monumental frescoes on grass and ground. He is renowned as the pioneer of an artistic movement linking street art and land art.
“One of my aims is to not only to shed light on issues of social transformation, but to promote eco-friendly and sustainable methods of creating art through respecting nature.”
He was named one of Forbes’s 30 most influential people under 30 in the field of art and culture in 2019.
Nicolas Brühl, Ambassador of Switzerland in South Africa, said: “In these challenging times with the pandemic, we believe that art plays an essential role in expressing hope, in uniting countries and people, and in advancing human dignity.
“Through the artwork of Beyond Walls, Switzerland fully endorses the message of solidarity, dialogue and friendship conveyed to South Africa and the world by Saype.”
Cape Argus