CAPE TOWN - What does it mean to recognise consciousness in all living things as we navigate the challenges of the Anthropocene, or the time during which humans have had a substantial impact on our planet? This is one of the urgent questions posed by this year’s in-person ICA Live Art Festival, taking place in Cape Town from March 19 to April 3.
The festival programme embraces several performances that reference sentient beings. Most of these performances are set to take place in Cape Town’s iconic botanical garden, Kirstenbosch. The famed landscaped grounds are home to a myriad species of plants, insects, birds, reptiles and other animals.
But the irony of this setting is not lost on the festival’s curators and performers, who say they relish the opportunity to remind audiences that Kirstenbosch has a contested colonial past and that the relationship with the fragile natural world remains complicated.
Here, works will engage with plants, politics and history, allowing audiences to see and experience Kirstenbosch – and plants – in a fresh way.
“Kirstenbosch is mostly framed as a site of nature, but once we look at it as a place of work, it becomes clear that it is also a space of politics,” says festival co-curator Melanie Boehi.
The Kirstenbosch programme explores different aspects of ecology and history.
On April 2, Cape Town artist Ayesha Price and Adderley Street flower seller Karin Bachmann will lead a public workshop for participants who want to learn how to make flower arrangements and plant sculptures that reflect on stories about the past, place and belonging, using plant material from Kirstenbosch.
South African-Ugandan artist and textile designer Sibabalwe Ndlwana will demonstrate how to make a botanical community cloth with plant dyes. Lastly, a group of artists, scientists, healers, designers and anthropologists will host a workshop on how to interact with, and perhaps “talk to”, plants.
On April 3, Cape Town architect and artist Ilze Wolff will reflect on garden and land politics; American artist Chanelle Adams will take participants on a “ghost tour” of the camphor trees planted at Kirstenbosch by Cecil John Rhodes; and Swiss artist Daniela Müller will reflect on human-plant-animal relationships through the garden mole, often considered a problem animal.
Finally, Cape Town DJ and writer Ntone Edjabe will perform Ntone Edjabe’s Journey through the Secret Life of Plants, revisiting musician Stevie Wonder’s pioneering double album and his work on the Black experience of the natural environment. This performance will take place at UCT’s Hiddingh Campus.
Each performance will draw audiences into a deeper understanding of the nexus between nature and culture.
For more information, visit: http://www.ica.uct.ac.za/ica/projects/LiveArtFestival or email: email: [email protected]
Tickets are free but space is limited, so those who are interested are encouraged to book as soon as bookings are open on March 9.