A few days ago I walked into the Drill Hall, in the frenetic center of downtown Joburg, and went through a wormhole into an alternate universe.
I’ve spent the last three days pondering this one-hour visit and how to present it on the blog. I wasn’t at the Drill Hall long enough to take it all in – I would need to hang out there for at least a week to properly document this place and what’s happening there. But I’m impatient and I really want to share my pictures now, so here is a quick summary.
I recently returned from a weekend at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown), where I was invited to participate in the Standard Bank Art “Be Part of the Arts” social media campaign. The National Arts Festival (NAF) has been running since 1974 – it was born the same year (and the same month!) as me – and it’s a rite of passage for South Africans who love theatre, music, dance, and art of any kind. People have been raving for years about how fabulous NAF is; I have no idea why I’d never gone before.
After last year’s Brixton Light Festival, lots of people read my blog post and were sad they missed the festival and asked how they could be sure not to miss the next one. So consider yourselves warned: The next Brixton Light Festival takes place on Saturday, September 2nd, 2023. I have every reason to believe it will be even more spectacular than last year’s festival. Mark your calendars and follow @BrixtonLightFestival on Instagram for updates.
This is a quick post advising Joburg art-lovers to go to the Everard Read Gallery in Rosebank to check out the beautiful mosaic in the courtyard. It was made in Brixton.
I’ve always liked visiting Everard Read, which is in the middle of Rosebank’s art district – it’s a lovely gallery and always has great exhibitions. (Check out the fabulous “Bitches Brew” group exhibition that’s up now – it’s on until 6 May.) But I like it even more now that there’s a giant mosaic mural there, made by my neighbor.
I’ve visited Lilian Road Studios, a collection of artists’ studios in a historic, dilapidated building in Fordsburg, many times. Several great Joburg artists have had studios at Lilian Road, including Hannelie Coetzee and Hermann Niebuhr. Now there is a group of artists working there, several of whom are my friends, and I can’t believe I’ve never blogged about it before. There are so many things I love about these studios.
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Gail and I went on a walking tour of art galleries in Rosebank with Thabo the Tourist. I had never met Thabo before, but I was excited to do his tour because Thabo the Tourist is such a catchy name for a guide. (The “h” in Thabo is silent, for those of you not from South Africa, so the alliteration is strong.)