Over 200 guests attended the official launch of the Institute for Creative Arts (ICA) at Hiddingh Hall on Tuesday 5 April 2016. Formerly known as the Gordon Institute for the Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA), the interdisciplinary institute has been given a new lease on life thanks to a R10 million, 3-year endowment from the A.W Mellon Foundation. ICA is located within the Faculty of Humanities.

GIPCA was established at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 2008 with a fixed-term grant from the Donald Gordon Foundation. When this came to an end in 2014, the Faculty stepped in with one-year bridging funding in order to secure the unit’s creative work and scholarship. The institute, which is based on Hiddingh campus, facilitates new collaborative research projects in the creative and performing arts and has become synonymous with vibrant live art performances and innovative education. 

The Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Professor Sakhela Buhlungu opened the launch event and in his speech thanked the Gordon Foundation for their generous support of the performing and creative arts at UCT. He said that the ICA would continue to be a space for vibrant interrogation and intellectual energy. “Today’s event is about crossing a bridge - from the old to the new. GIPCA has always been a space for vibrant interrogation and intellectual energy. It has also been a meeting point between academics and activists. ICA will continue to fulfill this role and, will become an important academic hub for creativity in the whole of Africa,” said Buhlungu.

The ICA launch provided an ideal opportunity to launch the book Relocations – Reading Culture in South Africa, which is derived from GIPCA’s popular Great Texts /Big Questions talk series and represents a culmination of the institute’s work.  Keynote speaker Dr Saleem Badat (Program Director: International Higher Education & Strategic Projects at the Mellon Foundation) said that their decision to support ICA had been a relatively easy one to make. He said that this was because of ICA’s orientation towards innovation and their prioritizing of the global South. The Mellon Foundation is one of few international foundations to focus solely on Humanities initiatives. Badat said that in partnering with institutions, they look for project leaders who possess the necessary expertise, intellect and leadership. These were qualities they identified in ICA Director Jay Pather.  

Other guest speakers included Suren Pillay (University of the Western Cape) and Zethu Mathebeni who challenged the audience to imagine a very different future for the university. Artists iQhiya Collective, Khanyisile Mbongwa, Owen Manamela, Gabrielle Goliath and a gold-painted Dean Hutton captivated the audience with their performances which were themed around change and challenging the status quo. 

Speaking about the institute’s new direction, Pather said: “The decolonizing project asks us for the conservatoires and modalities to be questioned, the simple question of access to a gallery space or a theatre is not answerable with a series of development programmes of bussing children into these spaces. The publics are not the problem, the problem may lie in the conception itself, the spaces, the modalities, the inherited claims to purity, the sets of codes available to a few”. 

In addition to ICA colloquiums, exhibitions and seminars, new initiatives include a Masters and PhD programme in Live Art, Interdisciplinary Art and Public Spheres (launched in February 2016) as well as 16 new Fellowships. Four of these are international fellowships geared towards attracting scholars from the African continent. For more information on ICA initiatives, visit the ICA website.