Who we are
The Institute for Creative Arts (ICA) facilitates transdisciplinary creative research programmes oriented towards social responsiveness and social justice. The main aim is to foster collaborative and transformative creative practice by connecting artists, activists, public thinkers, and academics in all fields of study. As a research institute, the ICA contributes to progressive pedagogies, mentorship and knowledge sharing.
The ICA was founded in 2008 as the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA). In 2016, it was launched under its current name as an international academic hub for rigorous public-facing programmes across the disciplines of music, dance, performance art, literature, fine art, and film. Over the years, the ICA has forged new paths in the study of live arts, public interventions and social justice. Working with artist collectives and artist organisations, the ICA has established a broad network of practitioners from different backgrounds. This approach tackles the inherent inequalities where practitioners struggle to find spaces to realise their strengths and to explore working differently and in spaces accessible to multiple publics. In all its events, emerging curators are invited for collaborative work, collective planning and realisation of projects.
The ICA has played a major role in shaping Live Arts practice in South Africa through programmes such as the Live Art Festival (LAF) and Infecting the City Public Arts Festival (ITC), which are amongst the most significant biennial public arts festivals in South Africa. As the longest-running public art festivals in the country, both LAF and ITC have played a crucial role in changing the discourse and facilitating public interventions that address the production of urban space in Cape Town. Taking place in several sites across the city, these festivals connect people, creating shared and accessible experiences of profound and critical creative works. The transdisciplinary approach also bridges creative practices from various backgrounds, tackling themes on equality, rights, dignity, restitution and agency. The ICA’s facilitation of these festivals are examples of ICA work in generating dialogue in how public space is experienced, excavating layered historical meanings of place, dispossession and mobility. The ICA recognises the dearth of resource-sharing platforms for live art practitioners for the growth of live art in Africa and seeks to develop a network for establishing these platforms.
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What we do
The ICA hosts a range of Interdisciplinary Symposia and Conferences which focus on Interdisciplinarity, Decoloniality, and Art Education.
Our Live Art Programme entails initiating new research on live art in South Africa and staging live art performances that emerge from experimentation, sustained research, and innovative concepts. The ICA’s Live Art Festival, run every two years, is the best-known feature of this programme.
Our Public Art Programme brings together research and artistic practice in public spaces, taking the work of artists and academics to a range of communities.
The ICA's Public Lecture Series (including the Great Texts/Big Questions lecture series) offers practitioners, academics, students, and the public an opportunity to interrogate bodies of work that are of interest to the public and issues of critical concern.
Strategic Goals
The ICA is committed to:
Generating critical transdisciplinary research through creative arts and mentoring a generation of practitioners and researchers in live art and social justice;
Advocating for social justice through the arts and establishing long-term partnerships with local and international civil society organisations, artist collectives and other arts institutes;
Contributing to progressive pedagogies and knowledge-sharing through creative arts.