What will the National Arts Festival be like in 2030? Future Festivals South Africa is currently working with the National Arts Festival as a research partner to speculate on the future of festivals in South Africa.
Led by artists blk banaana (Duduetsang Lamola) and Francois Knoetze, this speculative project asks participants to dream the kinds of spaces, places, and people they would like to see form part of the National Arts Festival ten years from now.
Participants’ contributions will form part of a collective visualising of a future festival. Lamola and Knoetze will incorporate and draw from participants’ contributions to create an interactive 360 video world of this future festival. The video will be accessible online at the end of their final artistic process.
Future Festivals South Africa: Possibilities for the Age of Covid-19 is an international collaborative project developed by King’s College London and Rhodes University, Makhanda. It aims to gain an understanding of how Covid-19 has affected arts festivals in South Africa, but also to enable new ideas for future: including new business models, and new approaches to audiences and participation. The project brings together an interdisciplinary team of researchers including cultural economists, cultural policy researchers, and creative labour specialists.
