Discussants
Ukhona Ntsali Mlandu is the Director of Greatmore Studios and Thupelo Cape Town Trust. The organisation is an artist-led community of practice established in the early 80’s. She founder of makwande.republic, a residency and ideas engineering space which is based in her ancestral village in rural Eastern Cape, SA. Mlandu has worked across the Creative Sector value-chain for the last 22 years in institutions like the Artscape Theatre, the Performing Arts Network of South Africa and as an independent consultant. She is also a practicing artist.
Marco Morgan is an urbanist who has worked extensively in various roles and spheres of the Government and community-based organizations to amplify the role of culture and community as integral and formative components for sustainable urban environments. Marco’s work has not been limited to the realm of officialdom and he has worked closely in different capacities with various organizations and initiatives such as the National Skate Collective, Open Streets Cape Town, and Creative Nestlings as they strive to improve the urban development model and push for a more inclusive and culturally-sensitive method of urban development and governance.
Ralph Borland is a researcher at HUMA, the Institute for Humanities in Africa at University of Cape Town. He is an internationally exhibited artist and curator, with work in the permanent collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art, and in public spaces in Cape Town. His work with street wire artists in Southern Africa for his projects African Robots and SPACECRAFT informs his perspectives on the informal creative sector in African cities. He was a postdoctoral fellow at African Centre for Cities at UCT. He has a PhD from the School of Engineering at Trinity College, Dublin, a Masters in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University, and an Honours Degree in Fine Art from the University of Cape Town. His research interests are at the creative intersection of arts, science and technology, including Interventionist Art, Critical Design, Object Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Futures Studies.
Luvuyo Kakaza is an Arts and Culture journalist with more than 20 years experience. He has worked for several publications including the Mail & Guardian, City Press and the defunct This Day. He is co-founder of Jazz in the Native Yards, a mobile jazz concert series that has in the past six years has created performance platform for local, regional and international musicians and offered a space for social cohesion. He is one of the board directors for the Cape Town Music Academy, a non-profit organisation that offers Cape Town musicians performance opportunities.
Valmont Layne is a researcher based at the University of the Western Cape. He has extensive professional experience in the cultural sector as a musician, curator, museum director, archivist and in the field of cultural policy and advocacy. He is currently working on a book manuscript based on his doctoral research, a short documentary film project on Cape musicking histories, and is part of a team working to revitalise the digital archival collections of the University of the Western Cape. He lives in Muizenberg, Cape Town.
European Creative Cities & Covid-19 