Public art is art in any media that has been planned and executed with the intention of being staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all. Public art is significant within the art world, amongst curators, commissioning bodies and practitioners of public art, to whom it signifies a working practice of site specificity, community involvement and collaboration. Public art may include any art which is exhibited in a public space including publicly accessible buildings, but often it is not that simple. Rather, the relationship between the content and audience, what the art is saying and to whom, is just as important if not more important than its physical location.
The Ikon Gallery is an English gallery of contemporary art, located in Brindleyplace, Birmingham. It is housed in the Grade II listed, neo-gothic former Oozells Street Board School, designed by John Henry Chamberlain in 1877. The gallery's current director is Jonathan Watkins.
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival presents site-specific contemporary art covering all artistic forms from sculpture and environmental art to dance, live art and performance. The yearly festival is held in Kuopio, Finland. The first ANTI Festival was organised in 2002 by The Arts Council of Northern Savonia. The ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival Association was established in 2005 to coordinate the festival.
Next Wave is a biennial festival based in Melbourne, which promotes and showcases the work of young and emerging artists. Next Wave encourages interdisciplinary practice and fosters the creation and presentation of works by emerging artists working across a broad range of art forms, including dance, theatre, visual arts, performance, new media, and literature.
Koestler Arts is a charity which helps ex-offenders, secure patients and detainees in the UK to express themselves creatively. The organisation promotes the arts in prisons, secure hospitals, immigration centres and in the community, encouraging creativity and the acquisition of new skills as a means to rehabilitation. The Koestler awards were founded in 1962 and the organisation became a charitable trust in 1969 following a bequest from the British-Hungarian author, Arthur Koestler.
a.a.s is a British art group that uses performance, installation, video, participatory art and Ritual in its practice.
The Africa Centre, in Cape Town, South Africa, is structured as a not-for-profit organisation whose purpose is to provide a platform for Pan-African arts and cultural practice to function as a catalyst for social change. All the projects it conducts, facilitates or supports have some social intention. These projects are supported by a variety of Pan-African artists.
Brett Bailey is a playwright, artist, designer, play director, festival curator and the artistic director of the group Third World Bun Fight. He was the curator of South Africa's only public arts festival, Infecting the City, in Cape Town, South Africa, from 2008 until 2011. His works have played across Europe, Australia and Africa, and have won several awards, including a gold medal for design at the Prague Quadrennial (2007).
Space for Pan African Research Creation and Knowledge (SPARCK) is a multi-sited, multi-disciplinary project founded in 2008 in collaboration with The Africa Centre. It is structured around a series of residencies for artists from across Africa and the African diaspora working in numerous media and styles, a wide range of exhibitions, installations, performances, screenings, Internet link-ups, publications, round-table discussions and workshops. Its initiatives are directed at a diverse body of the public and actively engaged local communities.
Diana Page is a painter, performance and installation artist originally from South Africa but currently residing in Istanbul, Turkey. Exploring experiences of traveling back and forth between these two homes, Page's artwork concerns ideas of globalization and nomadic lifestyle. Through painting, drawing, performance, installation, and video, Page investigates the urban environments she inhabits as an emotional as well as physical setting.
Erin Bosenberg is a multi-media and performance artist living and working in Cape Town, South Africa. Her work concerns ideas of place, identity, and bodily experience, using text, word play, and gestures to develop these ideas.
Jay Pather is a South African curator, choreographer, and director working in Cape Town. He is the director of Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre and an associate professor at the University of Cape Town. Pather has been involved in the choreography and direction of over one hundred productions in South Africa and even more internationally.
Leán Coetzer is a South African dancer and choreographer. Her dance career officially began as founder member of the PACT Dance Company in 1988. Since then, Coetzer has performed and choreographed around South Africa, including the creation of several performance art pieces in various exhibitions and festivals. She works as a Voice Movement Therapy Practitioner.
Leila Anderson is a South African performance artist whose work balances the theatrical, the visual, and the performative. Her ongoing collaboration with Dutch artist Stan Wannet has produced several live installation works over the last two years. She is a part-time lecturer in contemporary performance at the University of Cape Town.
Jazzart Dance Theatre is a leading contemporary dance company in South Africa. It is known not only for its combination of Western and African styles, but also for its focus on social justice and community improvement. Jazzart Dance Theatre aims to be a trransformative dance company that reflects the changing social environment of South Africa. Meanwhile, Jazzart's training programme provides dance theatre training and creative interventions to South African communities most in need of opportunities to express their artistic impulses.
Ashley Walters is a South African-born and based artist who works with photography and film.
Rachel Gadsden is a UK-based visual artist and performance artist who is exhibited internationally and who works across the mainstream and disability art sectors. Gadsden has led a range of national and international participative programmes exploring themes of fragility and resilience. She has had a lung condition all her life and is injected by a syringe driver at one-minute intervals with the medication she needs to keep her alive.
iQhiya Collective is a network of young black female artists based in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa. They specialise in a broad range of artistic disciplines including performance art, video, photography, sculpture and other mediums.
Magnet Theatre is an independent physical theatre company based in Cape Town, South Africa. It was formed in 1987 by Mark Fleishman and Jennie Reznek who have since been the company's artistic directors. Besides creating original theatre productions, Magnet Theatre is actively engaged in youth development work in the Cape Town area as well as in the Cederberg Municipality.
The Trinity Session is a contemporary art production team directed by Stephen Hobbs and Marcus Neustetter.
