Third Worlds: Model Cities

18 February to 19 March 2010

The Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA)’s Third Worlds: Model Cities opens at the Michaelis Gallery, Cape Town on 18 February 2010. This collaborative exhibition – built around an abstract city of Cape Town - uses fine art, architecture, language and literature to critically explore the urban landscape and how it is constructed.

Third Worlds: Model Cities incorporates architectural models, photographs, an isiXhosa glossary, text and multimedia. Local settlements - such as Barcelona and Kosovo - are featured as are their ‘other’ namesakes, building a connection between different landscapes.

The collaborators are Tessa Dowling (Professor of South African Languages at UCT), Harry Garuba (Professor of English and African Studies at UCT), Svea Josephy (Senior Lecturer at Michaelis School of Fine Art), architect and lecturer Noeleen Murray and architect Carson Smuts.

The interdisciplinary research to investigate land and identity in a changing South Africa allows cities and built structures to be critiqued in a way that would not possible through a solely architectural approach.

The gallery will be open from 10.00 to 16.00 Monday to Friday. Entrance is free.

The Third Worlds: Model Cities exhibition was made possible by a GIPCA project award.
GIPCA: The Donald Gordon Foundation has funded the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) to enhance the arts at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and facilitate a broad range of collaborative and interdisciplinary projects that use the arts to explore culture and knowledge.