Minibus taxis are often in the news, but rarely for promoting the arts. Turning the tables on this perception is respected local artist Thania Petersen.
She has collaborated with taxi owners, Ziyaad and Fatima Dyason, to turn a public transport vehicle into a moving masterpiece that passengers can appreciate en route!
The “pimped-up” ride forms part of the UnInfecting the City public arts festival currently underway in Cape Town, presented by the University of Cape Town’s Institute for Creative Arts.
“The Taxi Project is a public arts initiative to make art accessible to people who do not have the privilege to experience much, if any, art in their lives. By turning a taxi into an immersive art experience – from showcasing video work, visual art, recorded poetry readings and even theatre productions played on a screen inside the vehicle- commuter’s lives can be enriched with the arts at any given moment of the day,” explains Thania Petersen.
To achieve this end, the interior of the Dyasons’ taxi has been kitted out at a 22-inch screen and sound system, on which Petersen’s latest film will play.
She has covered the entire outside of the vehicle in the art form of the film. The taxi will be parked outside the Zeits Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) in the city’s Silo District at the V&A Waterfront for a brief period before it heads out on its regular route. The route takes the taxi towards Hanover Park to the Cape Flats.
This mobile art gallery will be in circulation for several months.
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Picture: Supplied