Zeitz MOCAA – Home Is Where The Art Is – Art Owned and Made by The People of Cape Town

This deluxe, full-colour volume records the making of and responses to Home Is Where the Art Is, a non-juried, democratic celebration of art owned and made by the people of Cape Town. Boldly hospitable and wide open in its embrace, this daring exhibition was launched at a pivotal moment, in October 2020, as South Africa emerged from the enforced isolation of its first hard-hitting lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. For months, people had been confined to their homes. When the restrictions were lifted, Zeitz MOCAA seized the moment to celebrate the lifeblood of its existence: people and art. Editors / Curator / Authors: With contributions by Neo Maditla, Ashraf Jamal and Zeitz MOCAA staff, edited by Alexandra Dodd.

After a three-week open call, Cape Town residents donned their masks and stepped out to deliver their artworks in person to several collection points across the larger metropolitan area, from Parow, to Langa, to Khayelitsha to Muizenberg. This book incorporates social media and critical commentary to offer multiple insiders’ views of what the experience was like, for curators, artists, critics and audiences alike. Like the physical exhibition, the book has been curated into five themes seminal to the experience of lockdown: relations, the garden, outside, inside and time. Through image and text, each theme is explored in both its literal and metaphoric dimensions. Polyvocal in tone, and all-embracing in spirit, it is a celebration of the creative spirit of a city in a moment of radical reflection and transformation. Home Is Where the Art Is is a love letter to art, artists and our city, Cape Town.

Dust jacket over a hard cloth cover