2025 HEAT Winter Arts Festival
Bringing the Heat: arts festival to awaken Cape Town’s City Centre again this winter
06.08.25 - 16.08.24
Winter in Cape Town is often viewed as a season to be avoided. Certainly, the city's swallow population (who also have homes in other parts of the world) jet off at the first sign of rain. Locals often bunker down and retreat from the world, waiting for warmer temperatures to return.
The HEAT Winter Arts Festival was conceived to shift this culture with a spritely injection of culture to its city centre - with an exciting programme brimming with visual art, theatre, music, opera, comedy, talks, walkabouts and this year a digital arts programme.
Building on the momentum from its first successful edition this year's HEAT Winter Arts Festival, which will take place from August 6 to 16 at over 16 incredible galleries and live venues throughout the City Centre, promises to be a hot ticket this chilly season.
The festival was established by the renowned art commentator Mary Corrigall to increase foot traffic and interest in art in the myriad of galleries in Cape Town's city centre during winter. Creating more opportunities and visibility for emerging and young artists and performers is also a priority.
"Many consider winter 'dead time' because of the decline in tourist numbers and the cold weather. Instead of viewing this quiet period negatively, why not use it to showcase the work of the incredible young creatives in this city and transform winter into a season we relish. Cape Town is one of the African continent's most lively creative hubs, let's huddle indoors and revel in this aspect," says Corrigall.
The HEAT Winter Arts Festival presents a rare opportunity to walk around the city and explore 13 stimulating art exhibitions all united by the festival's theme, Other Worlding. Conceived by Voni Baloyi, one of the festival curators, the theme highlights the ways in which artists generate alternative realities or titular worlds, revealing our society's deepest desires or fears or plotting new histories or futures.
"Speculative practice considers both prospective and retrospective journeying, with the end goal being an imaginative means of refiguring life in this world," says Baloyi.
This year's gallery partners include; the AVA, artHARARE, Christopher Moller, Ebony/Curated, Eclectica Contemporary, Everard Read, HUB Gallery operated by Spier Arts Trust (SAT), Nel, Reservoir Projects, Origin Art, Smac, Untitled, WORLDART and Sisonke in partnership with SAT and Our Cape Town Heritage. Additional visual arts programming will be staged at the Goodman, Lemkus, Iziko SA National Museum and the Norval Foundation.
The exhibitions will highlight the next generation of artists we must pay attention to and the emerging mid-career artists who continue to be relevant. Rising artists from Zimbabwe, Egypt, Nigeria and Tunisia will participate; however, art probing Cape Malay culture will be prominent this year. Some of the artists to look out for include Balekane Legoabe, Nada Baraka, Sahlah Davids, Dan Halter, Richard Mudariki, Johann Louw, Selwyn Steyn, Ulriche Jantjes, Adelheid Frackiewicz, Sbonelo Luthuli, Azuka Muoh, Olamide Ogunade, Rebaone Finger, Kea Seema, Gavin Goodman, Thekiso Mokhele, Colijn Strydom and Gwen Van Embden.
Curator-led walkabouts and a talks programme created by Art School Africa will afford the public many opportunities to get up close and personal with artists, art, and the pulse of the city's creatives.
The theatre programme staged at the Wave Theatre is curated by Nkgopoleng Moloi, who judges the highly respected Fleur du Cap theatre awards. She has curated a collection of pieces created by emerging theatre makers who are developing new works.
"The theatre of the future can allow for the re-imagining of social realities, political systems, and economic structures through dreaming, where
dreaming is not simply an escape from the present but a productive political act that resists current oppressive systems. In this country, theatre has long served as a site for imagining futures that respond to its unique historical and social context," observes Moloi.
The Quiet Life Co, a Cape Town-based sound business dedicated to supporting musicians, is curating the live music programme that will be staged in art galleries and other venues.
Opera UCT's world-renowned director, Jeremy Silver, will once again present a compelling programme tailored to the festival theme. The programme will be performed by the company's most promising opera talents.
At the Alliance Francaise, Comedy in Common, headed by S'Qhamo Mangcu and Nishen Pather, will present a varied programme highlighting the breadth of new stand-up comics on the Cape Town comedy circuit.
This venue will also serve as the festival's hub, a central location for the public to find out about the festival, book tickets, explore VR works and peruse an exhibition curated by Untitled, a nomadic art platform.
The festival is made possible by the galleries as well as strategic partnerships and sponsorship from BASA, the CCID, Spier Arts Trust, Institut Francaise, Alliance Francaise, Norval Foundation, Absa L’atelier Awards and Capital Point.
This vibrant surge of art, theatre, live performance, music, and comedy promises to ignite Cape Town this winter and dispel the notion of a Cape Town 'coma' that is thought to set in during that season.
To subscribe, books tickets and find out more about the programme: visit www.heatfestival.org