Contra.Joburg for art that finds you

The city's most radical art festival returns to disrupt, inspire and reconnect the city through the raw power of studio-born creativity

- Lesego Chepape

Johannesburg is a city in tension. It's a city where bricks fall and buildings rise at the same time.

Where potholes open underfoot — but murals bloom on the walls. Where people say, “This city is falling apart,” yet artists continue to create, in spite of it all.

And, in the heart of that contradiction, lives Contra.Joburg, the city’s most radical visual arts festival. Set to return on 30 and 31 August, this is not your average gallery crawl. It's something raw. Alive. Urgent.

It’s a festival that dares to ask: “What if art interrupts you?”

“There's this perception that the city is dangerous; that you don't want to come here,” says Sara Hallatt, founder of Contra.Joburg. “But then you walk into these studios and people are shocked. They go, ‘God, it’s so amazing. It’s so inspiring.”

For Hallatt, who has been working in Johannesburg's inner city for many years, first with Bag Factory, now with The Art House, that tension is both exhausting and electric. She's seen the city at its worst but also witnessed beauty in places most would overlook.

“We don’t want to lie about where we are or what it’s like,” she tells me. “This is our home. This is where our friends are.

“It might be chaotic outside, but inside? It’s clean, safe and beautiful.”

While many cultural events rely on corporate polish and gallery grandeur, Contra flips that model. Instead of asking artists to bring their work to the people, it brings the people to the artists.

This year, over 170 artists, designers and makers will activate studios and galleries spaces across the inner city, places where work is made, not just shown.

“We've always been located in the city,” Hallatt explains. “And it's never been spectacular in the traditional sense — not for decades.

“But within a 7km radius, we've got an array of artists doing incredibly interesting things.” She pauses, then adds with a smile: “You've just got to know where to look.”