SEE SAW
11.12 - 17.12.2025

Shade, the Johannesburg-based waste materials library and youth arts platform, brings its imaginative and community-rooted practice to Cape Town with ‘SEE SAW’. The week-long pop-up programme, running from 11–17 December at One Park, is a collision of art, sound, food, film, and play, recasting Shade’s Johannesburg archive for new audiences in the Cape. ‘SEE SAW’ will gather performances, artworks, films, and “art-in-works” from across Shade’s network of artists and dreamers. Throughout the week, One Park becomes a site of encounters, reshaping the atmosphere with experiences that invite dancing, drifting and moments of collective reverie.

Shade is a non-profit organisation that fosters intergenerational world-building across Brixton and Hillbrow through weekly programmes, archives and collaborative artistic research that imagine new ecological and social futures through the lens of waste as resource, memory and possibility. They work with youth, artists, waste reclaimers and crafters to reanimate material culture, culminating in artist residencies, exhibitions, and community parades such as the Brixton Light Festival and Hey Hillbrow. 

ArtThrob had a quick interview with Shade’s director, Tamzyn Botha, asking her five simple questions. 

Can you tell us a little bit about Shade? How did this impactful organisation come about?

Shade has become an extended ecosystem of community carers, artists, children and dreamers. Much like the youth programmes and collaborations that have popped out, these have all been organic developments in response to the community of inner city Joburg – and Brixton, where Shade was founded. Shade’s approach has always held the sentiment of make do, and make of. From our parades, artist residencies and community projects – mapping and connecting the dots has been a way in which Shade has grown in and out. The underlying glue, the waste we discard and reinventing this has carried through in all the ways in which Shade has made and played. 

What was the impulse behind this new collaboration? What are you hoping to achieve? 

These, by all means, are not new collaborations; these are celebrations of the many connections to youth, artists and cultural workers throughout the years we’ve been fortunate enough to call friends and collaborators. 

This retrospective is not intended to be an endpoint, but rather another invitation to widen our networks and support our sustainability. To give a platform to more players and dreamers alike. To showcase the constant reinvention of materials, the hybridisation of mediums and the merging of practices. This intergenerational smorgasbord of artworks also invites the viewer to see the patterns, map one’s own understanding and see repetition as a form of social collage and query. Our intention is to give a little glimpse into the magic that so many have brought forward in the service of play and collective dreams. 

The artist list is quite extensive. Can you tell us about the process of how and why you put together this specific group of artists? 

These artists (of all ages) have been fundamental players in Shades’ practice over the years. These works and documentation are an echo of the moments shared. Most of the works from these artists come from long-standing projects that were interventions and happenings; these small slices of life take form as single pieces but reflect a much wider network of practitioners. 

Can you make a connection between visual art, soundscapes and food? 

The connection between the arts, music and food is sensory. They all indulge a physicality, and when merged, they synthesise into symbiotic experiences that can’t be felt in isolation. The overarching sentiments of these mutations speak to worldbuilding and how things are experienced in parallel to what is experienced. Play with your food – our concept dinner – is our shrine to play, indulgently fusing the senses, with a menu that sparks high concept and nostalgia paired with live soundscapes and visuals that echo, respond and emphasise what’s on the tongue and in the hand. 

How do you define play? And why is it important? 

Play is improvisation. It’s channelling, with little to no emphasis put into outcome or result. It’s the space we go to when we are more present in our body. To practise is to play, and it’s in these spaces that children practise so intuitively, with fewer boundaries. It’s the ownership of expression, the letting go of expectation. Improvisation is the verb of the arts, as play is the doing. Everything else is a recital. 

 

‘SEE SAW’ will begin its program on 11 December at One Park in Gardens, Cape Town. 

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS

11 December – SEE SAW Opening

Seventhgaze & Air On
5 pm – Close | Free

13 December – Play It By Ear

Felix Laband x Mey x Duce duce
1 pm – Close (Music from 8 pm) | R100 (Door Entrance)

14 December – Press Play

We Are Lillies Radio Takeover + Film Screenings
1 pm – 10 pm (Films at 8:30 pm) | Free

16 December – Play With Your Food

Shade x Lulu Stone & Orli Oh ft Jumping Backslash x Duce duce
1 pm – 10 pm (Dinner at 8 pm) | R790

Exhibiting artists include; Winston Hong, Windybrow Arts Centre, Thorsten Deckler, Sentech Croozers, Siphesihle Muvriri, Percy Zumato, Penyo Makgobi, Orli Oh, Naledi Chai, Mveliso Ntaba, Muhammed Wadi, Mpho Mukono, Mpho Makutu, Mark Straw, Lulu Stone, Limb, Leonora Mugande Kanaladorp, Io Makandal, Heather Mason, Francois Knoetze, Francis Burger, Edition Verso, David Gara, Divine Tapoya, Clubhouse Youth, Cammie Behrens, Bright Murira, Brixton Photo Collective, Bonolo Mofokeng, Ayanda Mpofu, Alet Pretorius, Alastair Mclachlan, African Reclaimers Organisation.

Film Screenings Include:

A Song About Birds: Jumping Backslash x Morena Leraba (Limb)

The Guise: Polarimpala x Behr

Dzata: Lo Def Film Factory x Russel Hlongwane

Hey Hillbrow 2025 (Premiere): Craig Maarschalk, Percy Zimato, Jumping Backslash

ARO Parade 2024: Craig Maarschalk, The Cooligans

Brixton Light Festival 2023: Craig Maarschalk

Mveliso Ntaba – How It’s Made: Mey

Nomsa: Jonathan Pinkhard, Domenico Benigno

Whoreduh (VR Prototype): Tamzyn Botha & Tinyiko Makwakwa

Waste Not Want Not (360 VR): Francois Knoetze ft Limb x Brixton Photo Collective, Jarred Parenzee

 

For more info: https://www.instagram.com/shade_community