Minstrels | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

Pharrell Williams’ song ‘Happy‘ is infectious, and on the playlist of radio stations like Kfm every day. Now it has been honoured with a unique Cape Town inspired music video, by a team of five local filmmakers, who made it for free, and want it to go viral, and to be seen by as many people as possible (93000 views in the past two days already)! It is fabulous free marketing for Cape Town!

Using the Cape Town World Design Capital 2014 colour yellow as its title page, which will bring it some brownie points, the Cape Town music video captures a 12 hour day. It includes the Sea Point Promenade, Muizenberg beach, Athlone Stadium, a number of township and Cape Flats scenes, colourful Bo-Kaap with minstrels, Charly’s Bakery, with the street art portrait of the late Nelson Mandela across the road, St George’s Mall, and Long Street.

The music video was directed by Shamiel Soni and Tannan Woods, and directed by Nicky Priem. Priem says of the ‘Happy‘ music video, and the reason for making it: ‘We are the most amazing city in the world. I think it was important for us to showcase the Mother City’s diversity and beautiful people. We all love the song and the message it portrays and I think the video helps unite our City. It gave us an Continue reading →

On Saturday Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille officially opened the Green Point Track, a new sporting facility which is hidden on the cul de sac road that leads away from the Cape Town Stadium, across the road from McDonalds. Given that the launch has been very low key, with barely any information to be found via Google, we requested Artvark, the creators of ten urban art sculptures made for the Green Point Track, to let us have more information about the project. It was interesting to read the motivation for the sculptures created, linking Cape Town’s sporting and recreation past and present.

On the cards since 2009, the urban art project was deemed to be an important part of the upgrading of the Track, to commemorate its history specifically, and the sporting and cultural history of Cape Town generally. Landscape artist Darryl Pryce-Lewis conceptualised the idea of negative and positive panels made from metal, all to be positioned in a straight line, creating a ‘visual effect to be able to look through a negative space of an individual sculpture towards the positive, the symbolism of this already touch upon the diverseness and challenges faced in our country‘, explains Artvark. Continue reading →