![\"Thisinteractivebodyweavingwasprovidedbyartistbevbutkow\"](\"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ThisinteractivebodyweavingwasprovidedbyartistBevButkow-1000x667-1.jpg\")
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always been located in the city,\u201d Hallatt explains. \u201cAnd it\u2019s never been spectacular in the traditional sense \u2014 not for decades. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut within a 7km radius, we\u2019ve got an array of artists doing incredibly interesting things.\u201d She pauses, then adds with a smile: \u201cYou\u2019ve just got to know where to look.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contra is deliberately hard to define. It\u2019s part art fair, part open studio, part social experiment. And that\u2019s exactly the point.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more interesting than going to a convention centre,\u201d Hallatt <\/p>\n
says plainly. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not real. If you want to know what\u2019s happening in real South Africa, come see what people are doing with their hands. Ask them. They\u2019re just trying to be Africans and do their thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, the festival opens up spaces usually closed to the public: working studios, rooftops, courtyards. <\/p>\n
It offers intimate access to artists at every level of their careers, from established painters to shoemakers, muralists and designers.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery few cities in the world have what we have,\u201d Hallatt says. \u201cMost places are pushing creatives out of the city because it\u2019s too expensive. But here, we\u2019ve still got this huge concentration of creative energy, in one place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contra is also deeply practical. For many artists in the city, accessing formal gallery spaces is difficult. Contra fills that gap by creating both visibility and opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been excluded from the market,\u201d Hallatt says. \u201cWe\u2019re not getting invited into spaces anymore. So, we thought let\u2019s just use what we\u2019ve got. Use the studios. Use our databases. Use our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The result? Nearly R3 million in direct art sales since the festival began in 2022 \u2014 money that goes straight into artists\u2019 pockets. Not gallery commissions. Not red tape. Just real support.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not just for established collectors: \u201cSome people come with beer money, some with bubbly money,\u201d Hallatt jokes. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe try to make the work accessible. We\u2019ve even got a shuttle service \u2014 all designed to remove barriers.<\/p>\n
For many Joburgers, the inner city still feels off-limits. Some haven\u2019t set foot downtown in 10, even 20, years. But Contra is changing that, one bus ride at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne woman told me she hadn\u2019t been to the city in 25 years,\u201d Hallatt recalls. \u201cShe was horrified but she loved it. She came back the next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
That kind of return, literal and symbolic, is part of the festival\u2019s purpose. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re building pathways,\u201d she says. \u201cNot just for people to see art, but for people to see the city again. To see that it\u2019s still alive. Still worth investing in.\u201d<\/p>\n Contra is run by a tiny team: Hallatt and two interns. There\u2019s no major funding body. No municipal support \u2014 yet. But there is vision. There is grit.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had no help from the city,\u201d she says. \u201cBut we know what this could be. You bring 10\u2009000 people into the inner city for an event like this and that\u2019s tourism, that\u2019s the economy, that\u2019s urban regeneration.\u201d<\/p>\n She believes this festival, and others like it, could be a blueprint for how culture can rebuild cities from the inside out.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t just about art,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s about economic stability. It\u2019s about giving people reasons to come back to the city. Who knows what that sparks down the line?\u201d<\/p>\n The festival measures success in many ways: social media buzz, ticket sales, artist commissions and studio visits. But, for Sara, one metric matters most.<\/p>\n \u201cWe ask people: \u2018Are you an art buyer? Or are you just art-curious?\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cBecause, if we can convert the curious, then we\u2019re doing something right.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s working. Some visitors become repeat buyers. Some start supporting artists directly. Some keep coming back, drawn by the energy, the surprise, the possibility of being moved.<\/p>\n Joburg isn\u2019t an easy city. Hallatt knows that. \u201cThere are definitely days where I\u2019m like, \u2018What is this madness?\u2019\u201d she admits. <\/p>\n \u201cBut there\u2019s something so real here. You see both ruin and rebirth. You see people trying, really trying, to make something meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n She reflects on the diversity of the Contra crowd: \u201cYou\u2019ve got people in their 50s and 60s, you\u2019ve got 18-year-olds. You\u2019ve got the queer community, the creatives, the art lovers, the curious. They come together in this very Joburg way and a little wild, a little messy, but full of heart.\u201d<\/p>\n And at the centre of it all? A community. A network of artists supporting one another, not for fame or fortune, but for the love of the game.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not making big money. We don\u2019t have huge sponsors. But we have each other,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re building something weird and wonderful. It\u2019s not perfect, but it\u2019s real.\u201d<\/p>\n What if art interrupts you? What if, walking through Johannesburg\u2019s broken streets, you stumble into a courtyard and hear music? What if you step into a sunlit studio and see something you never expected \u2014 a painting, a shoe, a sculpture \u2014 and that changes the way you see this place? <\/p>\n That\u2019s Contra.Joburg. Not an exhibition, a performance, just real people doing real things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Johannesburg is a city in tension. It\u2019s a city where bricks fall and buildings rise at the same time. Where potholes open underfoot \u2014 but murals bloom on the walls. Where people say, \u201cThis city is falling apart,\u201d yet artists continue to create, in spite of it all. And, in the heart of that contradiction, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1855"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1860,"href":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855\/revisions\/1860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Contrabelievesthatkidsshouldhaveachancetobecreative](\"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Contrabelievesthatkidsshouldhaveachancetobecreative_Manyvenueshavekidsactivities-1000x667-1.jpg\")