Graffiti artists and skateboarders go head to head with Cape Town’s authorities on their right to express their crafts in the streets and public spaces, reports T in an investigation titled iKapa boards up the long street to freedom.
Almost every Sunday a group of about 20 people convene on the roads that map Cape Town’s heart. Ranging in age from 10 to 45, this crew of Capetonian longboard skaters has, for the past decade, taken part in Alpha Lazy Sundays with a commitment akin to religious fervour.
Despite the fact that the group has skated in District Six for the past decade, this Sunday a police van pulls up and issues a warning instructing them to stop. Rahim, in the blunt manner of a child, suggests a way to resolve the situation.
“I think we must go to the government and make it legal for longboarding,”he says.
“It makes me angry when the police come. We waited our whole week to skate and they come and throw away our fun for no reason.”
The use of public space
Little scenes like this are playing out all over Cape Town. Viewed independently, it is easy to dismiss them as inconsequential skirmishes between the culturally and economically marginal and an overzealous police force.
But when you aggregate the incidents of skateboarders being criminally charged and graffiti being covered up at the whim of a citizen who calls a hotline to complain, the battle lines seem clearly drawn. The question is: Who has the right to determine the use of public space?
Full story titled iKapa boards up the long street to freedom via Mail & Guardian
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