First Thursday
So much love for the incredible creative energy that fills 223 Jan Smuts Creative Hub every First Thursday ✨
We’re endlessly grateful for the passionate art lovers, curious minds, and bold collaborators who make this festive hub what it is. Here’s to a year ahead filled with inspiring partnerships, meaningful conversations, and boundary-pushing creativity.
Keep your eye out for upcoming First Thursdays, exhibition openings, and workshops at the Creative Hub! We absolutely love having you here and can’t wait to welcome you for more unforgettable moments of art and connection.
“I seduce the viewer with interesting shapes and a delicate colour palette. When I’ve captured their attention, the images unravel.”
Thirza Schaap has created a collection of botanically inspired painted works for her Fatal Flowers series. In these works, Schaap selects simple palettes of two or three colours to create images that blur the boundaries between flora and the human form. Engaging with the inherent human inclination to pareidolia, Schaap introduces movement and energy into these seemingly simple florals, creating the impression of someone camouflaged within the flowers, or emergent from the garden of the imagination. The resultant forms are fantastical and intriguing, hinting at what lies beneath the surface of what at first seems simple, inviting the viewer to question what they hold to be true and whether human senses make for reliable witnesses.
One-night stands in white mustangs, a solo exhibition of new ceramic works by Johannesburg-based artist Amogelang Maepa. Working between poetry and clay, Maepa develops each work from a written text. The sculptures do not illustrate these poems; instead, they translate their tension, rhythm, and internal pressure into material form.
The exhibition brings together five ceramic sculptures shaped through processes of repetition, pressure, and return. Subtle distortions, thickened edges and porous surfaces suggest material that has gathered and built up over time, as if pressure from within has forced its way outward. The forms convey the impression of internal activity, with cellular textures, clustered deposits and areas of rupture and spread.
Across the series, Maepa approaches desire not as fulfilment, but as repetition. Forms recur without stabilising. Surfaces retain the traces of what has passed through them. Each work holds the residue of the process rather than a finished state.
Megan Shapiro Keychain Keepsake Workshop
5:30 PM – 8:00 PM | R85 per person
Get creative with artist Megan Shapiro and discover the fascinating world of thermoplastic drawing using 3D art pens. In this hands-on, artist-guided workshop, participants will learn how to draw and sculpt with filament pens to create a unique, artwork-inspired keychain to take home.
Inspired by Megan’s distinctive 3D pen artworks and experimental approach to mark-making, this workshop offers a fun and accessible introduction to a contemporary art medium suitable for all skill levels. Whether you’re a seasoned maker or simply curious to try something new, you’ll leave with a one-of-a-kind keepsake and a new creative skill.
All materials are provided.
Inspired by Megan’s distinctive 3D pen artworks and experimental approach to mark-making, this workshop offers a fun and accessible introduction to a contemporary art medium suitable for all skill levels. Whether you’re a seasoned maker or simply curious to try something new, you’ll leave with a one-of-a-kind keepsake and a new creative skill.
All materials are provided.
This presentation consists of two short multimedia videos, each approximately two minutes in duration.
The first video brings together works created between 2021 and 2022 from the ongoing project iGado. The work follows the train journey between Tembisa and Johannesburg, exploring the communities that exist in and around the railway stations. Through photography and moving image, the piece reflects on movement, daily life, and the social landscapes that emerge along this route.
The second video focuses on traditional ceremonies that took place at the artist’s late grandmother’s home. Drawing from personal and family archives, the work reflects on memory, spirituality, community, and the role of the homestead as a site of gathering, cultural practice, and intergenerational connection.
Together, these works explore themes of movement, belonging, memory, and community through a combination of photography, archival material, and multimedia presentation.
Duration: approximately 4 minutes total.
Nature has a way of transforming a space, Bring nature and design together with the timeless versatility of USM Modular Furniture. Paired with the enduring elegance of USM Modular Furniture, plants become more than décor—they become part of a thoughtfully curated environment.
USM’s modular design offers the freedom to create displays that celebrate both functionality and beauty. From showcasing treasured plant collections to creating adaptable living spaces, each configuration is designed to evolve alongside your lifestyle.
Discover how the iconic USM system provides the perfect foundation for a world where design and nature flourish together. 🌿
