Alpha Street Gallery: New Project Makes City Centre an Open-Air Art Gallery

Mission for Inner City Cape Town, the organisers of Bree Street Sundays and other projects to make the CBD more walkable, have unveiled their latest project. The Alpha Street Gallery turns the road between the V&A and Cape Town Station, used by over 8000 pedestrians every weekday, into a showcase for African photography, art, and culture.

The new exhibition is part of their Inner City Art Routes initiative, which encourages people to spend more time in the city by making walking from place to place less stressful and more enriching. This transforms the inner city’s all-too-busy streets into a space to slow down, take in local art, connect with others, and reflect on Cape Town as a cultural hub.

More about Alpha Street Gallery

Currently, two exhibitions are on show. Unsung Heroes features winning images selected from more than 180 submissions by African photographers for the #AfricanCITYFOODMonth photography competition. It celebrates the unseen and underappreciated people who keep urban food systems alive, including informal traders and community growers.

Alongside it, City in Motion is a retrospective of six years of RISE Africa’s annual photography competitions, with key themes including African creativity, agency, urgency, everyday possibilities and African urban futures. It offers diverse perspectives on how people experience, shape and reimagine cities, capturing the movement, energy and complexity of African urban life – building on the concept of the Alpha Street Gallery itself.

The collections feature a wide array of African artists: Aida Namukose, Andriantsoa Heritiana Razafindraleva, Oluwayemisi Onadipe, Ritikesh Ragudu, Ahmad Mansour, Nasiru Kozzo Ali, Mpumelelo Buthelezi, Marie Jeann, Munyerenkana, Benjamin Nsubuga, Rahul Rama-Panchia, Ismail Odetola, Katumba Badru, Herman Kacingu, Hamza Rochdi, John Kalapo, Isaac Assumeng Gyamfi, Abdullahi Santuraki, Andile Bhala, and Endinalo Moni.

The displayed works show how African citizens see their cities through their own eyes, connecting Cape Town to a broader conversation that celebrates the people, places, and everyday experiences that make the urban lifestyle so special. Together with Mission’s other projects, Alpha Street Gallery helps make the Mother City a space that feels alive, vibrant, and ready to be explored, rather than just passed through.

Where to see the exhibitions

Alpha Street Gallery is a joint collaboration between Mission and ICLEI Africa, including its initiatives RISE Africa and EU-funded AfriFOODlinks. It builds on the annual open-air photography exhibitions along the Sea Point Promenade, where SJ Artists and Orms invite the city’s photographers to submit and display their work in one of the city’s most iconic locations.

The exhibitions are located on the corner of Alpha Street and Lower Loop Street, one of the city’s busiest pedestrian walkways. It’s free to visit, and residents are encouraged to take it easy, stroll around, and spend time engaging with the works and what they could say about Cape Town’s past, present, and future.

Where: cnr Alpha & Lower Loop St, Cape Town City Centre

Website: www.missionforinnercity.org
www.africa.iclei.org
www.africa.iclei.org