Institute for Creative Arts

The Institute for Creative Arts (ICA) is an interdisciplinary institute based in the University of Cape Town’s Humanities Faculty, formerly known as the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA). Since 2008, the Institute has fostered innovative practice and research in the creative and performing arts that works across the disciplines of music, dance, fine art, drama, literature and film, with a particular focus on black practitioners and issues that affect black South Africans. 

The ICA’s main aim is to foster innovative practice and research in the creative and performing arts. The focus on interdisciplinarity emerges from this vision for innovative research and practice. UCT has very strong disciplines, for instance in Fine Art and Drama. The ICA supports these disciplines, and pioneers research and artistic practices that blur disciplinary boundaries.

A key premise of the ICA’s work is that interdisciplinary practice in South Africa, and live art in particular, help us to understand the complexity of our contemporary society – one that is chronologically 'post' apartheid, but that continues to grapple with material redress, land redistribution and systemic racism.