Creative Exchange Cape Town 2022

The Creative Exchange is a series of monthly events, hosted annualy in Cape Town, to share knowledge and create the space to form a broader community that breaks down professional silos and opens the floodgates to collaborative thinking.

These hybrid styled dialogues are livestreamed on social media channels and are co-hosted by the Craft and Design institute and the Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Africa (#cocreateSANL).
This year the Creative Exchanges look at the big picture of water in South Africa, its management, some of the good and the bad processes at work, particularly in urban environments; and where the opportunities for collaboration and new solutions may be found.

The 2022 Creative Exchange series kicked off in April with collaborative engagement around the development of African cities through the lens of water sensitive design.

A diverse panel of inspiring speakers from the water sector (policy-makers, government officials, water engineers and practitioners, the private sector and civil society) discussed the topic of Designing African blue-green cities for all. This was the main theme this year – exploring how to design better processes, systems and products that can lead to a more water secure future, particularly in an African context. In South Africa, the challenges are exacerbated by the need to address unequal access, and the state of infrastructure.

These discussions unpacked what it means to design sustainable African cities on multiple topics such as health and well-being, as well as the interaction between water and the built environment.
In September, the event theme focuses on “Finding common ground” where  community-based organisations will be enegaged to explore the vital role that civil society plays in the design of water-sensitive solutions.