Pan African Space Station (PASS)

Cape Town/Cyberspace

The Pan African Space Station is an unprecedented, innovative and radical all round free form sound cocktail. Designed to provoke new forms of creative expression and social mobilisation, as well as utilise the advancement of modern technology to facilitate access to and showcase the African avant-garde. PASS includes an annual 30-day music intervention, which takes place online through a freeform radio station and in unexpected venues across greater Cape Town. These 30 days are highlighted by a four day music festival, which includes artists from across the African continent and its Diaspora in multiple locations across Cape Town each day.

Now in its’ third year PASS is presented by the Africa Centre in partnership with the Heliocentrics curatorial team - Ntone Edjabe and Neo Muyanga. This duo, are renown and respected for their eclectic experience working with, and transforming sound, space, situation and image.

PASS not only brings music lovers together, but also seeks to acknowledge and profile new and existing independent music venues across the Cape Town. The music happenings are specifically arranged to occur at staggered time and space intervals to help affirm and disrupt, both, the music and geography of the City. However, these disparate venues across Cape Town are brought closer together through a temporary transport network of buses that serve the festival’s routes, facilitating greater mobility in our notoriously rigid cultural environment.

The curators were quoted saying “PASS embraces the lineages that shape music making on and from this continent, but we also try to challenge the stereotypes associated with music from Africa. This project isn’t about connecting with one’s roots, it’s more about exploring African cosmopolitanism in this 21st century through music.”

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