Bag Factory Artists’ Studios celebrates 35 years of artistic community, exchange, and enduring influence with a landmark fundraising exhibition.
2 June 2026
For 35 years, Bag Factory Artists’ Studios has stood as one of South Africa’s most vital sites of artistic production, dialogue, and experimentation. This year, the institution marks the milestone with ‘When We Gather’, a fundraising group exhibition that reunites selected alumni and current artists whose practices have shaped, and been shaped by, the Bag Factory’s remarkable legacy.
Bringing together voices across three and a half decades of studio life, the exhibition reflects on the relationships, ideas, and creative exchanges that have unfolded within these walls. Here, established figures of South African contemporary art appear alongside compelling emerging practitioners, revealing the breadth of a community that continues to evolve across generations.
More than a retrospective, ‘When We Gather’ is an act of collective recognition. It honours the artworks produced, the conversations shared, and the opportunities cultivated through one of the country’s longest-running artist-led spaces. In gathering again, the exhibition transforms memory into presence, demonstrating how creative networks endure long after artists leave the studio.
As Bag Factory continues its year-long celebration of creating space for artists, curators, and writers at every stage of their careers, ‘When We Gather’ offers a powerful reminder that artistic communities are built not only through making but through gathering, returning, and remembering.
This exhibition will be on view at CIRCA on Jellicoe, Rosebank, from 3 June until 4 July 2026.
