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Seven people, who call themselves queer artivists and operate under #WeSeeYou, formally reserved the house last week and now say they will not move in protest.
A view of Camps Bay in Cape Town. Image: 123rf.com
CAPE TOWN – A Cape Town group that has occupied a Camps Bay mansion said they expected to stay in the luxury home for two to three months to make their point.
Seven people, who call themselves queer artivists and operate under #WeSeeYou, formally reserved the house last week and now say they will not move in protest.
They want their action to draw attention to issues related to land and housing.
The mansion at Camps Bay has six bedrooms, a pool and a hot tub and is priced high daily.
The activists said they had been planning their action for months.
Kelly-Eve Koopman said that in order to gain access to the venue, they paid for three nights’ lodging and Tuesday marked their second unpaid day.
But now that they are in the house, they are not going anywhere anytime soon.
Koopman said they wanted to draw attention to the lack of safe spaces for queers, women and children and for those who are landless and unable to pay rent.
“All artists and creatives have made art an essential part of our kind of public education ideology.”
Koopman said that during the COVID-19 pandemic and now, many of the vacation properties remained vacant even though there was an urgent need for housing.
“The occupants are not treated with dignity, they are harassed by the police. People cannot access land at home where women, children and queers cannot access safe accommodation. “
Koopman said they have had enough of what they considered a broken system and their occupation was a way of drawing attention to that.
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