At Amsterdam Street Art, we give a platform to projects that connect street culture, public space and the artists shaping those worlds.This contribution comes from Karabo Mokoena, curator of the South African artists featured in Touch Grass. Below, she writes more about the London exhibition, the idea behind Offline by Design and the South African artists she selected for the show.
By Karabo Mokoena
There is something quietly radical about asking people to touch grass. Not as an insult. Not as internet slang. But as an invitation.An invitation to remember what happens when life is experienced beyond the screen. When creativity is shaped by scraped knees at the skatepark, conversations on street corners, the rhythm of passing trains, graffiti walls layered with stories, architecture weathered by time, public protest, late afternoon light, neighbourhood football matches, birdsong, concrete, and community.
That invitation became Touch Grass, an international group exhibition conceived by Calum Hall of Creative Debuts and Studio 404 in London. Running until September, the exhibition brings together artists from around the world whose practices explore the beauty, tension and humanity of existing in public space. At its heart sits Creative Debuts’ philosophy of being “Offline by Design”, championing presence over performance and genuine connection over endless consumption.
Rather than treating the outdoors as merely a backdrop, Touch Grass positions it as a collaborator. Parks become galleries. Streets become archives. Walls become diaries. Nature and the city stop competing and begin speaking the same language.
As curator of the South African artists featured in the exhibition, my role wasn’t simply to select “good artists.” It was to listen for a conversation that hadn’t happened yet. Curating has never been a technical exercise for me. It’s instinct. It’s chemistry. It’s asking which voices will challenge one another, which practices will echo across continents, and which artists can hold their own while contributing to something much larger than themselves. The South African contingent reflects exactly that.
Featuring Conform, Leigh Le Roux, Cathy Xiao, Murda Michael, Bushywopp, Broken Afrikaans, Mpumelelo Bhengu, HEREI, Motel7, TCup, Mapes, and Astron, the selection represents a cross-section of contemporary South African visual culture that refuses to be boxed into a single style or narrative.
Some artists draw from graffiti’s unapologetic energy. Others examine memory, identity, architecture, movement, typography, abstraction, illustration or urban storytelling. Together they reveal a creative landscape that is layered, restless and deeply alive. What makes this collection particularly exciting is not similarity, but contrast. Each artist arrives with a distinct visual language, yet collectively they form a conversation about how we occupy space, how we leave traces of ourselves, and how creativity emerges from the places where everyday life unfolds.
Their work reminds us that South African creativity has never existed in isolation. It exists on walls, in skate parks, in taxis, in townships, in city centres, in conversations, in protest, in joy, in resilience, and in communities constantly reinventing themselves. By bringing these artists into dialogue with practitioners from across the world, Touch Grass creates something far richer than an exhibition. It creates exchange. It reminds us that while every city has its own visual dialect, the language of creativity remains remarkably universal.
At a time when algorithms increasingly dictate what we see, where we look and how we connect, Touch Grass offers an alternative.
Slow down.
Look around.
Notice the mural you pass every day.
Watch the skaters turn architecture into choreography.
Sit in a park.
Look up from your phone.
Talk to someone.
Because perhaps the most important artwork in this exhibition isn’t hanging on a wall at all.
Perhaps it’s the reminder that the world is still happening outside.
And it’s waiting for us to be part of it.
Touch Grass, curated by Calum Hall and presented by Creative Debuts and Studio 404, runs in London until September, bringing together artists from across the globe in a celebration of public space, creativity and human connection. The South African artists featured are Conform, Leigh Le Roux, Cathy Xiao, Murda Michael, Bushywopp, Broken Afrikaans, Mpumelelo Bhengu, HEREI, Motel7, TCup, Mapes and Astron, offering audiences a vibrant snapshot of the country’s ever-evolving visual culture.
Exhibition: Touch Grass
Location: Laundry Studios, 2 Warburton Road, London E8 3RT
Opening night: 4 June
On view until: September
Presented by: Creative Debuts and Studio 404