Watershed

Inside the old harbor shed, retail stalls stand along a passage that leads from one end of the building to the other. It was created when the former craft-trading premises were joined to a neighboring vacant warehouse and two end walls were removed. Side passageways branch off on both sides of the street, startup companies occupy rooms upstairs, and independent makers and local brands sell their work downstairs. After the conversion, the retail area grew by half.

In two thousand seven, the artist Alima Mbombo Pasa made a living selling paintings at the markets of Green Point and Long Street. She grew up in Khayelitsha, a Black neighborhood on the outskirts of Cape Town that expanded under apartheid. Alima had little schooling, spoke English poorly, and had no connections that would help her enter the trade. Paintings made with details from discarded cans and metal offcuts brought her a modest income.

One day, a customer said that these works should be sold at the V&A Waterfront. Alima laughed. In her own words, the waterfront seemed to her like a place from which people like her had previously been excluded. The customer explained that there was a market here where small craft businesses were given retail space and helped to learn retail sales.

The present-day Watershed did not yet exist. The building housed the Blue Shed Craft Market. Alima came here after all. The manager explained the process: submit an application, receive a small retail stall, then, with the staff's help, set up the shop and learn to handle accounts and sales. Alima agreed. Her shop began earning enough for her to hire two female assistants, also from Khayelitsha. Alima herself continued painting there, while the assistants dealt with customers and accounts here.

At the beginning of two thousand fourteen, the waterfront's owners decided to join the Blue Shed with a neighboring vacant warehouse called Workshop 17. Architect Heinrich Wolff was to place a business incubator in it. He proposed using the whole shed, removing two end walls, and running a pedestrian street through the building. Wooden retail stalls were set along it, side passageways and small squares were left between them, and premises for startup companies were raised to the upper levels.

After the merger, the market's area grew by half. In October two thousand fourteen, the old vendors and new makers opened under the name Watershed. About one hundred fifty independent traders and hundreds of local brands established themselves here.

On the ground floor of today's Watershed, Alima Mbombo Pasa's Township Art Gallery is still listed. Her shop occupies one of the small retail stalls for which Wolff ran a street through the old shed. Here, Alima's paintings became work for her and her two assistants.