“Out of Sight. Uitsig. Walking with Ashley Walters”, article in Uitsig by Ashley Walters, Sanlam Press, Cape Town. Ashley Walters Artist: https://ashleywaltersstudio.com/uitsig-2013 On Thursday 18th May 2015 I joined Ashley Walters for a short walk to retrace some of the routes he walked as a child growing up in Uitsig. Starting off at his family …
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In 2018, I had the privilege of serving as academic coordinator for ISEA Durban, one of the leading international symposia on electronic art. Alongside this, I collaborated with Nicole Sarmiento to present a land performance video commemorating 100 years of the Native Land Act in South Africa, reflecting on the ongoing impact of colonial land …
Photos: Ashley Walters, Poem: Toni Steward This collaborative walk and spatial intervention through performance, sound, poetry and alternative forms of collective mapping took place under the rubric of a public art festival put together to commemorate the centenary of the 1913 Land Act. The LAND festival, put together by the Gordon Institute of Performing …
A Short talk presented as part of the commemoration of the 1913 Natives Land Act, for the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA), hosted at the District Six Museum. 22 November 2013 Good Evening to all! Thank you to GIPCA for creating this platform for creative practitioners, and for allowing an exploration of …
As part of the public program of the LAND public art festival and symposium, Farouk and Nicole Sarmiento curated a set of site-sensitive film screenings of films by Kim Munsamy, Sebástian Porras, Heidi Grunebaum and Mark Kaplan. The films were screened in historic buildings in Cape Town’s Central Business District, which carry within them histories of …
District Six on the Fringe (2013) at the Homecoming Centre. An event by The PublicCulture CityLab at the African Centre for Cities. The area designated as ‘The Fringe’ is intertwined with District Six and yet that history of the space, with its memory of forced removals, has not figured significantly in the ‘cultural regeneration’ plans …
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Trolley pushing activity in the city of Johannesburg provides a necessary service for people wanting to transport heavy baggage through the city. most trolley pushers charge a fee of R20 for a single load, but are seldom paid more than R5 by streetwise customers who know that trolley pushers are in no position to bargain. …
God’s Land / South Africa / 2009 / 2’15 / 4:3 In Highlands Hill, Yeoville, a neighborhood in an inner city of Johannesburg, hundreds of worshippers gather daily to pray. This causes friction with the municipality, which has earmarked the area for housing re-development. The City Parks authority has designated the Hill as a “no …
In 2008, I received the inaugural Sylt Quelle Cultural Award for Southern Africa, presented by kunst:raum sylt quelle in partnership with the Goethe-Institut Johannesburg. The award recognised my Johannesburg Trolley Pusher Formalisation Project, which addressed the precarious labour of inner-city trolley pushers who transport goods between Johannesburg’s taxi ranks: http://www.jozi-artlab.co.za/en/sylt_quelle_cultural_award/award.php.html
SowetoUprisings.com (2007 – 2009) was a digital mapping project that traced the various routes taken by students from different schools in Soweto on 16 June 1976. By spatially locating personal testimonies and narratives, and identifying landmarks significant to individuals, the project aimed to illuminate the complexity and multiplicity of the day’s events. Developed as an …
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Sitting on the fence in downtown Johannesburg, one would be excused for not noticing anything special about the provided urban furniture being used by the immigrant motor mechanics at the entrance of the Drill Hall. However, the benches which seem purpose designed for the mechanics needs seem disjunct for the simple reason that urban planning …
The main road is crammed with cars and there is always a paper recycling truck or a taxi or a police van obstructing the flow of traffic. Street vendors jostle for position on the crumbling sidewalks to sell everything from individual cigarettes to vegetables. Car guards in faded garments whistle after potential customers. Groups of …
https://trolleyworks.blogspot.com Project Text: The Trolleyworks project was initiated with the primary aim to provide trolley pushers with a legal trolley alternative to the stolen shopping carts being used on the streets of downtown Joburg. A major problem associated with trolley pushing activity has been victimization by the police. Every time a raid occurs, trolley pushers are fined …
