Letter from Joburg 10 – double figures!

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Our 4th intervention, ‘Map the Nation’, was focussed on mapping the biodiversity of our square mile.  We also wanted to continue our ‘threshold crossing’ theme, so decided to bring some of our previous participants, and any new guests, and cross the threshold between Joubert Park and Johannesburg Art Gallery.  As the ‘Joubert Park Fax Machine’ (as one participant called it) was so succesful last week, we continued that approach.  This time our ‘airmail’ letters were attached to trees, containing a similar tantalising message, an invitation to help us on our ‘mission’ by meeting the ‘man in the straw hat’ at the fountain, at an appointed time – and of course, sealed with a kiss.  Hardly had we installed them, than they were gone, and we had to make more on the hoof.
When particpants came in search of the mysterious stranger, they were met by Kyla and Sean.  Sean is a local tree expert, who, along with Kyla (and George Khosi, the boxer, our guardian angel), would take them on a tour of the park, pointing out certain trees and relating facts and myths about them.  Their next encounter was at the gates of JAG, where they were presented with a bag containing pencils and paper, and further instructions.  They were to remember a certain tree and to think of associations with that tree – did it give them shade, somewhere to meet, a place to jog a memory or did they have any stories about that tree?  Then they had to follow a blue and white ribbon and they would find out more.  The ribbon led them from the gates of the park to our project space within the gallery.
Inside, Sandra would greet them (and calm them down) by singing a beautiful old english folk song.  She would ask them to sit and then to draw out a picture of their favourite tree, to cut this out, and then to attach it to wire we had hung previously.  The trees were suspended over the park on the giant map we made last week.  This time, we asked them to mark on the location of their favourite tree.  The installation, with the trees hanging over the map in the black-walled space, looked beautiful.  Once they’d hung their tree, we asked them to write a short story about the tree – these will be attached with thread to the trees in the installation, creating a web of stories.
We have all been on a journey through this project so far, the artists and the participants, and will be moving into a different phase, in the final half of the residency.  Over the next few weeks we will be having smaller scale workshops, with the participants who have stayed with us, and all being well, they will begin to share their own stories with the rest of the ‘square mile world’.

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Last weekend, as Si Walker was only with us for (sob) such a short time, we decided to take a couple of days off and go ‘on safari’.  We took a three hour drive up to Pilanisberg Nature Reserve to see some animals.  It was wonderful – despite having to stay in the car (I really wanted to get out and touch the animals, not recommended apparently) – which is partly why the images are a bit blurry, and partly due to shaking with excitement. Jaw-droppingly good fun, as well as the animals pictured, we saw stuff like groups of meerkats doing their cute running-sitting-up-looking-around-manically thing, driving alongside an elephant who was clearly on a mission for about a mile, staring full into the face of a white rhino 6 feet away, watching a huge lioness stalk a herd of zebra etc, etc. Fanbloodytastic.