On Sunday we had a kind of ‘landing’ show at Johannesburg Art Gallery. We set up our project space as an exhibition reflecting the interventions we have made during the project. Anthea ‘squozzed’ orange juice for the audience, surrounded by photographs from ‘Nourish the Nation’, nailing the empty orange shells onto the wall, and asked audience members to add to our collection of labels. Kyla undertook some boxing training with George Khosi, framed by beer bottle ‘vases’, filled with flowers – several audience members had a go themselves, George went easy on them, thankfully. I stood next to the letters from the ‘Joubert Park Fax Machine’ and recited stories we had gathered from participants about their favourite trees.
The audience participated fully in the experience, very different from the usual shows they might expect to see at the gallery. The audience was incredibly diverse and joyful, children were climbing on some of the bronze sculptures in the gallery (and were allowed to). We finished by cutting a ribbon across the threshold between the gallery and the park and declaring it ‘officially’ open to the public.
We then took a walk, a hundred or so of us, across the park, taking in the places where we had made interventions and explaining to the crowd what had happened at each place. When we took them to the Greenhouse we found our first participant, a lady hawker, who had run into ‘Grow the Nation’ and introduced her to the crowd. Sean taught the crowd his tree rhyme in English, Zula and Sutu and they all joined in before giving the ‘philosopher tree’ a group hug and returning to the gallery.
Here’s some pics, more to follow:
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Just a quickie. We’re planning an event on Sunday at Johannesburg gallery and I wanted to drop a quick post about it. Firstly, a truncated, de-bumfified version of the eflyer, photo courtesy of Musha Nehuleni, after my version was judged too ‘grainy’ (a photographer, I’m not, as you will have realised by now.) We’ve been blessed with working with some great photograhers during this residency, particularly Musha, Bethule Nkiwane and Tawedzerwa Zhou. Anyway:
The aprons have almost become an iconic image for the project – I’m always looking for an excuse to put mine on- but they are also symbolic of a lot of the issues we have been coming up with, and the four of us, of course. So on Sunday, we’re having an interactive exhibition of the work we have made with Anthea Moys and Kyla Davis and people in Joburg. There’ll be orange squeezing, mapping, boxing, flowers, films, audio, adopt-a-seedling and whatever else we cook up between now and then. There’ll also be a series of images, taken by some of the photographers above, and ourselves, in small and poster format, installations that we and our participants have created (together and seperately) and samples of audio and written contributions. Best of all, we are bringing people across the threshold of the park gates and into Johannesburg Art Gallery and vice versa. One of the most rewarding aspects of working with people in public spaces, is that you see connections being made, that may never have been made without the work bringing people together, and this has been something that has very much happenend with this short project. It’s nice to see legacies arise from the work you make.
As a climax to the day we will be launching a series of postcards, depicting images from our interventions and some short stories and comments by participants. We’ll be giving everyone a single image, but will be selling ‘gift packs’ of a full set of five, all profits to go to George Khosi’s Boxing Club in Hillbrow.
Anyway – as I said the aprons have played a big role in the project and have become almost iconic to us – check out this bad boy:
Thanks to Bethule for the photograph, thanks a lot… And if any of you out there are in and around Joburg on Sunday, please drop in and join us.
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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.
Loads to report on this post, busy as usual. We made our third intervention this Wednesday, at the Greenhouse project, one the edge of Joubert Park. ‘Grow the Nation’ (we didn’t use a title, but that fits nicely), was a series of activities, based in the Greenhouse space, including their half-built ‘Earth House’, completely constructed with reclaimed and sustainable materials.
First we enticed people in from the park and off the street using a few strategies. We constructed a ‘string slide’ from the first floor of the Earth House to a lampost in the park. We attached airmail envelopes, with ‘open me please’ and ‘for you’ in english and Zulu on the covers, and a lipstick kiss on the back. Inside was a letter telling the reader to follow the chalk arrows on the floor and ‘you never know what you may find’. Loads more people took the letters than we expected and we soon had as many people as we could manage, some even ran from the park! In the entrance gate Kyla and Anthea, in their best flowery swimsuits, were ‘taking tea’ and would lead participants to the first activity. Here’s some photographs (all photos by Bethule Nkiwane and Tawedzerwa Zhou)
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When they came into the ground floor of the Earth House, they were met with Lee and Sandra, who explained they were from the UK and needed help navigating Joburg. So we asked them to make us a map, putting on where they live, work, play and where were ‘good’ and ‘bad’ places – and putting on routes and journeys they take. People were more than happy to comply, concentrating really hard and often spending 15-20 minutes on their maps. We had a great mix of people attending, around 50 adults and 50 young people during the afternoon. More photographs:
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After they had completed their map, we took them up the (rather dangerous) stairs to the first floor of the Earth House. Here they were confronted with a huge map of our square mile, covering most of the floor of the building (thanks to Si and Ben). We asked them to take off their shoes and then photographed them standing on the map at the place where they live. and then asked them to fill in details of important (to them) places and buildings. It made a beautiful meditative place, again people were concentrating very hard and silently walking round this massive map of their inner city and marking significant places. Even more photos:
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After this we led them around the Greenhouse yard, where Kyla and Doreen were running an ‘adopt a plant’ workshop. they showed people how to make pots out of recycled coke bottles, then how to plant and look after a seedling (mostly vegetables and tomatoes). we asked them to bring their plant back to us next Sunday (1st), when we are having an event inside Johannesburg Art Gallery, showing all the work and documentation to date, as well as launching our ‘I Heart Hillbrow’ postcards. Even, even more photos:
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The event was a huge success and we ran out of seedlings (naievely thinking 100 would be enough. We also asked people to come back next Wednesday, when we will be back in Joubert Park, this time running workshops mapping the biodiversity of the area, getting people to draw their favourite plants and trees and then adding them to the huge map in the gallery.
We have also been busy on other things. We have taught students in Soweto and Alexandra townships, with Anthea. Both groups are attending media, marketing and design courses – not our usual thing, you might think, but these students are very different from the ones we are used to in the UK. Whilst still wanted to ‘get on’ in life, there is a real sense that these young people also want to put back into their communities. They clearly enjoyed working with us and were a joy to work with. The Soweto class even gave us an impromptu performance of spoken word and song at the end of class, which was a pleasure and an honour. We’re taking the weekend off for a little safari, so expect some photographs of beasties next week!
I’m starting to lose track. Well, an interesting time since we last posted, with more connections, and more mapping of our mile completed. Firstly, we had our second dinner on Friday, and despite rather more people turning up than we had anticipated (or RSVP’d), we made some great new contacts. Mabule from the Greenhouse made a great introduction to the fantastic work they are doing in trying to raise the profile of climate change in an area where it is not on the top of people’s priorities. We met some of the other eco-activists that he works alongside, Moses from the Friends of the Inner City came, and we had a visit from Sidney, a community policeman. All these people demonstrated a passion for their city and what it might become, and a determination to make these changes happen, despite the many issues facing them. Props to Kyla for making the food stretch, and thanks to Mabule for letting us host the dinner at the Greenhouse, where we will also be making our next intervention this Wednesday.
On Saturday our colleague and friend Simon arrived from the UK – he made it over under his own steam and is kindly helping us with our work, thanks, Si (we’re going off ‘on safari’ at the weekend in return).
On Sunday we were taken on an amazing tour, within a stone’s throw of Johannesburg Art Gallery, into a very different world. Dave and Stan (not their real names, for reasons which will beome clear) are Zimbabwean refugees who have become firm friends, Stan is getting involved in workshops and is a real godsend. They took us to ‘show off’ where they lived, which was a real eye-opener. They live in a converted hospital, with many other immigrants, run by a group of Nigerians, they have had to tell these people that they are from Gabon, as they would throw them out if they realised they were Zimbabwean – the complexities and hierarchies of the immigrant population of Joburg are incredible, and uncomfortable. They showed us their ‘crib’, a squalid basement/corridor they share with 7 other refugees, with two matresses, 1 bare lightbulb and some broken boilers, and little else other than litter and broken bottles – ‘Dave’ told us he sometimes sleeps on an old ironing board. They have no visible means of support, are constantly under threat of eviction, yet despite this maintain a cheerful and positive outlook. It was a humbling experience.
As the only white people within the area, it was quite a scary experience and we were met with suspicious stares wherever we went, if we hadn’t been with our friends (who were proudly ‘showing us off’ to their people), I doubt whether we would have emerged safely. When we told the security guard at JAG where we were going he almost physically barred our way and kept repeating ‘you must not walk here!’ – but we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t take risks, and of course we were fine. We met the building ‘manager’ – Chief – a barrel-chested Nigerian ex-gangster, who defied the stereotype that Joburgers seem to have as Nigerians being inherently bad people. He has ‘adopted’ four South African street kids and makes sure they get food, shelter and some sort of education, despite them being from outside ‘his’ community. He has promised to take us on a tour of ‘Little Lagos’ – which promises to be fascinating – if not a little scary. We were absolutely forbidden to take photographs, hence the wordy nature of this post. Tomorrow – intervention 3 Grow The Nation!
Although not in our square mile, situated as it is in the inner city, we decided to involve one of the nearby suburbs in the north in our second intervention. So, on a very hot day, we set out to Parkview, with a pair of scissors, some buckets and water, to involve suburbians in ‘Moving the Nation’. The suburbs, in stark contrast to our mile, are predominantly upper middle class, with a population of mainly white families, supported by maids, gardeners and other service providers, who are almost always from other ethnic groups, mainly black Africans. Security is tight indeed, most houses are surrounded by high walls and fences, topped off with barbed wire and usually electrified, supported by roving patrols of armed guards and ‘rapid response’ teams from private security firms.
We walked around the neighbourhood, and would stop off at likely looking gardens, buzzing the inhabitants and explaining what we were up to – that we were artists, working with Johannesburg Art Gallery, and required them to donate flowers from their gardens, which we would use to decorate a ‘space’ in Hillbrow (the opposite end of the social spectrum). We would then photograph their flowers in situ and return to them a postcard in thanks.
We received mixed responses, from ‘not today thankyous’ to offers of cash! We refused the money and explained that it was merely a donation of flowers we required, which puzzled people, but quite a few said yes straight away. We soon had two carfuls of flowers with which we would ‘move the nation’ and left the suburb satisfied with the results of our quest. (We had been told by several people that it was a a mad idea and we would not get any flowers – so we were pleased that human nature and generosity triumphed and we proved them wrong). Here’s some photographs of the intervention
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Yesterday saw us ‘move the nation’ at George Khosi’s outdoor boxing ring on Claim St in Hillbrow. From last week’s intervention we found that many people’s ‘unsafe place’ was Hillbrow, so we were determined to make an intervention there as soon as possible – and where safer than alongside George and his stable of championship boxers? We had invited participants from last week to attend, and to our delight, many did!
We first set up by decorating the boxing ring with the flowers donated from suburbia the day before, put lots of flowers into beer bottles and placed them around, hung up the labels from last week and wrote Move The Nation on the fence in multicoloured ribbons. George and his people seemed puzzled, but amused at the transformation of the space into something much jollier than usual and bent over backwards to help and get involved. We put on loud house music, blew bubbles and clowned around in the space and soon drew a crowd, who we then enticed in to tell us stories, have a juice and get their photograph taken with the flowers next to the ring.
Using the boxing ring revealed all sorts of metaphors about how people struggle to survive in the ‘city of gold’, the addition of the flowers giving a positive, hopeful spin to this. We chose beer bottles as vases as there is a huge issue with alcohol in the area – often the case where poverty raises its ugly head- which often leads to violence, both sexual and physical and there is a culture of abuse on all sorts of levels in the neighbourhood.
We had soon attracted a large crowd of children, as well as the adults, who we enticed into the boxing ring with the promise of a ‘dance workshop’. Kyla (tired already after a couple of rounds with George, who is convinced she has the makings of a champion boxer), led the workshop – getting the kids to teach her steps and sharing some of her own, so they would come up with short routines. We had about 40 of them performing a limbo dance at one point, the children enjoyed themselves immensely. Children leave class at 2 in the afternoon here, after an early start, often their parents are working until much later which leaves them to the streets and its many dangers until later. So having this ‘organised’ and fun activity was obviously great for them and there was much laughter in and around the boxing ring. After a couple of exhausting hours, we sat them down with juice and oranges and chilled out together. We then got them to make a group pose for a photograph with them all holding flowers, before sending them on their way with a wave and an invite to next week’s intervention at the Greenhouse envirnmental project, just around the corner at Joubert Park.
We also continued to interview adult participants, this time getting them to write (or writing for them) detailed stories of their safe and unsafe places, before photographing them clutching one of the flowers from the suburbs. Sandra also interviewed Elijah, an ex-tsotsi (criminal), now reformed, who is rapidly becoming the ‘spirit’ of the project – for 1 1/2 hours, and who came to our first intervention and has promised to come to our next.
We now have lots of fantastic photographs which we are going to use to make printed postcards for our ‘I heart Hillbrow’ campaign. These postcards will feature a photograph of Hillbrow residents, with the flowers donated by the suburbians on the front and a short story of a safe or unsafe place on the back. These postcards will be distributed via arts and community venues to be sold or given away, depending on the venue, with any profits being split between George Khosi’s boxing club and the Greenhouse Environmental project. So now we have a legacy for our project.
Next week’s intervention will consist of ecology workshops and an ‘adopt a plant’ project at the Greenhouse. Watch this space!
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We had our first dinner on Friday and a great success it was. This was our first, so we took it quite gently and invited some other artists, an architect amd Mubule from the Greenhouse project and his lovely wife. As people entered the space we helped them over the threshold:
We had decorated the room (in Anthea and Gwydion’s flat – thanks guys!) with the labels from Nourish the Nation’, a slideshow of our first intervention and drawn maps of our first couple of weeks on the project, so people knew they weren’t coming to just any dinner, and it worked a treat. The conversations were intense and wide-ranging, taking in (inevitably), politics and race, the state of the nation, local conditions in Johannesburg and so many more concepts and ideas that for most of the night I just shut up and listened. We also discussed the role of the artist in the world and whether we could hope to make any real difference to conditions ‘in the real world’ as it were. My take on this is that we have to treat the world as if it is the one we wish to live in, even if it patently isn’t. To treat people as if they are kind and good, even if they are selfish and venal, and must continue to make our work, even if it is only a ‘grain of sand’ to disrupt the cogs in the machinery of society – aren’t pearls said to come from grains of sand?
The whole dinner, though, just proved the complexity of this city and country and the issues facing it as it heads into an unknowable future, but also how passionate its people are about making that future a better one, not just for themselves, but for their fellow South Africans, a story we are hearing a lot (with notable exceptions). It makes me long for those long ago days in the UK when people seemed to care for something other than themselves, their careers and their bank balances, when there was such a thing as society and it was a place to be shared.
We ended up like this:
Today we went to Parkview – a poshish suburb to the north of town, where we knocked on doors and asked residents to donate some flowers from their gardens for our next intervention, ‘Move the Nation’, which we are making tomorrow at Georges boxing ring on Claim Street, on the edge of our square mile in Hillbrow – everyone’s ‘favourite’ dangerous place (to be fair it is on the edge of Hillbrow and we will have all those big muscley boxers to protect us, so don’t worry). I’ll try and post up the results on Thursday, and explain why it was so important for us to go on our ‘blagging mission’ – check back then!
We made our first group intervention yesterday in Joubert Park, which was a great success. ‘Nourish the Nation’ or ‘get some vitamin C down you ‘cos there’s a lot of bad stuff going around at the moment’ (we discovered that Kyla likes long titles, too) saw us giving out freshly squeezed orange juice to some of the denizens of the park in exchange for stories about their ‘safe’ and ‘dangerous’ places in the city.
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We would offer the orange juice and, as we would then begin to squeeze the oranges, which took some time, ask them to write their name on a luggage label, and on the back an example of a safe and dangerous place in the city. Johannesburg, we are consistently told, is one of the most dangerous cities, with one of the highest murder rates in the world, and you can go from feeling safe to, literally, turning a corner and feeling unsafe indeed. Joubert Park is seen as a ‘no go’ area, particularly for white people (we haven’t seen a single one in two weeks), and we wanted to investigate this, whether it is a perception, or whether it is true. To be honest, if we hadn’t been accompanied by George, who is a boxer and has arms like tree trunks, I don’t think we’d have been as relaxed about the experience as we were. But we had a great time, it was incredibly joyous, with people queueing up to take their juice and give us their stories, and most happy to have their photograph taken. Highlights included Timothy, who lives on the street now, as a result of being shot and losing his job – in the Hillbrow area of the city, highest on peoples list of dangerous places – who wrote beautifully and told us a series of stories about his Joburg, and Nana, a young girl who spoke eloquently for such a small girl about her fears for her city. It was fun and joyous, but also very emotional and revealing. The process of listening to the people, whilst we took time to squeeze the oranges, made the whole experience so complete, at the end it was like the participants were drinking their own stories. A beautiful piece of work, and a fitting start to our interventions. Next week we will be appearing in Georges outdoor boxing ring in the very same Hillbrow area which is top of the danger list, where we are preparing a ‘dance off’ in the boxing ring. Many of the participants from Nourish the Nation have promised to be there. I love this place.
Not wanting to compare with the UK, but not being able to help it, a couple of things were so different about making the intervention here. We were able to just set up in the park, without asking persmission, which was great. We needed some power for our ghetto blaster and our orange squeezers and there is a big screen in the park, mainly showing sport and kiddies shows in the afternoon, the security guard there was happy to let us plug in to its power socket (of course she got a glass of juice in return). That just would not happen in the UK, it would be all health and safety and jobsworth, we’d have been moved on, if not outright arrested. As I said, I love it here.
"Better not be pissing down when we get back or there will be trouble!"22 hours ago"Catraieiros got some good news today they've been officially recognised by the Govt Hope we helped a tiny bit. Congrats lads!"yesterday"Dear mr Cameron. You do know where you can shove your Cultural Olympiad, dont you?"2 days ago
