'hands' by Mlungisi Mzingi

The City of Johannesburg through its implementing agent, The Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), has identified the VILAKAZI STREET PRECINCT (VSP) as a potentially important cultural, heritage and economic node. As such the short-term objective for the project is to stabilise, consolidate and improve the heritage assets in the Orlando area while the long-term objective aims to put in place a sustainable management model for the precinct. The scope of work for the current fiscal year will be the development of a detailed upgrade design framework with a focus on upgrade interventions and the implementation of immediate catalytic interventions that would initiate the development process. It is felt that long-term interventions could provide leverage for private and public sector investment into the area.

A key component of this development is the inclusion of an artworks programme aimed at marking and revealing a number of important historical and political sites, linked to the history of this area and the events that took place on June 16 1976 during the youth uprising. As this precinct has been home to numerous well-known community leaders, political activists and Nobel Peace Laureates Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, the artworks programme aims to commemorate and celebrate such individuals and the youth of the day who were instrumental in bringing about a critical turning point in the politics of South Africa.

The commissioning process to date has involved a 7-month workshop programme with local artists from the area, meeting on a weekly basis at the Mbuyisa School of Arts and Culture, situated on Vilakazi Street, in order to develop concepts and proposals towards the above-mentioned programme.

The artworks procurement process recently presented all of the work produced during the workshop period at Uncle Tom’s Community Centre in Orlando West, Soweto and has held two rounds of adjudication of advertised competitions and best works selected from the exhibition. The final selection of works to be implemented will be subject to engineering and fabrication feasibility and the programme is scheduled for completion in December 2009.

The Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system is due to start service at the end of August 2009. This public transport system is the first of its kind in South Africa, and Johannesburg has been chosen to spearhead the national project. As per the vision and policy of the City of Johannesburg, the first 25 stations comprising phase 1A of the programme, will have their glass and steel entrances treated with original works of art by locally based Johannesburg and Soweto artists. The artworks are translated from a graphic state into ‘stencils’ for sandblasting onto the glazed sections of the station entrances. Similarly the steel paneling on the narrower inner city stations combine the stencil approach with lazer-cutting and in both instances artists have selected to introduce limited colour layers in order to heighten the sandblasted detailing and steel treatments (PDF courtesy of Ikemeleng Architects).

Rea Vaya Project Introduction: PDF (2.2MB)

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Ars Electronica (AEC) www.aec.at, voestalpine www.voestalpine.com and Linz09 www.linz09.at have embarked on a round the-world journey from June 17 until September 5 titled: 80+1 – A Journey Around the World. This globe-spanning expedition won’t entail any physical travel; the mode of transportation will be satellite hook-up and fiber optic cable, and the stops along the way will be 20 locations, each one of which stands for a theme of crucial importance to our future.
Responding to the theme of Civil Society during the Johannesburg period of the 80+1 project, Hobbs/Neustetter aims to alert the European audience ‘looking’ at Johannesburg, to the harsh, unusual and often abrasive social and economic conditions that produce a contradictory experience of the city and its varying suburban realities.

As a backdrop to their presentation, the polarities of apartheid and democratic change in South Africa vie for recognition. In other words many conditions within the city today either perpetuate the previous order of the apartheid city or challenge to transform it in a new and confrontational way. This condition is presented by the artists generally as ‘other’ to that of the experience of a European audience. Hence the notion of standing in a European town like Linz and exchanging information with a very different city like Johannesburg is in and of itself extreme and contradictory. And it is in this light that the artists aim to convey a message of stark urban contrasts, ironies and juxtapositions to an audience in Linz, whose frames of reference may or may not exist for a reading of such an urban context as Johannesburg, South Africa.

With the aim of accentuating the psychological and physical difference and distance between Linz and Johannesburg, Hobbs/Neustetter’s intervention for the 80+1 programme in Linz is taking the form of an interactive camera and video screen concealed on the Hauptplatz. Visitors to 80+1 are encouraged to seek out the ‘surveillance’ installation in order to have a one on one interaction with a strategic display of visual concepts. This mediation of place through technology and distance or separation is intended to motivate the viewer to make connections or question difference. In the spirit of the contradictions inherent in this project, the architecture of the Hauptplatz in Linz serves as a somewhat ironic window onto Johannesburg.

For a select period of time (when AEC is presenting the topic Civil Society during 80+1 A Journey around the World) a ‘live’ phone will give viewers in Linz access to an inhabitant in Johannesburg to converse about what they see over the screen.

http://www.80plus1.org/

In November 2008, after six years, The Gallery Premises at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre closed down. To commemorate a space that became known for its ability to create conditions for experimentation and the emergence of new talent, The Trinity Session decided to launch The Premises Book. This was made possible through the generous support of the Joburg Theatre.

Presentation
Shaping public space through creative interventions –
relevant experiences from Johannesburg
by The Trinity Session
featuring public interventions by Hobbs/Neustetter
and Public Art Projects in the City of Johannesburg
Presented at
International seminar for Creative industries 2009, Klaipeda, Lithuania
DESIGN AND VISUAL ARTS: CREATION OF ADDED VALUE IN CITIES PUBLIC SPACES

The City of Johannesburg, through its implementing agent the Johannesburg Development Agency, is upgrading the public environment in Hillbrow, Berea and Yeoville as part of meeting its commitments contained in the multi-sectoral Inner City Regeneration Charter. The HBY public environment upgrade covers approximately 200 city blocks and has been carried out in accordance with the classification of roads into high streets (such as Pretoria / Kotze and Rockey / Raleigh), activity streets with high vehicular and pedestrian volumes, and residential streets. The scope of work includes paving, landscaping, street lighting, street furniture, storm-water inlets, litter bins and public toilets. The project also includes upgrades to five parks which were chosen based on their size and location. A critical component of this intervention is the number of public art works reflecting the diversity and identity of Hillbrow, Berea and Yeoville. To this end, the JDA has contracted the Trinity Session/ Ngwedi Design (joint venture) to project-manage a series of open calls to artists for the conceptualization and installation of suitable public artworks in the neighbourhoods of Hillbrow, Berea and Yeoville. Having completed the initial phase comprising over 20 public artworks in 2008, the Trinity Session/ Ngwedi Design implemented the second phase of an additional 12 artworks in June 2009.

Images: Left to right works by Marco Cianfanelli, Maya Marx and 26′10 South Architects, Americo Guambe

HBY2 Overview PDF

HBY1 Overview PDF

The Fire Walker is a sculptural collaboration between artists William Kentridge and Gerhard Marx, situated on the southern foot of the Queen Elizabeth Bridge. The sculpture when viewed from a particular angle presents the silhouetted image of a woman carrying a burning brazier on her head. This image is typical to the street culture of Johannesburg and is very particular to the site on which the work is installed. These entrepreneurs sell roasted ‘mielies’ and also ‘smileys’ (roasted sheeps’ heads) to pedestrians, and are often seen carrying their burning braziers on their heads as they find places from which to sell their food. In this sense the work is monument to the everyday, the overlooked, and to the entrepreneurial activities that have taken place on that site for many years.

Standing at a height of 11 meters, the work is constructed from laser cut steel plates, evocative of bits of torn paper that are clad over a steel frame and arranged in a seemingly abstract manner. When one steps onto the site from any one of the two pedestrian crossings that give access to the northern tip of the site, then these loose steel fragments will combine visually to create the cohesive and monumental image of The Fire Walker.

The Joint Venture of The Trinity Session and 26’10 South Architects, in partnership with Feizel Mamdoo, has been appointed as Public Art Commissioning Agents for the Pageview, Vrededorp and Fordsburg Public Art Project (PVF Public Art) as part of the Pageview Vrededorp and Fordsburg urban upgrade by the Johannesburg Development Agency and the City of Johannesburg. This project encompasses the realisation of an artwork along the retaining walls of the De La Rey Street subway under the railway bridge connecting Vrededorp and Fordsburg. Following an ongoing process of consultation with a targeted local community for the design and realisation of the project, the artist team Rookeya Gardee, Bronwyn Lace and Reg Pakari have created a design that has brought together personal and historical stories, images and references of Fietas, the subway and Fordsburg.

The artwork will be launched during this year’s Fietas Festival on 26 September 2009.