Bubblegum Club

Tag: architecture

  • Kadara Enyeasi – playing with moods, emotions and perspective

    Kadara Enyeasi – playing with moods, emotions and perspective

    With a background in architecture, and a general interest in art and design since his younger years, Kadara Enyeasi moved towards a photography practice that includes portraiture, art and fashion. This self-taught photographer plays with structure and perspective, often making the urban environment a key component in how he positions those who appear in his photographs.

    From discovering photography in junior high when his father gave him a camera, he began by photographing friends and family. He then moved on to experiment with self-portraiture, specifically between 2010 and 2014. This work involves a personal examination of the human form and mind, as well as demonstrates his technical skill and creative execution.

    Reflecting on this Kadara explains in an interview with Nataal that, “At first I was interested in using it to see myself, and how I interacted with the world. I’d adopt various poses that I might subconsciously exhibit in public, whether to appear flamboyant or a recluse. It was about trying to understand myself and why I am how I am. Most of the work from this period, 2010-2014, I called ‘Human Encounters’, and then I broke that down into smaller studies.” Although there may not be a central idea in all of his work, there is a central subject which he explores in different contexts and from different angles – the Black male body. His images channel thoughts and personal interrogations around body politics and representation, while using moods and emotions to soften the poses of the people he photographs.

    Recently Kadara has been doing more social documentary work and looks at how people interact with urban living and country life in various parts of Nigeria, particularly Lagos and Kaduna. He has also started experimenting with collage work, enjoying the process of contrasting images, and combing them to create a completely new one.

    Check out his Instagram to keep up with his work.

  • Alex Paterimos – The young Cape Town based photographer interested in capturing sentimentality

    Alex Paterimos – The young Cape Town based photographer interested in capturing sentimentality

    Alex Paterimos is a young creative focusing his energies on photography and cinematography. Born in Greece, he spent the first four years of his life living in Athens. Thereafter his family moved to Ballito where he completed his high school education. Upon completing his secondary studies Alex felt that he needed to be part of a culturally rich space that challenged him artistically. Being drawn to the beauty and sense of community that he found in Cape Town, he is currently based in the city as a student of cinematography.  “Throughout my life, I had always wanted to enter the creative world, and always envisioned myself making art in some way.”

    The origin of Alex’s devotion to the craft of image creation is something that he can’t pin point to a specific time in his life as he states that he has had a passion for being behind the lens ever since he can remember. Receiving his first camera (a basic digital point and shoot) at the age of 12, he was awarded the opportunity to document his life. The drive behind Alex’s shutter release is sentimentality that translates into images of friends and memories captured in time.

    Formal training was accessed at the film school Alex attends where he was taught the essentials of photography and DSLR cameras. The main focus of his craft currently is developing his personal style and ensuring that his work conveys emotion to its onlookers. He predominantly works on 35mm film at present which facilitates in cultivating feelings of dreamlike nostalgia within his work.

    “Film adds a sense of value to an image for me and forces me to really perfect and love a photo before I take it. This process of crafting my images has helped me discover and nurture my passion for composition and lighting.”

    Inspiration comes to the young creative in observing the city he now calls home and new, yet undiscovered spaces for him. He shares with me that he is inspired by its architecture, colours he observes and the people that occupy these spaces. He is also interested in how human bodies are contrasted to their immediate surroundings. Taking from this he sometimes aims to replicate his observations in his shoots.

    Alex’s creative process for a shoot is one that unfolds in collaboration with his friends. Mood boarding and brainstorming about a shoot takes on a formative role in these developments. However, on the day of a shoot spontaneity often acts as a contributor to the final product.

    “Managing to effectively capture moments that just happen by chance is what I find most rewarding, as this aspect of spontaneity is encapsulated by the look of my 35mm point-and-shoot and essentially plays a big part in shaping my work.”

    To Alex, the central aspect of his image creation is evoking sentimentality and capturing the essence of the people he photographs as he feels strongly about not creating heartless work. “…I am focussing on developing my style and visual language first. I think that once I feel more confident in this, I will be able to begin pushing myself more creatively.” As Alex photographs his friends, his work can be said to contain an element of documentary-fiction.

    Alex’s raw talent seeps through his images that read like candid heart felt shots of friends. His work conveys not only sentimentality but a sense of who the people he photographs are. His work can be considered to be a reflection of the youth of Cape Town within this particular time and thus contains an element of documentary-fiction.

  • ‘Embroidery For A Long Song’ // merging the traditional and the modern in a neon-inspired meditation on female energy

    ‘Embroidery For A Long Song’ // merging the traditional and the modern in a neon-inspired meditation on female energy

    ‘I rise, I run. I even try dancing’ – these are the first words one hears after being greeted by the music from ‘Khaleeji’ (the ten piece band of folk singers) in the opening scene of ‘Embroidery For A Long Song‘. This short film is a neon-inspired meditation on female energy, and it creates a bridge between the modern and traditional by examining the histories of the Gulf region through music, fashion and poetry.

    Filmmaker Amirah Tajdin  has always been fascinated by the connection between fashion and film. With designer Faissal El-Malak‘s concept for ‘Embroidery For A Long Song’ she was finally able to explore this. A few months before Faissal asked Amirah to get on board with the film, she had created a fashion film for his Spring/Summer 18 collection. They had been friends for a while, but while working on the fashion film they discovered a new kind of creative synergy. When Faissal was approached by the W Hotels and Mixcloud team a few months later to curate the Dubai edition of their Future Rising event he automatically thought of making a second film with Amirah.

    Faissal was given the broad brief to combine music with ideas about the future and a wonderland. These elements came together in his mind through nostalgic memories of the traditional music shows and concerts he used to watch on tv while growing up in the Gulf. “The sets of these shows were oddly futuristic; they created something very interesting visually where the tradition was respected and preserved within an ultra-modern context. It was sort of a wonderland where technology and an abundance of LED lights created a space to express one’s self fully. This was not a foreign concept to the way we live our daily life in a region that has seen exponential growth and has embraced very quickly modern and futuristic architecture as a norm, but that still hangs on very strongly to tradition, most notably in the way most people still wear traditional garments on a daily basis.”

    With these memories and his desire to further his knowledge about women who play traditional music, Faissal began to ask around about this practice. He was also influenced by the words and pseudonyms used by millennials who revived the tradition of spoken word poetry through platforms such as Flickr and MySpace. These pseudonyms – ‘Eye of the Gazelle’, ‘Daughter of the falcon’ and ‘The one with the khol lined eyes’ – are interpreted visually through the animated illustrations that appear at particular moments in the film. “The expression of traditional music is in itself a collaboration between sung poems, the traditional garments, beats and dances coming together to create a feast for the senses,” Faissal explained. The connection between poetry, fashion and music is intimately displayed in how the film unfolds.

    At the core of Faissal’s approach to fashion is his appreciation and celebration of Middle Eastern textiles and motifs, designing women’s ready-to-wear garments that offer combine the traditional and the modern. There is a parallel display of this in the film. A string of symbolic gestures echo this, such as the ironing and incensing of the main character’s hair and her dancing in the hall on her own. These traditional references are juxtaposed against the futuristic elements of the W Hotel hallways and neon lights. Trippy, distorted sonic encounters are merged with the instruments and chanting by Khaleeji. A poem is used as a device to narrate the film, inviting viewers into the mind of the main character.

    This film is a loud celebration and a quiet reflection all at once. It offers itself as a compilation of memories presented in a way that excites sight and sound.

    View the full film below.

  • Ilze Wolff on a transdisciplinary architectural practice

    Ilze Wolff on a transdisciplinary architectural practice

    Ilze Wolff is the co-founder of Wolff Architects, a practice she started with her partner Heinrich Wolff. They have a space in the Bo-Kaap where they produce designs for buildings and public spaces. Their space has a gallery that looks on to the street, which they use for hosting programs, discussions and exhibitions related to architecture, space and the city. Over the years their practice has placed increasing emphasis on ways to get the broader public to engage more directly with urgent questions relating to architecture.

    “Architecture is about the embodied experience of situations and of space linked to an imagination.” This statement is from an interview Ilze did with Design Indaba for an article mentioning her nomination for the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture. When I asked Ilze to unpack this statement, she humourously pointed out that it was one of the many things she says that she does not always have a clear answer for. However, her explanation reveals her dedication to a nuanced understanding of the interaction between people and space, and the role of architecture in paying homage to this interaction. “I think that I was trying to say is that we all experience space in particular ways and the production of architecture is linked to your experience of a space and the articulation of crafting a new space from your own imagination. It is about the interplay between subjectivity and imagination. Architecture is thus one of those sublime contradictions in that, yes, we design for a public collective experience, yet all our speculations and experiments are seated in a very individualistic and intimate space: the imagination.”

    The intersection between architecture, art and public culture is where Wolff Architects finds the most joy, as well as intellectual and creative stimulation. Taking on the point of view that the boundaries between these three disciplines are “inherently artificial”, Ilze expressed that imagining their work and creative production as transcending these borders has been productive. “Our training as architects brings specific readings and sensibilities to a project, which we cannot take for granted but research and engagement into art practices, socio-cultural debates and popular culture layers our approach beyond the technocratic responses that is the norm in our industry.”

    Documentation and advocacy also plays an important part in how Wolff Architects injects new life and critical questions into the field of architecture. Conscious of the way space, architecture, infrastructure and landscape has been used for separation in South Africa, “We feel it is our obligation to use our discipline (architecture) against itself and produce work that advocates for social cohesion,” Ilze explains, “We document our situation and built environment in order to develop wisdoms on how to intervene sensitively and with new readings. Research and asking difficult and critical questions is important for us to establish a project’s ethical framework. Ethics also in terms of aesthetics and imagination.”

    Ilze is also the co-founder of Open House Architecture, a research platform that embraces transdisciplinary knowledge production. Started in 2006, it began as a way to have thorough overviews of local architects’ portfolios through architectural tours, documentaries and monographs, some of which presented to the public for the first time. After a number of successful events, they realized that their audience was almost exclusively architects and other built environment professionals. With a desire to attract people outside of these spaces, Open House Architecture ventured into live art and public interventions, and in 2016 started a publication and interventionist platform called ‘pumflet: architecture and stuff‘, with artist Kemang Wa Lehulere. “With Wa Lehulere, we have co-produced two editions: Alabama and Gladiolus, both of which attempts to reinsert the destruction of Cape Town’s cinemas and black neighbourhoods, and their contemporary meanings back into the public imagination. We feel that it is important to research marginal architectural histories but it is even more important to cultivate a diverse audience and public culture around lost spaces, art and modern architecture.”

    Wolff Architects’ most recent poroject, under the direction of Ilze, was working in the design for the African Mobilities exhibition titled ‘This is Not a Refugee Camp Exhibition’ taking place at Architekturmuseum TU Munchen in Munich until 18 August. The exhibition engages with migration, mobility and space in Africa. Reflecting on the design process for the show, Ilze expresses that, “We allowed ourselves to engage with serious play where we purposefully tried to distort the very rational German gallery by introducing slight distortions on familiar pure geometries. We included a range of environments for speculation and engagement: in the first room we echoed the artist’s in that room’s notion of mixing up digital futures/histories by including a VR room that is both futuristic and nostalgic in its design; in the second room the library offers a public space for viewers to relax and look out onto a garden and in the last room we created a sound carriage where you could experience the sonic landscape of rail travel offered by the artists on display.”

    Another exciting addition to the notches in Ilze’s belt is the publishing of her book ‘Unstitching Rex Trueform: the story of an African factory‘. The book is about a factory that has haunted Ilze ever since she became aware of the connection between architecture and the politics of space. “I write about the way modern architecture in Cape Town is representative of the ways in which labour, capital and the city worked together to construct race, genders and identities in the mid 1930s and 40s.” Ilze mentioned that at she is currently working on an experimental theatre piece based on the research for the book, which will be presented at The Centre for the Less Good Idea later this year.

     

  • adidas Deerupt // Disruptive through the simplicity of the grid

    adidas Deerupt // Disruptive through the simplicity of the grid

    Born from the courage to disrupt the design DNA of adidas, the Deerupt leads the way as a new silhouette injected with bold colour. Reinventing the structural mesh from the soles of 80s running styles, the design process for the Deerupt pushed the philosophy of archival referencing to new heights. Taking a single idea from their heritage sneakers, Deerupt stretches the grid concept to cover the entire shoe. The result is a collapsible runner that conforms to the wearer with a fit and comfort like never before. The Deerupt is a way to think about what it means to extend the imaginary of possibility. Pushing the boundaries of design and bending the adidas signature, the Three Stripes.

    Buildings, patterns, honeycombs, farmlands. Taking inspiration from urban planning, architecture and natural phenomena, the Deerupt reminds us that before any of these existed there was a system, equal parts natural and man-made. The grid. This is what gives the abstract something recognizable with its ability to make the familiar radically different. Understanding that everything is built on a grid makes one aware that anything is possible.

    The editorial for the Deerupt embraces this fully with its intention to translate the infinite possibility within the grid.

    Formless white backgrounds. Pink, purple and green light combined with smoke and bubbles. Models display strong contact with the viewer, taking on mechanical poses with limbs hanging, outstretched or twisted out of familiar placement. The intermittent presence of fishnet socks mimics the grid as they cling to ankles and shins.

    Taking on the grid as a foundation, the images point to the distortions in the everyday and make the familiar radically different. The use of pockets of soft light with stronger hue spots create a mysterious, dreamy moment of déjà vu, again making the past filter through to the present and the new. A glimpse of a minimalist, goth-tinged future. A visual demonstration of disruptiveness through the simplicity of the grid, and undeniably adidas.

    Credits:

    Photography, Casting & Styling – Jamal Nxedlana

    Models: Kayla Armstrong

    Nkuley Masemola

    Lebo Otukile

    Producer: Marcia Elizabeth

    Photographic & Fashion Assistant: Lebogang Ramfate

    Hair & Make-Up Artist: Katelyn Gerke

  • adidas Originals launches Deerupt // A new perspective on grid design

    adidas Originals launches Deerupt // A new perspective on grid design

    adidas Originals have brought out a new lifestyle option – the Deerupt. This completely new silhouette takes archival referencing to a higher level, resulting in a fresh take on grid design.

    The Deerupt holds the grid as a central design feature, initially brought to the public eye with 80s running styles such as the New Yorker runner and Marathon Training shoe. Taking inspiration from urban planning, architecture and natural phenomena, the Deerupt sees the grid design covering the entire shoe. The collapsible runner-inspired design features an ultra-lightweight construction with knit uppers covered in stretchable netting. It’s the perfect offering for adi fans seeking a look to the future and minimalist structure that is still undeniably adidas.

    The Deerupt silhouette drops worldwide on 22 March 2018.

    Deerupt – Disruptively Simple

  • Patti Anahory // cross-disciplinary contemplations about urban imaginaries

    Born on a ship on the way to São Tomé and Príncipe, Patti Anahory lived there for 7 years before being raised in Cabo Verde. She ventured off to the US to do her undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture. Throughout her studies Anahory maintained a desire to locate her work and sites of inquiry in and about Africa. This was initially a challenge as her formal architecture education offered little flexibility with regards to the content that could be explored as a student. At the end of her undergraduate education at the Boston Architecture College she won a travelling scholarship that allowed her to spend a month in South Africa. She later went to Princeton University to complete her graduate studies and Anahory began to direct her academic pursuits towards the continent. Her thesis project focused on Dakar, Senegal.

    This required Anahory to present loaded justifications to demonstrate why African cities should be viewed as legitimate sites for research within architectural academic programs. Her persistence continued to motivate her until she was awarded the prestigious Rotch Traveling Scholarship in 2000 through a two-stage architecture design competition. From this she was able to visit cities in East and West Africa. This was a significant moment for her, as she was still on the search for thematics that were able to unpack social, cultural and geo-political understandings of African cities. It also presented her with the opportunity to affirm that African cities are legitimate sites of inquiry. Anahory explains the significance of this by stating that around 2000 there were only a few architects engaging with African cities from this vantage point, or at least few getting recognized for doing so. “So you start to see your work as a political act because it was so out of the mainstream ways of looking into architecture, and modes of knowledge production about architecture,” she explains.

    Reflecting on the attitudes of the scholarship committee for the competition Anahory shares that, “they just could not understand the production of space and architectural critical thinking as a contemporary issue in Africa.” Her choice to explore East and West African countries allowed for a moment of rupture from her formal architectural education which did not place any emphasis on the contemporary conditions of the African city. After over a year of travelling she had to return to New York and worked as a freelance architect. A few years later her home country called her back.

    She was offered the opportunity to help setup a multidisciplinary research centre at Cabo Verde’s first public university. This presented an exciting challenge to setup an agenda for the relevant issues relating to the Cabo Verde built environment. This was a joint effort with her colleague Andreia Moassab at the centre with whom she shared similar interests in postcolonial studies, decolonising knowledge within the field of architecture as well as an exploration of how to think about development strategies and appropriate paradigms.

    While serving as director at the research centre, Anahory co-founded an art collective called XU:Collective with Andreia, who was  research coordinator, and Salif Diallo Silva, who was responsible for the research group on design and territory. “We decided we want to create a parallel practice that would allow us more freedom and a different language from scientific research and academic institutionalized setting, to speak about things such as environmental and social justice. Things we were addressing at the university but in a different way. In many ways the university and the collective informed each other,” she explains. An artistic language also allowed a different way to engage with society and to reach a larger public.

    When responding to my question about her views on architecture, urban planning and development on the continent, she expressed that rethinking new paradigms on all levels is important. This also involves how we can contribute more to cities and more sustainable development. “We also need to think and speculate about what future we want, and what kind of theoretical basis we want to produce. There are those of us carefully thinking about what kind of practice we want. Architecture is not only about producing buildings and objects, but also about critically thinking about our contemporary moment,” she explains.

    Due to this Anahory, like many others, has to take on multiple roles to tackle the double burden of contributing to an intellectual discourse while presenting a shift in what is seen as knowledge and how it is produced. “You have to be acting in so many realms in order to feel like you are making a change or contributing towards something,” she expresses.

    Working on curating her independent practice, Anahory continues to invest in urban activism and advocacy.  “I can only try to contribute to a more just city. And our cities and our models for development are very much imported from outside an in a neoliberal logic.” This is done through projects with young urban activists, specifically in neighbourhoods that have been neglected in terms of physical and social infrastructure.

    Considering that African Mobilities is a platform that offers multiple avenues for contemplating city-ness and all its associates (identity, culture, physical and social infrastructure, etc.), the inclusion of Anahory in the Praia Exchange made sense considering her experience in having to justify the exploration of contemporary Africa outside of the framework set out by western epistemological agendas.

    From the get go the participants bonded over questioning the terminology of “Lusophone” Africa, (as with “Francophone” and “Anglophone”) and the imaginaries they invoke. Anahory, speaking from an island perspective, and highlighting the ambiguous relationship Cabo Verde has with the rest of the continent, was able to present how our collective imaginaries from these labels craft our identities and place us closer or further apart. Drawing on the parallels between Luanda and Praia, cross-disciplinary investigations and conversations opened up new questions and debates.

    Anahory will be coming to South Africa again this year as a visiting research fellow at University of Johannesburg. Perhaps the Praia Exchange has offered a point of departure for the time she will spend here.

  • Estudio Cinco // giving abandoned urban spaces new life through cinema

    Estudio Cinco is a group of four young thinkers within the field of architecture. There interest in abandoned urban spaces in their hometown, Maputo, led them to conceptualize a way to bring new life to these forgotten areas. With an understanding of cinema as an art form that can allow people to connect on an emotional level, and recognizing that films made outside of Hollywood do not get space to be shown in Maputo, Estudio Cinco decided to combine their passion for film and their desire to see abandoned spaces differently. “What we do is try to give another chance to abandoned spaces. Through cinema we do that. We try to create cinema rooms in hidden spaces or spaces that have been left out of the urban dynamics,” explains Ana from Estudio Cinco. They have transformed stairways into temporary movie theatres, and aim to translate this idea into a large scale festival titled the Maputo Cinema Festival. This idea also addresses the issue of access to films, which can be quite expensive in Maputo, as Will from Estudio Cinco explains. They are also hoping that their efforts will generate a stronger connection between film and other artistic disciplines in Maputo.

    After finding out that AFROPUNK would be coming to Johannesburg, Will and Ana came to South Africa as representatives of their architecture collective. As a lead up to executing their cinema festival idea, Estudio Cinco is working with AFROPUNK to create a similar temporary movie theatre experience at the festival in Johannesburg. Sharing what they hope to achieve Ana expressed that, “We want to create a forum of young South African filmmakers where they can share community issues or celebrate things through cinema. We are trying to create a boost forum through film so people can watch very deep movies and party and the same time.”

    Be sure to get your AFROPUNK tickets to see how Estudio Cinco convert a space at the festival into a bubble of sharing, networking and conversation through film.

  • Sindiso Khumalo // cross-continent textile design

    Tropical prints for flowing satin frocks. Multicoloured striped jumpsuits with delicate ruffle sleeves. Summer will definitely appreciate being greeted by womxn in the Sindiso Khumalo SS18 collection, Inanda.

    Before completing her Masters in Design for Textile Futures, Sindiso Khumalo studied architecture at UCT and worked at offices of architect David Adjaye in London. Her background in architecture is an undercurrent that acts as a seam that ties together the inspiration she draws from her rich Zulu and Ndebele culture, as well as the Bauhaus and Memphis Movement.

    Khumalo’s debut SS13 collection showcased at the the Elle Magazine Rising Star Competition in 2012 catapulted her talent into the fashion world’s eye. Stretching her production and design process between South Africa and the UK has not only allowed for a larger consumer base, but has also opened up the exponential growth of self-titled label.

    “I believe fashion can become an empowering agent by creating a positive economic activities in otherwise marginalized parts of the world,” Sindiso expressed in an interview with JANET + GEORGE. Producing her textiles in a sustainable manner is a major factor in her design process. This includes working with NGOs in South Africa to develop sustainable textiles, making her label more than just about clothes.

    To view the full collection check out the Sindiso Khumalo website.

    Credits:

    Art direction and photography by Jonathan Kope

    Art direction and styling by Gabrielle Kannemeyer

    Hair and makeup by Suaad Jeppie

    Model – Olivia Sang

  • The JAG under conceptual (re)construction: A review of Ângela Ferreira’s South Facing exhibition.

    Buildings mark the moments in our history where a people thrived.  Ângela Ferreira’s “South Facing” is the exhibition that marks an important moment in the Johannesburg Art Gallery’s (JAG) evolution.   For the artist “buildings can be read as political texts” and this location has its own fair share of history.

    She examines the relationship between people and their use of building and public space. The “JAG building is a perfect example for me to reference …It’s controversial history tells the story of the role of art in South Africa and reflects on the incredibly dynamic past and present history of the Johannesburg city-center .”

    1912 saw the completion of the Museum building with its North facing extension, completed in the 1980s.This new addition was intended to be a place of leisure, a home within the occupied territories. The exhibition’s curator Amy Watson discusses how “the original building built by a British architect​,​ Edwin Lutyens​,​ [who] built a grand entrance that is South facing, being from the Northern hemisphere ​he applied this​ logic. A fence was erected between the park and the Gallery some time ago, with the intention of protecting the collection and ensuring the safety of the gallery visitors and staff.” With the end of apartheid the park would become a leisurely space for all.

    Ângela Ferreira, Sites and Services, (1991-1992), Installation view South Facing, Johannesburg Art Gallery, 2017

    Ferreira’s works “traces the resonance and impact of colonialism and post colonialism in contemporary societies” (JAG. 2017) through her use of stark lines that create her forms. On the walls of the exhibition feature drawings of buildings and their structural outlines, presenting the viewer with deconstructed images of buildings to their simplest forms. Her installations are made from wooden poles, concrete and plastic tubes used for plumbing. Miniature concrete foundations are connected to cement brick and corrugated steel.  The viewer is left to figure out whether Ferreira is in the process of creating the structure or has begun dismantling the final product.

    Her works reflect the moment of tension that comes with the destabilization caused by change. Colonialism has ended yet its fragments remain.  There is a beauty to these structures but they came at a cost to our very own collective humanity.

    Yet the very issue also applies to the conceptual gaps between the body of work and those understood as being its ‘maker’. We see human form in her photographs of the construction of the JAG.  Bodies are depicted as shadows amongst buildings. She features photographs of the building during the museum’s recent renovations. The builders are distant figures in the background in a spectral haze.

    What Ferreira seeks to challenge seems to be perpetuated in these very works. The black body remains separate from the works. Only the names of the architects is revealed and the labor of those who built the walls go unrecognized. We see a woman building a hut yet we do not see the faces of those who made the concrete walls.

    Ângela Ferreira, Maison Tropicale (footprints), (2007), Installation view South Facing, Johannesburg Art Gallery, 2017 (1)

    The challenge to this history will be one that critiques the very relationship where black bodies are reduced to viewers or consumers and not the actual producers. We remember the names of the architects and salute their work yet no attention is given to the other forms of labor.

    The very line fenced between the JAG and the Joubert Park continues in her works as we are not made aware of who actually made the buildings and their labor made a non-factor. We need to begin to reimagine how we speak about our current buildings in South Africa. Questions need to be asked over whose names get associated with the buildings.

    Yet for the artists we are called upon engage with such a past through our consumption of its works. “Buildings contain history… But mostly for me they are also sculptural. They are designed for a function but architects also have an aesthetic program in mind. So I see them as public sculptural interventions. We all judge them all the time. They inhabit our daily lives and we are entitled to comment on them.”

    Watson discusses how “​ ​there is an interesting parallel between the structural failures and the intellectual limitations of museums, South Facing represents a response ….​​ on these urgent questions​”. Through these works the viewer has the opportunity to question how we go about filling the gaps. As consumers of public art we are forced us to engage with ideas over who gets chosen to represent the ‘achievement’ of a civilization.

    Ângela Ferreira, Double Sided, (1996-2003), Installation view South Facing, Johannesburg Art Gallery, 2017
    Ângela Ferreira, Werdmuller Centre, (2010), Installation view South Facing, Johannesburg Art Gallery, 2017
    Ângela Ferreira, Remining (Mine building), (2017) Installation view South Facing, Johannesburg Art Gallery, 2017

  • Counterspace: deconstructing and renewing space through image and narrative

    The collaborative studio, Counterspace, situated in Fox street, Johannesburg CBD comprises of three architecture graduates who predominantly work on research projects aiming to push rabble-rousing thought around perceptions of the Johannesburg CBD.

    Amina Kaskar, Sarah de Villiers and Sumayya Vally established Counterspace in 2014. Their projects take the form of competition work, public events, urban insurgence and exhibition design. The studio is mainly concerned with notions relating to otherness and the future. Space and ideas about the city are deconstructed and reconstructed with picture and narrative.

    Counterspace was brought into actualization at the end of the team’s Masters year in Architecture school. In Vally’s own words, “we wanted to find a way to keep the creative spirit and energy we shared together without becoming jaded when we went into ‘real’ architectural practice. At first it was a hobby, but after our first few projects we realized we had a fully fledged business idea.’’

    Numerous artistic and spatial modes of exploration were used by De Villiers in her Masters of Architecture thesis, Idea Bank: From Watt Street to Wall Street, Wynberg Johannesburg  (University of the Witwatersrand). In her thesis she travelled around fantastical heterotopias of cash spaces and their supremacy in the city, and offered re-imaginings of forms of social exchange.

    Kaskar gives indispensable swiftness in managing symbolic analyses of urban fabric and decoding. Her interest is rooted in the semantic and textual understanding of a city’s layering. The myths and stories of Doornfontein in Johannesburg are reimagined into digital inner city story narrating. Her thesis completed in 2014 exemplifies this swiftness.

    Vally has a precise fixation with future ruin and fictional future space against arising and disappearing images of Johannesburg that can be seen through her digital collage and forensic methodological approach to space. Unmasking parts of the city, which are mostly invisible with satellite imagery or a microscope is a specific curiosity of hers.

    Image by Lorenzo Nassimbeni and Parts & Labour in collaboration with Counterspace

    In 2015 and 2016 Counterspace worked on the Auret Street Recycling Building Regeneration Project in collaboration with 1to1 Agency for Engagement and Jabulani Khwela. This was a research-based project in which the collaborative studio engaged with re-claimers/recyclers through workshops. The group mapped out the use of the Auret Street building as a space for shuffling through waste as well as a territory in which the re-claimers reside. The idea with this project was to remedy unsafe areas in the building as well as facilitate an arts and culture project engaging with the urban redevelopment of the area. Social media platforms were used as a means of crafting awareness as a mode of land activism thereby bringing over the sensitivity of this experimental project.

    Currently Counterspace is working on research projects for ASM Architects on an Urban Development Framework for Fleurhof in addition to Local Studio – at Wits’ Braamfontein and Parktown campuses. These opportunities came into actualization because of the studio’s keen focus on research in their practice.

    Another focus for the collaborative studio is on projects exploring how children occupy space. These spaces range from exhibitions, furniture, events and installations. This new focus and idea is being explored in collaboration with Play Africa, Skateistan, Museum of Childhood, and the Imbeleko Foundation.

    In addition to the current projects already mentioned, Vally has said that the studio is working on a variety of projects with an Air bnb focus (in South Africa, London and Croatia). The group finds this exceptionally fascinating as it demonstrates the way in which architecture is influenced by that model.