2018 ACTIVITIES

The program commenced with a process of public social interactions through mini workshops, pop-up events and creative activations in public space. Through the use of drawing, painting, performance, video and photography (as tools for engaging community members), the artworks team was able to build a vocabulary of visual concepts as well as collect important and personal stories about the history and identity of Noordgesig. This collection and archive of content was exhibited at the Bus factory in Newtown in October 2017 -in order to reflect on and critique, the various concepts that would inform the community workshop design phase.

  • HAND AND FOOT WORKSHOP 20-03-2018
In 2018 the creative community of Noordgesig responded to a call to participate in design workshops that developed artwork concepts in response to the urban design plan already in place. As per the various examples shown in this exhibition, concepts include surface treatments in the form of murals, intersection markers in the form of mixed media sculptures, the introduction of new urban objects such as the long table, inspired by stories about public meetings and social debate. These and many more works were devised both in terms of visualizing a collective narrative through art, that can contribute to a heightened experience of Noordgesig, but also demonstrate the impact that art and urban design, when coordinated in such a way, can make for a greater public sense of the value of a such a place, and how it speaks to Soweto, greater Johannesburg and beyond.