4 installations with free admission to tell the story of an urban, critical and political context that shows a remarkable human energy and lessons on the sharing of the city.
Photo : Anton Kannemeyer
City of God, by Bitterkomix
Born out of an internal necessity, Bitterkomix is an enraged comics magazine founded in 1992 by Anton Kannemeyer and Conrad Botes.
Publishing stories in Afrikaans that are both political charges and social satires, it is the oldest underground publication on the continent. Ruthless and crude, Bitterkomix dissects South African society - especially the white community - and with the violence of its drawing denounces brutality, hatred, and repression in all theirs forms (social, political, sexual). For the project at la Gaîté Lyrique, Bitterkomix has created images in the form of a gallery of stereotypical portrayals of Sharp Sharp Johannesburg, a striking mural that captures the persistence of religious and ideological shackles, and that is made up of original art boards.
Photo : Mj Turpin
Taxi Sound System, sound installation by Mj Turpin /Joao Orrechia
In South African history, taxis have occupied a special and unique place in the promotion of new musical tastes, black market sounds, dance and... ideas. Today, city drivers still love to compete in terms of soundsystems and tend to play their music at very high volumes. Taxis remain an ideal instrument for broadcasting sound and reaching people who do not have direct access to a radio or the Internet.
Joao Orrechia and Murray Turpin recreate the world of a taxi through a virtual one-hour journey on the streets of Johannesburg. Sound recordings from the street, traditional songs and rhythms, popular music from the 50s and 60s, by way of Nelson’s speech put to song to more aggressive Kwaito beats from the 90s and the house scene that is still being revisited today... An overview of the visions, sensations and feelings - conscious or unconscious- that people in Johannesburg might experience in the space of a taxi ride.
Photo : The Cuss Show
Disrupted Webisodes, video installation by The Cuss Show
How to inhabit public areas, take over unexpected corners of the city or corners of the wide, dematerialized open spaces of the World Wide Web? The multifaceted collective The Cuss Show focuses its look on vernacular cultures, the ones produced by the street and those of the Internet, and explores their ability to reflect the aesthetic entity of Johannesburg. In both its performances and work online, The Cuss Show rehabilitates and re-contextualizes these invisible and stigmatized forms: from free access amateur videos to spontaneous occupations of urban areas, they share the characteristic of appearing / disappearing in an instant, of spreading like a virus and maintaining a personal relationship with the user who absorbs them. In the form of a disruption of space, Disrupted Webisodes is a video and kinetic installation that draws from the seemingly disorganized system of illegal vendors in downtown Johannesburg.
Crédit photo : DR
Hotel Yeoville - Extended mirror (2013), participative installation space by Terry Kurgan / Tegan Bristow / Guylain Melki
In May 2008, Johannesburg discovered the extent of the xenophobia that insidiously took root with the influx of sub-Saharan migrants in the early 90s. The days of radical violence that shook the townships resulted in more than 50 fatalities and thousands of displaced people, and left scars whose roots many artists set out to explore in order try to write a new chapter.
The Hotel Yeoville project was created as part of that process. Once the haven of a white, liberal, bohemian micro-society, Yeoville is now home to 40,000 people, 70% of whom come from across Africa, transforming the neighborhood into an African mosaic connected via internet to the entire continent. «Migrants and connected» are the two areas of focus of Terry Kurgan’s project, which was launched in 2010 by a community website and an interactive installation. In collaboration with Wits University’s study program on forced migration and with Tegan Bristow, a digital artist, the project positions itselfon the opposite side of xenophobic violence: it sheds light on useful resources for immigrants by creating links.
An extension of the project created as part of the Parisian context of la Gaîté lyrique, Extended Mirror offers a mirror image conversation between Paris and Johannesburg. Engaged in an exchange between the two cities, the public participates by sharing its questions related to Johannesburg and to topics such as identity, solidarity, citizenship, or migration.
Every Sunday, there will be a video chat from 2 to 5 PM live from Johannesburg, between the Francophone community of Yeoville and la Gaîté lyrique visitors.
les partenaires
Manifestation organisée dans le cadre des Saisons Afrique du Sud ‐ France 2012 & 2013