The Art of Making and Unmaking Public Areas in Johannesburg

by Pauline Guinard

The Art of Making and Unmaking Public Areas in Johannesburg

Un regard inédit porté sur l'urbanité toute particulière de Johannesburg et ce qui relie malgré tout ses habitants.

Johannesburg is known for being a city without public areas. The legacy of segregation, as well as contemporary violence, contribute to making the streets into vectors that separate different parts of the population, rather than creating areas of intersection and exposure to otherness. And yet… and yet, Johannesburg does look like a city. By exploring it through the prism of the art that is unfolding in its public areas, Pauline Guinard offers another tale of urbanity and a different geography of Jozi that, for once, focuses more on what brings its residents together than on what keeps them at a distance from one another.

• Pauline Guinard holds a degree from UMR LAVUE (Labora¬toire Mosaïques) and a doctorate in geography, AGPR, from ENS in Paris