Beats and Shoe Sales
posted by Ismail Farouk at
By Rat Western
Armed with microphones and pumping beats, the Fashion MC's of the Fashion District are a welcoming party into the discount fashion world of downtown Johannesburg. This cosmopolitan melting pot sees Chinese, Ethiopians, Eritreans, Indians, Mozambicans, Congolese, Nigerians, Pakistanis, Zimbabweans and South Africans hustling their products and services on a daily basis. The Fashion MC's are an integral part of this exchange as they do far more than shout out the special deals of the day. The Fashion MC is advertiser, commentator and entertainer within his realm positioned at the entrances of cash-and-carry high rise buildings. Many of the Fashion MC's cross dress, but this is not a gender statement. Rather it is representative of the character he enacts - the pantomime dame or the medieval court jester.
As an entertainer, the Fashion MC humanizes the busy space of the otherwise alienating inner city shop. He spins tunes, makes jokes with the customers and generally keeps the mood lively. Mostly South African and Zimbabwean the Fashion MCs have a strong relationship with the owners of the shops as well as the Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers who have taken control of high rise 'bad buildings' in the fashion district.
The importance of the Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers is the fact that they have organised the inner city space through the formalisation of a refugee run NGO called the The Horn of Africa Crime Stop Association (HACSA). HACSA was formed after an Ethiopian trader was killed during a robbery in 2006. The organisation pays for supplementary security services which consist of 25 private guards who patrol an 8 block radius of the Fashion District. Through formal partnerships with the South African Police (SAP) and Central Johannesburg Property Company (CJP), the organisation dispels the myths and negative perceptions of immigrants in the city as contributing to crime. HACSA's efforts are beginning to pay dividends as the crime levels in the area have dramatically subsided. South African investors and chain stores are beginning to notice the business potential of the area, now that crime has been controlled. The development value of the area is on the increase and there is much activity by private sector housing companies who are redeveloping residential buildings for middle class South African families. However, for the Ethiopian and Eritrean businesses which started the initiative, their success may lead to their displacement as refugees and asylum seekers are unable to get a foothold in the city due to backlogs in the Department of Home Affairs.
In response to the situation artist and urban geographer Ismail Farouk organised a performance at Nadiba's Wholesalers in the fashion district where he collaborated with teamuncool and the Fashion MC's in an intervention/performance. The event brought a middle class art crowd to a space in their own city which, for many of them, was alien and exotic.
For the performance, Farouk and the Fashion MC's, dressed in their drag, sold cheap mass produced products of a tourist African design. Leopard print and camouflage hats and shirts, large shopping bags emblazoned with the 'Big Five' represented the unfair logic of exchanges in developing world and exploitation of African resources. They pimped the tourist vision of Africa.
To accompany the performance was an installation using surveillance footage of police arresting immigrants in the city. The merchandise on sale was draped across TV screens - a combination of the mass consumerism represented by the produce and some of the daily realities of those who engage in its sale as a means of survival.
After the event, traditional Ethiopian coffee was served on the rooftop. People walked through the five floor multi use building - higher into the unknown they were confronted by a multitude of hanging produce from clothing to drying meat and then into a Utopian environment with a fountain, roof garden and view of the city.
For Ethiopians, coffee is about an important social interaction. Visitors were fortunate enough to be part of a more traditional aspect of Ethiopian culture.
Labels: Creative Response, Ismail Farouk, performance, spatial justice, video installation
Letter of Doom
posted by Ismail Farouk at
Labels: 2010, Bertrams, Citizenship, gentrification, urban research, world cup
Recycling a City
posted by Ismail Farouk at
Aryan Kaganof posted this extremely relevant article by Mary Corrigall on the regeneration of Johannesburg:
http://kaganof.com/kagablog/2008/02/12/recycling-a-city/
Labels: Johannesburg, property, public art, regeneration, urban research
Urban regeneration and evictions in Bertrams, Johannesburg
posted by Ismail Farouk at
Case Study by Ismail Farouk for the Migrants Rights Monitoring Project, special report No.2: Migrant Access to Housing in South African Cities. Report by Jennifer Greenburg and Tara Polzer, Forced Migration Studies Programme, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.Bertrams is the oldest suburb in Johannesburg. Located to the east of the city, the suburb has a history of displacement and migration which spans over 80 years. Since political transformation in 1994, Bertrams has been home to a diversity of immigrants, including economic migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from Mozambique, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Congo and Zimbabwe, and poor and lower-middle class South Africans. Poverty is a feature in the area, but inadequate housing conditions are also a result of absentee landlords who have lost control of properties. This has resulted in exploitative practices by slum lords and widespread sub-letting of rooms. The urban environment is therefore of highly uneven quality as the suburb also boasts houses and flats which are well maintained.
Due to its strategic location next to the Johannesburg Stadium, and fuelled by the prospects of economic prosperity associated with the 2010 world cup, the suburb is in the process of being transformed. Returning landlords and developers are renovating their properties, and homeowners are protesting the lack of urban management services and putting pressure on residents who are not paying for rental or services. The City of Johannesburg has designated part of the suburb for the construction of subsidized public housing, which is nonetheless targeted at attracting middle class South African residents rather than at accommodating the urban poor.
The gentrification associated with the suburb's transformation affects all its poor residents, but has particularly serious impacts for foreign tenants. Impoverished South Africans as well as immigrants are both economically excluded from the new housing developments, as residents' incomes fall below the envisaged income profile. While the South African residents have the possibility of accessing housing subsidies, immigrants are completely excluded.
Renovations and the planned demolition of buildings for construction of social housing are resulting in the eviction of illegal occupants as well as residents of buildings with uncertain ownership or tenancy arrangements. The city has pledged to provide alternative temporary accommodation for the displaced residents in converted inner city high rise buildings, yet this offer is not addressing local needs. General problems with the temporary accommodation, which affect all evicted Bertrams residents, include the exclusion of families with more than two children, the small size of rooms and the relatively high rents. Once again, non-citizens are completely excluded from accessing this temporary housing option.
Alternative housing options for foreign residents of Bertrams are also limited by their social context. Many came to Bertrams because family members or countrymen were there, so that now entire communities are being displaced without social networks in other parts of the city. "Where to from here?" continues to be the question asked by the displaced residents of Bertrams.
Labels: Bertrams, Citizenship, Housing, refugees, urban research
Bad Buildings, Urban Management and Crime Control: The Case of the Fashion District
posted by Ismail Farouk at
Case Study by Ismail Farouk for the Migrants Rights Monitoring Project, special report No.2: Migrant Access to Housing in South African Cities. Report by Jennifer Greenburg and Tara Polzer, Forced Migration Studies Programme, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.The Fashion District in downtown Johannesburg is a contested inner city space. Despite signs of economic development, the ownership of many buildings is disputed, infrastructure is crumbling and levels of crime have long been high. The predominant business activity is controlled by Ethiopian and Eritrean asylum seekers and refugees who have taken control of high rise 'bad buildings' and adapted them to limit interaction with the dangerous sidewalk. The organisational structure within these buildings presents an innovative model for inner-city community-based crime and urban development management.
At the forefront of these initiatives is a refugee-run NGO called the 'Horn of Africa Crime Stop Association' which was formed after an Ethiopian trader was killed during a robbery in 2006. Through partnerships with the South African Police Services and the Central Johannesburg Property Company, the organisation is paying for supplementary security services which consist of 25 private guards who patrol an 8 block radius. The monthly cost to the organisation is R150,000, to which every trader and formal business in the area contributes. As a result, crime has been drastically reduced and business in the area is booming.
South African investors and chain stores are beginning to notice the business potential of the area served by the Horn of Africa Crime Stop Association, now that crime has been controlled. The development value of the area is on the increase and there is much activity by private sector housing companies who are redeveloping residential buildings for middle class South African families. However, for the Ethiopian and Eritrean businesses which started the crime-stop initiative, their success at starting the urban regeneration process may lead to their displacement. Many of the businesses are run by people who have not been able to access asylum or refugee documents, due to backlogs at the Department of Home Affairs' Refugee Reception Offices. This means they are unable to secure formal tenure or ownership of buildings, have no access to loans or local government economic development support, and are in practice confined to small geographic areas in the city for fear of being arrested and deported. In spite of the Horn of Africa Crime Stop Association's substantial private investment in security, its members and businesses are in danger of being pushed out rather than integrated into the future of the Fashion District.
Labels: Citizenship, Community, fashion district, gentrification, immigrants, Informal, informal trade, Johannesburg, migration, refugees, social networks, spatial justice, urban research
The Chinas (2008)
posted by Ismail Farouk at
My latest work, "The Chinas" was presented at the opening of the
.ZA Young Art from South Africa show which opened in Siena Italy this weekend. Without saying too much, the work deals with the debates around the evictions in the suburb of Bertrams as a result of the upcoming 2010 world cup.
There are many stakeholders involved in the area. There seems to be conflicting agendas and dreams for the future of the area. What is apparent is that the suburb is not being designed for the poorer residents who are being pushed out without viable alternatives.
A special thanks to Zack Sejaphala for conducting the interviews in Zulu and to "The Chinas" for welcoming me into their homes and hearts.
How do you feel about the shape of things to come in Joburg?
Labels: "social exclusion", 2010, Bertrams, Citizenship, Community, Creative Response, Exhibitions
soweto uprisings . com
posted by Ismail Farouk at
Soweto uprisings . com is an online mapping application which maps the routes of the Soweto uprisings. The application is presented by the Hector Pieterson Research Project and is a creation of Ismail Farouk and Babak Fakhamzadeh. Soweto uprisings . com maps the various routes of the Soweto uprisings by geotagging their locations using satellite aerial imagery from Google Maps and digital photographs hosted at Flickr.com. It also returns relevant Google Blogsearch results, Wikipedia articles and other website material geotagged in the Soweto area. The content loads dynamically from these external sources and the site is continually evolving in its quest to readdress conflicting interpretations and mainstream historys tendency to distil events into a single narrative.
For more information please visit: http://www.sowetouprisings.com
Labels: Creative Response, Projects, Soweto, urban research, Web Art
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