Johannesburg Exhaust Sculpture: Mendrisio, Switzerland
posted by Ismail Farouk at Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Minibus Taxis are the most popular means of transportation in the urban areas of South Africa. The taxi industry is largely informal and is characterised by competing Taxi associations. This informality is also reflected by the service industry related to the maintenance of taxis. Taxis are predominantly serviced by immigrant populations who provide specialised motor related services on the immediate sidewalks, in direct contravention of the city by-laws.
For most immigrants, harassment by the police is a constant fear, which has led to the criminalizing of activities and a sense of non-belonging and subsequent transient nature of life. Popular strategies of survival from police harassment include the falsification of identification documents, which is a thriving business in Johannesburg. Other strategies for survival include the speaking of Zulu by Zimbabwean residents. Most Zimbabweans claim to come from Kwa-Zulu Natal as a strategy for survival.
In negotiating a new vision for the city, It is often the economically disadvantaged who feel marginalised by the decision-making, because the vision is not theirs. In response to the situation, my construction of a car exhaust sculpture is a small gesture of recognition to the contribution made by the informal motor tradesman of Johannesburg.
Photo Credit: Pep Subiros
My brief here in Switzerland was to construct a freestanding visible physical element within a gallery context, which began to speak about the informal aspects of the city of Johannesburg. I was also asked to design a soundscape landscape and to produce an interactive map locating post-apartheid architectural projects in Johannesburg. With the generous help from a small family owned metal working company called 'Finke' here in Mendrisio Switzerland, a free standing exhaust structure constructed from car exhausts parts of Swiss origin was assembled. Sound equipment consisting of various car radio/tape players and car speakers were easily attached to the structure for the soundscape component of the brief. Lastly two 19" LCD screens were mounted on either end of the structure for the interactive mapping application.
My good friend Babak Fakhamzadeh who now resides in Thailand designed the mapping application. Babak's application allows me to map a location, add a description, tag associated images from Flickr.com and display relevant information related to a location through the use of Google Blog search.
For a first hand experience of the mapping application please visit the map page of this site.
Labels: Creative Response, Exhausts, Exhibitions, Installation, Johannesburg, Mendrisio
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