Soweto Uprisings . com: Phase 3

posted by Ismail Farouk at Monday, June 09, 2008

Phase 3 of the Hector Pieterson Research Project has just got underway. The focus of this latest phase of research is the completion of the school routes related to the Soweto uprisings of 1976. This work coincides with the annual June 16 activities at the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum.

For more information please visit the project website.

Labels: Projects, Soweto

Urban Concerns

posted by Ismail Farouk at Thursday, March 06, 2008

In December 2007 I was approached to work on the 'Urban Concerns' project by the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG). I was hired as a researcher and designer of a research HUB located within the public space of JAG.

The 'Urban Concerns' pr0ject addresses the complexities of community dynamics in public space and is a collaboration between Bildmuseet, in Umea -Sweden, and The Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) in Johannesburg.

Find out more here: www.urbanconcerns.org

Labels: Ismail Farouk, Projects, urban concerns, urban research

soweto uprisings . com

posted by Ismail Farouk at Friday, February 01, 2008

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

Teaching: Market Photo Workshop

posted by Ismail Farouk at Friday, November 09, 2007

I've started teaching a course at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown. My class focuses on developing an understanding the city using multi-burst photography and digital animation as rhythm analysis tools.

The cost of a basic studio flat starts at R400 000. Whilst this may not seem like a huge sum of money for property these days, the price excludes most of the existing tenants. In fact, 60% of the building has already been vacated and the remaining leases are not being renewed.

The developers have already sold 80% of their show units. Whilst this is very impressive, I am not sure how many new investors are initially planning on living in the building themselves. I think its a case of initially buying to rent and waiting for the wider redevelopment of the city to make an impact before moving in.

The Ponte Development presents an interesting case study of gentrification in the inner city. It demonstrates the vision for the redeveloped inner city, primarily as a place for formally employed South Africans. I left my students thinking about questions around 'the right to the city'. Where to from here for those who are not desired?

Labels: Citizenship, gentrification, Johannesburg, Ponte, Projects, urban research

Apartheid, The South African Mirror: Instuments of Racial Classification

posted by Ismail Farouk at Sunday, September 30, 2007

Earlier this year, I conducted some research for the exhibition, "Apartheid: The South African Mirror", which opened last week at the CCCB in Barcelona. The exhibition looks at South African racism as a mirror for European racism. It traces the origins of modern racism, it follows it's spread throughout the world from the colonial era to the wealthiest regions of the world in the post-colonial era.

My contribution focussed on objects related to 'racial classification'. For this purpose, I visited the Wits Anatomy Museum where the following instruments of measurement and African face masks were sourced.

The Von Luschan Scale consists of rocks of varying colour and was an early instrument used to classify African skin clour. They were replaced by electro spectrometers during the 1950's.


This skull of French origin forms part of a series of crania which depicts the 'ideal' features of race. The skull shown here is the 'ideal' Caucasian skull. Go figure?


This African Mask from the Robert Dart Collection was created as a once of object which cannot be reproduced. The museum has an extensive collection of African masks which were created to classify African racial differentiation. The collection is somewhat controversial because of the infringements on human rights and the objectification of African people.

There has been some debate on removing the collection from display. I think that the collection provides an important resource for all of us to learn from and so it needs to remain accessible to the public.

Labels: Apartheid, Barcelona, Exhibitions, Projects, Race

Research: Johannesburg Emerging Diverging Metropolis

posted by Ismail Farouk at Tuesday, April 03, 2007

In February 2006 I was hired as an exhibition researcher for the exhibition, Johannesburg Emerging / Diverging Metropolis' which was held in Medrisio, Switzerland. Below please find the official text from the exhibition:



With an approximate metropolitan population of 3,5 million (of a total for South Africa of 40 million), a large share of its Province (Gauteng)'s 33% contribution to the country's GDP, a high level of infrastructural and technological development, a cultural and creative vitality that radiates throughout the entire country, and a growing significance in the global economy, Johannesburg is demographically and economically not only a leading metropolis on the African continent, but it also constitutes an illuminating point of reference when trying to understand the new global urban system under way.

Furthermore, Johannesburg also brings together with particular intensity all the problems inherited from a dramatically divided past under the apartheid regime: territorial and urban fragmentation, ageing infrastructure, a slowing industrial economy based on mining, economic and social polarization, a tremendous shortage of dwellings and services in the most disadvantaged sectors, the proliferation of new informal settlements, etc. It is no wonder that many of the most significant urban and architectural projects in the country are concentrated here.

The exhibition here outlined offersa - gainst the backdrop of an outlook comprising the serious problems inherited from apartheid - an overview of the transformations under way in the city and its metropolitan area, and a selection of the most interesting architectural and urban projects completed or under way in the last ten years (1995-2005).

The common denominator of the best of these projects is twofold: firstly, they implement architectural and planning practices to overcome the social, political and cultural divisions of the past and to respond to the fluidity of the post apartheid landscape; secondly, and simultaneously, they contribute to develop South Africa's enormous economic potential and to make its principal cities (most particularly Johannesburg, but also Cape Town and Durban) international points of reference.

In addition, the exhibition also includes a selection of daring projects by former students of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning of University of Witwatersrand, dealing with some of the most pressing and often intractable issues that the city faces.

Finally, an extraordinary series of photos by David Goldblatt documents and portrays how ordinary people are responding to these projects, and their agency in transforming the city; how their initiatives and the necessities of their lives (economic, social and cultural) rewrite the public and private spaces of the apartheid city (streets, parks, apartment blocks, traffic intersections, vacant land) into a fluid and contested urban terrain; and how, in the face of this, other citizens are retreating into private, parallel worlds, behind gates, fences and guard houses.

With its multi-dimensional approach, the exhibition shows how the transformations under way are often the scene of serious conflict between, on the one hand, the will to develop an urban policy that prioritizes the objective of greater justice and social and territorial balance and, on the other, strategies and large specific projects aimed at transforming an industrial economy to a financial and services based economy and at increasing competitiveness and profitability - strategies and projects that very often mean consolidating the territorial and urban guidelines handed down by apartheid.

By this token, beyond its intrinsic interest, the current South African experience, and more specifically the Johannesburg experience, speak to other 'emerging' countries and cities that are reinventing themselves in the wake of complex and divided pasts.

Labels: Exhibitions, Johannesburg, Mendrisio, Projects, urban research