/ 4 June 2014

The Creative Showcase by 10and5 – June 5

The Creative Showcase By 10and5 – June 5

Wake Up, This is Joburg
Wake Up, This is Joburg is a brand new series of 10 books celebrating the raw beauty of the city of gold. Written by urban planner Tanya Zack and photographed by Mark Lewis, this series showcases Jo’burg dwellers and their unique and remarkable ways of making a living, and a life. 

Some of them are new arrivals to Jo’burg and others grew up in the city, but all of them have found intriguing ways of inhabiting this urban jungle. In harsh social, political and economical circumstances these individuals choose to stick around in the city that everyone loves to hate, which is exactly what Wake up, This is Joburg hopes to capture – that thing you can’t quite put a finger on when telling people why you love this city.

City of Gold Diggers
Johannesburg-based creative team Jana + Koos will be presenting a collection of work titled City of Gold Diggers, JHB Hates You in New York City, consisting of mixed media photography, graphic design digital prints as well as installation and video art. 

The duo says: “Like many people living in Johannesburg, we’re not from here. We came here to make something, make some money and try to break into the city that can very easily just break you. It’s not an easy place to make it but it’s rewarding in unexpected and sneaky ways. It’s the place in Africa where you go to get rich or die trying. It’s the place where the gold diggers unite. 

“You end up loving it as much as it seemingly doesn’t try to love you back. It’s a jumble of contradictions as it tries to figure itself out and it is this flux that inspires us daily, and is the root of most of the personal work and side projects we do.”

Read the full story in the Friday section of this week’s Mail & Guardian.

Durban in B&W by Paulo Menezes 
Talented documentary photographer Paulo Menezes is a recent graduate from the Durban University of Technology and is already building a name for himself through his involvement in a series of high-profile exhibitions in the city over the past two years.

Menezes describes himself as an observer of people and how we negotiate our surroundings. Interested in processes and how a city inhales and exhales, street photography comes naturally to him. 

Through his striking black and white images, he hopes to break stereotypes of Durban’s inner city. He says: “I am attempting to make people aware of the beauty that exists on the streets of Durban’s CBD, and the beauty of the people that make it breathe.”

For What it’s Worth by Dillon Marsh
“Whether they are active or long dormant, mines speak of a combination of sacrifice and gain. Their features are crude, unsightly scars on the landscape – unlikely feats of hard labour and specialised engineering, constructed to extract value from the earth but also exacting a price,” says photographer Dillon Marsh. 

In the first set of a broader series of images dealing with the extraction of precious metals, stones and possibly coal, Marsh presents five images that examine the first mining operations in South Africa, namely removing copper from the arid Namaqualand region.

His striking images combine photography and computer-generated elements in an effort to visualise the output of a mine. He says: “The CGI objects represent a scale model of the materials removed from the mine, a solid mass occupying a scene which shows the ground from which it was extracted.”

David Krut print workshop
The name and person David Krut occupies a prominent position in the South African art scene. Over the past 30 years, Krut has played a significant role in promoting contemporary South African art and artists through printmaking, art book publishing and education. 

Today, the David Krut organisation comprises several exhibition spaces – a book store and print workshop – and represents prominent artists including William Kentridge, Deborah Bell, Stephen Hobbs, David Koloane and many others. 

The aim of the David Krut Workshop is to provide a professional facility for collaborations between South African artists and local and international printmakers. Emerging and established artists are regularly invited to create limited edition intaglio prints and monotypes in the space. 

Be on the lookout for exhibitions by Maja Maljevic, Diane Victor (at DKP Cape Town), Endale Desalegn (visiting artist from Ethiopia) and Quentin Williams (in July).

For more local creativity, go to Between 10and5.