Creative visualisations of the Gauteng City-Region

Dr Sally Peberdy has prepared this proposal working with a team of Dr Josephine Musango, Ansilla Nyar, Alexis Schaffler and Maryna Storie. The project will be led jointly by these staff. Also added to the team are Potsiso Phasha, Kerry Bobbins and Kavesha Damon.

The aim of the project is to enable creative visualisations of the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) though the eyes of residents, including creative artists. The project will encompass a range of creative arts including: photography, film (documentary, fiction and animation), writing, design and ‘fine art’. In 2012/13, the focus will be on creative visualisations through photography. The output will be based around the five pillars of the workplan of the GCRO as well as perceptions of residents living in the GCR. The project has significant potential to feed the reinvigoration of the Brand Gauteng by the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) in 2012 and could be used by the GPG and local governments in their work. Academically it lends itself to interrogation of the construction of identity and conceptualisations of the GCR. The project sits in conjunction with the outputs of GCRO’s data visualisation project, particularly in exhibitions which could be used by the GPG and the GCRO.

In 2012/13 the project will involve a digital photography competition. This will be an open competition for students and staff of higher education institutions and other creative/photography schools and institutions taking photographs of how they perceive the GCR and/or life in the GCR based around the five GCRO research themes. It will result in a mobile exhibition suitable to be presented at GPG and local government events. Photos to be loaded onto the GCRO website and used in slide shows to illustrate GCRO research findings, in research reports and publications of the GCRO.

Project partners

For the project to be successful (or otherwise very costly), partnerships will need to be developed with the Departments of Fine Arts and Literature at the Universities of Johannesburg (UJ) and the Witwatersrand (Wits) and perhaps other creative schools and institutions in the GCR involved in photography (e.g. the Market Photo Workshop). Thus far, a partnership on the photo competition has been established with the FADA Gallery, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, UJ. The GCRO will act as the overall project manager throughout the duration of the project; ensure quality control of the project processes, management and outputs; define the Terms of Reference; establish intellectual property rights and copyright; and be a part of the final adjudication of competitions.

Outputs in 2012/13

The competition is now underway and output will include an adjudicated set of photographs, initially printed up for exhibition, and usable in various formats electronically and in GCRO publications. In 2013/14 the project will explore other ways of creatively visualising the GCR. More information is available on the Photo exhibition news byte page.