The comings and goings of tourists, passenger liners, boats, conference goers, holiday makers and travelers have always been part of its rhythm. At the same time, it has absorbed and given form to cultural, social and political practices specific to its location on the African continent. Today its verdant, densely humid, seething, hybrid cultures are being displaced into images of global desire-ability, bringing new pressures, presences and dynamics. 
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This project presents the multiple, overlapping, diverse, urban practices that have shaped and continue to shape the contemporary city against the backdrop of the vast theatrical architectural facades that line its beach front and port edges, architecture that, in marking the moments of connectivity between land and sea, earth and sky, work and play, explodes in playful exuberance. 

It seeks to convey the multilayered uniqueness and specificity of the city the and events that shape it - the annual New Year's day flood of people to the sea, the intensity of its daily markets and transportation interchanges, Muslim arcades, Hindu temples, densely populated hillsides, port edges - in all its tattiness, gloss, messiness, and creativity. It interrogates how the city is attempting to both engage with the tyranny of global consumption and assure the continuity of its histories, cultures and ways of life. 

This project is the first component of a larger, long term investigation of the Indian Ocean and its cities, entitled the Folded Ocean Project.

Team Members 

Professor Lindsay Bremner 
Lindsay Bremner is an Honorary Professorial Research Fellow in the School of the Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand. She was formerly Professor of Architecture in the School of Architecture and Planning at the same University. She has written and published extensively on South African cities, including her recent book 'Johannesburg One City Colliding Worlds' (2004), and has contributed widely to conferences and fora in Africa, Europe, Latin America and the US . 

Stephen Hobbs
Stephen Hobbs is a practicing artist who works across the disciplines of artistic production, curatorial practice and cultural management. Together with Kathryn Smith and Marcus Neustetter, he makes up the artists collective known as the Trinity Session. He has exhibited widely in South Africa, Europe and the United States, working with video, photography and installation. 

Emmanuel Pratt
Emmanuel Pratt is currently a Visiting Lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is an architect and urban design graduate of Cornell and Columbia Universities in the USA. His work incorporates photography, digital exporations and multimedia. 

Tshego Moiloa
Tshego Moloi is an architect, currently working on the Freedom Park Project in Pretoria for MMA Architects. She is a graduate of UCT, where she was the top graduating student in 2003. 

Olalekan Jeyifous
Olalekan Jeyifous is an architect of Nigerian origin, educated in the USA. In 2003 he was awarded a travel fellowship enabling him to work on a study of the politics of space and movement in post-apartheid South Africa. He has won numerous awards for his work in a range of digital media. 
 

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