You breathe like me - you bleed like me.

As part of City Walks last Saturday a group of African artists staged a powerful performance / intervention to protest against the horrific xenophobia which is once again sweeping our country (remember 2008 ...). They are arranged around a woman posed like a statue with raised arms. The placard below her reads: "You breathe like me - you bleed like me", The viewers are invited to hug the statue - "Hug an African". It was an incredibly moving experience. We have the people, the skills, and the resources to be the greatest continent on Earth. Somehow we have to make it work.

More Play.

More photos of the City Walk (Play Saturday) initiative.
This woman dished out cones with soil and a sprinkling of sunflower seeds. I planted mine in the Company Gardens - and look forward to it blooming!


These guys are part of #100AfricanReads - a group of artists and students who read from books by African authors and dressed up in beautifully colourful clothes.

This woman was part of a fire dancing group - unfortunately you can't see the fire  - but it was pretty spectacular!

More #100AfricanReads.

A mime artist

A game of big chess - for big and little players!

A game of scrabble in progress ...

More #100AfricanReads

A girl posing ...

More #100AfricanReads

Artists and lecturer Andrew Putter talking to a group of people about his design students' installation on the Fan Walk - all done with the paper from till rolls!

These guys did a fantastic harmonising number - they were truly amazing!

Jazz music on St Georges' Mall ...

This woman was dressed up and ready to rock!

City Walk - Play Saturday

The second Saturday of every month Cape Town CBD (Company Gardens, St George's Mall and the Fan Walk) becomes a venue for people to come together and play. I went with a friend last Saturday - what fun we had! It was totally inspiring and mood-uplifting. I made a bagful of origami birds (from recycled magazine pages) and distributed them to people, inviting them to hang them somewhere along the walk,

Svetlana the Mathematician decided to hang her bird in a tree. A logical thing for a mathematician to do, I guess.

I used the remaining birds to decorate the Fan Walk. (At the end of the day I took them all down again - no need to litter the inner city!) (Thanks to Colleen Ross for this picture).

Colleen handed out a zine - A Little Book of Happiness - and recorded people's thoughts about being South African.

Pictures of the other events will be put up in my next post ...

Only this moment exists ...

The Wall project is coming along ... slowly but surely:

As you can see all the bits in between - a vast expanse of emptiness - still has to be filled in. (There seems to be a deep philosophical meaning in there somehow ...).
And then the grout will have to be applied.
Sigh.

Snous says she is keen to see the end result ... in about 5 years' time ...

Treknet fishing

Treknet fishing at Fish Hoek - taken on my daily 6 km walk ...

In threes ...

Wow. I haven't posted in almost two months. Weird. Well, perhaps not so weird - I have been working on two editing projects, and I have been plagued by multiple miseries of being unwell. Not fewer than three ailments have beset me all at the same time. At such times I do wonder about karma and what that may say about my former selves ... That is, if I had any. Anyway. They say bad luck comes in threes, so I am hoping that they will also depart in threes. (So far, they haven't.)

I visited Napier last week in an attempt to lift my spirits, and as is my wont, I took some odd photographs, which will probably interest no one but myself.

 

Marikana.

I made a series of three etchings about the strike and subsequent shootings at Lonmin mine, Marikana, on the 16th of August 2012. Thirty-four miners were killed on the day, and a further 13 people on both sides of the dispute died.

Marikana - Lonmin  (dry point etching with charcoal, collage, stitching)

Marikana - The hill (dry point etching with charcoal, collage, stitching)

Marikana - 16 August (dry point etching with charcoal, collage, stitching)