Writing the city from below: graffiti in Johannesburg

Penfold, Tom 2017. Writing the city from below: graffiti in Johannesburg. Current Writing 29 (2) , pp. 141-152. 10.1080/1013929X.2017.1347429

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Abstract

Cited as an elusive metropolis, the city of Johannesburg largely resists the imagination. Following on from Lucy Gasser’s (2014) reading of Ivan Vladislavić’s Portrait with Keys this article considers how graffiti and street art offer ways of “mapping” the city. Focusing on Nuttall and Mbembe’s distinction between surface and depth I argue, through a particular focus on the Westdene Graffiti Project, how street art captures some of the tensions in current South Africa and provides new ways of understanding Johannesburg by meeting a map’s six key functions: getting to know, re-forming boundaries, making exist, reproducing reality, inscribing meaning and establishing patterns of control. The result is a city written from below.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	History, Archaeology and Religion
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis / Taylor & Francis (Routledge): SSH Titles
ISSN:	1013-929X
Last Modified:	01 Oct 2024 15:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/171957

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