UP Journals (Univ. of Pretoria)
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Sedition à la mode? The transfiguration of Steve Biko in post-apartheid fashion and décor design: Material Narratives
No full textThe portrait of slain anti-apartheid revolutionary, Steve Bantu Biko, has been variously transfigured and commodified in political and consumer discourse since his death in 1977. This process is evident in the reproduction of Biko’s portrait on garments and décor accessories. At the time of his death, a commemorative T-shirt hastily printed for his funeral was promptly banned. Three decades later, images of Biko’s face adorned tank tops and cushion covers displayed in trendy, upmarket boutiques. The focus in this article is the appropriation and reproduction of Biko’s portraits in a selection of South African fashion and décor designs. I ask whether the images of radical political figures are necessarily domesticated or denuded of subversive power once rendered and consumed as fashionable, retro accessories. If invoking Biko’s name, as Ahmed Veriava and Prishani Naidoo (2008:234) suggest, is to invoke a legacy of struggle and sedition, what new meanings arise when historic signifiers of this icon are consumed as retro fashions? These questions are explored within the context where Biko’s work and image are given new prominence by young black activists who were born in a democratic South Africa, but are not yet enjoying the freedoms that Biko’s generation fought and died for
Petty policing practices: Enforcement of minor offences against persons with psychosocial disabilities in in three East African countries
No full textThe role of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in ensuring disability-inclusive responses to climate change in Africa
Get PDFThis paper investigates the often-neglected topic of disability-inclusive climate action, focusing on the recommendations from the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for African countries. The author’s analysis reveals a consistent emphasis by the Committee on climate change in its Concluding Observations, particularly in relation to adaptive capacity for climate-related disasters. Key recommendations typically encompass emergency and disaster risk reduction strategies, the provision of information in accessible formats, and the establishment of engagement channels with disability representative organisations. However, the Committee’s climate change discussions fail to adequately address the unique attributes of the African region and its individual countries, leaving several crucial issues unresolved. These issues encompass the need for improved international cooperation and a focus on disability sub-groups with climate-related concerns. The paper advocates for the Committee to intensify its efforts to address disability-inclusive responses to climate change, including general recommendations for the inclusion and recognition of the diversity of persons with disabilities and astrategy for international collaboration on climate change
Interactive contemporary art. Participation in practice
Get PDFThis book, edited by British art historian Kathryn Brown and published by Tauris, is a collection of essays discussing the very topical concept of participation in contemporary art. With the theories of Nicholas Bourriaud (2002) becoming relevant and indeed prevalent in the late 1990s and subsequently in current art making practices, it is a fitting time for a book such as this to review and problematise different aspects of the concept and its various embodiments in art during the last two decades
Arcades revisited as urban interiors in a transformed city context
Get PDFPretoria is the administrative capital of South Africa and is located within the City of Tshwane in the Gauteng Province. The city’s Central Business District (CBD) is characterised by a network of arcades and walkways that cut through the long and deep city blocks. In this article, we discuss arcades as urban interiors and the potential of these spaces to become points of social interaction within a transformed city context. We reflect on the original purpose of the arcade and based on criteria derived from a literature review, we critically assess the current use of three arcades and describe challenges experienced in the functioning of these spaces. The design of the building edges that link the interiors to the adjacent arcade space are revisited as a design element that has the potential to reactivate the arcades as urban interiors. Guidelines for improving the city dwellers and daily commuters’ experience and use of these spaces as urban interiors are formulated and discussed. These guidelines, although formulated within a South African context, are relative to any urban interior within a city that has lost its sense of place and that needs to be reactivated through the treatment of its surrounding buildings’ edges
An interpretation of the role of meaning in interior design
Get PDFThe cultural role of the interior artefact, through the representation and interpretation of meaning, is considered in this article. This follows Umberto Eco’s moderate hypothesis of culture in which all cultural phenomena can be studied as contents of a semiotic activity and in accordance with Jeff Lewis’s construct of culture as a collection of meanings. The ‘interior artefact’ that is considered here is the physical manifestation of interior design as a professional practice in the built environment and not a general product of human activity. It is assumed that successful interior artefacts are dependent on the generation of meaningful images and their appropriate spatial interpretation. The interior artefact is a material artefact that creates and communicates meaning; it offers the framework for situated meaning and is the result of that meaning. The interior artefact is the spatial embodiment of the visual identity imagined by the interior designer on behalf of the client. In this context, interior design is considered as a cultural activity with importance for human development, which includes the utilisation and development of identity. The article considers identity to involve more complexity than merely expressing categories of belonging (such as race and gender). In interior design the generation and interpretation of meaning is dependent on the visual presence of cultural discourses; the article concludes with a brief discussion of some of these
We were looking for our men in the faces of stars: Soap opera and Afrikaner masculinities in Egoli: place of gold
Get PDFThis article examines the representation of masculinities in selected episodes from the soap opera Egoli: place of gold, aired in 1994. This specific moment in South African media history is characterised by a heightened sense of anticipation surrounding Egoli as the first local long-running soap opera developed for the relatively new – and only – independent broadcaster in the country, M-Net. Because of this genre’s reliance on perceived realism, Egoli offers a historically significant televisual mediation of the widespread social and political changes that mark this particular period. This article, however, diverges from the wealth of research on soap opera as a so-called women’s genre and approaches Egoli with a keen interest in the programme’s negotiation of masculinities. The article’s analysis centres on two particular white, Afrikaans male characters: Dr Walt Vorster (portrayed by well-respected opera icon Gé Korsten) and Doug Durand (portrayed by the controversial ‘bad-boy’ rock star Steve Hofmeyr), and examines how Egoli deals with the immanent destabilising of Afrikaner patriarchy at that historical juncture. The article furthermore examines these characters through the notion of celebrity-intertextuality. The author identifies Egoli as the pioneer of casting celebrities as soap opera characters and turning soap opera actors into stars – a trend which has become characteristic of the South African soap opera genre
World history of design
Get PDFEpic, herculean, encyclopaedic, definitive, ambitious, big, exhaustive, comprehensive, holistic, inclusive, eclectic, busting the Western-centric canon, world scale, definitive, analytical, deeply exploratory, overwhelming and immersive. These are some of the adjectives and descriptors that reviewers have used to describe Victor Margolin’s first two of a three-volume tome, World history of design, published in 2015
Editorial
Get PDFSince its inception 18 years ago, the most prominent event on the agenda of the Design Education Forum of Southern Africa (DEFSA) has been an annual conference. A selection of six edited papers from the Forum’s recent conference held in November 2009, entitled Opening gates between and beyond design disciplines, is featured in this edition of Image & Text. The selected papers are also available on the Forum’s website where they are published as part of the complete set of conference proceedings. Although the conference theme covered a fairly broad terrain, the six selected papers specifically demonstrate how tertiary design education in South Africa has responded, and is responding, to changes brought about by revised national education policies, social imperatives and new opportunities. These responses are positioned within the characteristics and constraints of specific educational environments
The Vhembe filter: a product for rural South Africa
Get PDFAccording to Chochinov (2010:6), ‘[f]rom Victor Papanek’s Design for the real world to John Thackara’s In the bubble, from Buckmister Fuller’s World game to Bruce Mau’s Massive change, there has been a perennial desire to drive home the imperative of design for social good.’ The first aim of this article is therefore to document a South African design project that focuses on social good and the impact the outcome could offer a very large segment of society through improved water quality.1 The second aim is to illustrate how a user-centred industrial design methodology can be used to develop an existing product become better suited to its users, and to show how this methodology can be applied to product development intended for rural settings. The specific product used in this case study is the existing Filtron water filter and the resultant improved design is called the Vhembe water filter. Martin Bolton2 undertook the development of the Vhembe filter in fulfilment of a Master’s degree in industrial design at the University of Johannesburg from 2007-2009. The Master’s project formed part of a larger collaborative research project that aimed to investigate whether an intervention that improves water quality would measurably improve the health of people using the intervention. This larger project,3 a collaboration between the University of Venda (UniVen) and the University of Johannesburg (UJ), was headed by Professor Natasha Potgieter and funded by the Water Research Commission through UniVen with research conducted in approximately 25 rural villages in the Vhembe district of the Limpopo Province, South Africa