News , 12/11/2017 : Times and Spaces

Where times and spaces overlap — a multimedia documentary about the changing city Johannesburg

Details

[Translate to en:] Johannesburg - Times and Spaces — [Translate to en:] „It’s a Saturday evening in the Maboneng precinct, Johannesburg. On a rooftop, where you can admire the skyline of the city and easily forget the downsides of the world, dozens of well-dressed cosmopolitans move to the rhythms of international pop music. The atmosphere is wild and larking, the dance floor is illuminated by the warm and smooth light of the sunset. Even the functional, joyless high-rise buildings of the Central Business District begin to glow ...“ spaces.journafrica.de

Johannesburg is, as political scientist Achille Mbembe emphasized, „the premier African Metropolis“. This goes along with the ability to disrupt realities and to generate own forms of cultural and social coexistence. In other words: Johannesburg is growing along unknown pathways that haven’t been walked on before. It is the interplay between people, ideas and images that constitutes the city itself. It is the way in which people generate new forms of social organization, of political struggle, of practices of everyday life, of housing, urban transportation and earning money that makes a metropolis unique.

In a five-day workshop in September 2017, 17 journalists from the South of Africa researched current topics of Johannesburg urban development. The meeting was organized by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation South Africa and its German partner, the non-profit media agency JournAfrica!.

As a result we present the multimedia documentation „Times and Spaces“. The stories written on the site were created during the workshop.