These Walls

Casual, confident and concerted, two young men proudly stand in front of brightly painted walls. The manner and style in which these walls are painted may be narrowly understood by some as graffiti or vandalism yet in Johannesburg, South Africa, also serve as public art; their visibility and presence unavoidable in part, due to the meaning and implications of the canvas. The young men in this photograph insisted that they stand at the corner of the building to ensure that both sides of the skillfully rendered walls would be documented. Surprisingly, the young men did not seek to hide their identity, instead they insisted, convivially, that they were the artists and posed proudly in front of their work. Yet, this photograph presents more than the artists and their creation; it displays a social relationship between two men and their connection with space.

Closer examination of the image reveals the purpose these walls serve; barriers working to fortify, securitize and divide between public and private space (Caldiera 2000). Across the city walls proliferate, topped with electrically charged barbed wire that is often in disrepair; reminiscent of apartheid. While apartheid formally ended in 1994, the lasting effects are evident as inequality remains high across the country with a reported Gini coefficient of 0.65 in 2011 (Lehohla and Shabalala 2014). Gauteng, the province where Johannesburg is located, has some of the higher documented rates of robbery and carjacking, with similarly high perceptions of crime (Teeger 2014). Therefore, fortification functions as security but also symbolically as an expression of power; a reminder of a separation between the rich and the poor and assumption of criminality among those outside the walls (Caldiera 2000). Yet, these walls have been repurposed as the artists physically and symbolically claim space by displaying their art for public consumption. This indicates a pride in their original work and stylistic abilities, and importantly, the reclamation of space; what Henri Lefebvre (2006) would call the oeuvre. The murals displayed on these walls reveal a beautiful freedom and recovery of spaces that were intended to be exclusionary.

The physical boundaries though meant to deter, have brought these two young men together in a relationship bounded through their art. They embrace warmly and casually as they claim space together in joy. Furthermore, we can see the life that emanates from their smiles and stance. These barrier walls operating to functionally exclude and symbolically remind of a subjugated existence, have been repurposed for the enjoyment of the passerby. The separation of space intended to break the spirit and remind outsiders of their relegated status has been made a mockery of. Instead these young men stand proudly in front of their readily supplied canvas of exclusion, jovially exclaiming, “Make sure you can see both sides!”

References:
Caldiera, Teresa P. R. 2000. City of Walls: Crime, Segregation and Citizenship in Sao Paulo. London. University of California Press.

Lefebvre, Henri. 2006. Writings on Cities. edited by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas. Malden, MA. Blackwell Publishing

Lehohla, Pali and Nozipho Shabalala. 2014. “Inequality in South Africa.” Development. 57(3-4): 497-511

Teeger, Chana. 2014. “Collective Memory and Collective Fear: How South Africans Use the Past to Explain Crime.” Qualitative Sociology. 37: 69-92

Commentary on Rachel Tanur's Works: Cuban Boys

Rachel Tanur’s photograph “Cuban Boys” reflects a central theme of her broader body of work. Rachel makes the decision as visual ethnographer to document life. In this image, these boys sit together embracing one another. The boy on the right has leaned in towards his costar while the boy on the left wraps his arm around his presumable pal. The picture suggests friendship, love, compassion and joy. The smiles of these two boys draws your attention and conveys a relationship that is warm and relatable. They sit outside of an open door in a welcoming pose. These boys are living joyfully; at least in this moment – and Rachel chooses to document their lives and their joy. Rachel’s documentation of life stands in juxtaposition to much of the way literature on urban spaces describes and details life outside of the western world (Roy 2011). Her body of work demonstrates a sense of place by the people who occupy her photographs. Her subjects are situated within and part of their environment as opposed to a product of decay, destruction and destitution. The fetishization of the poverty and conditions of non-western spaces constitutes a form of necropolitics, working to uproot power, control and identity from subjects (Mbembe 2003). Rachel’s work radically challenges this dominant narrative. Rachel could have chosen to seek out photo opportunities with an uncritical western gaze, documenting perhaps food shortages or adverse living conditions. Yet, throughout her work, there is little indication of marginalization, subjugation or oppression. Just life. In this photograph, by choosing to document joy, Rachel decolonizes dominant narratives of struggle aligned with the literature on communities of color. As Katherine McKittrick (2011) has highlighted, particularly within the United States, the way scholars study communities of color, reproduces the same colonial past by eliminating the possibility for place-identity connection. This urbicide, she explains, has done extreme damage representing these communities as having only experienced struggle such as poverty, housing issues, and neighborhood instability. (McKittrick 2011). Therefore, visual ethnographers have important choices to make, as once their images leave their purview, they are subject to interpretation beyond the researcher’s intent. Life, joy, compassion and relationships reverberate through communities that are branded marginalized, disadvantaged or oppressed. Rachel’s work operates to dismantle the structures of domination and colonization maintained through the limited scope of understanding communities of color as besieged places of decay and destruction. Rachel has also tapped into the methodological strength of visual ethnography which powerfully documents social relationships in a manner where written analysis often falls short. Simple words cannot quite describe the smiles of these boys pictured somewhere in Cuba. And while they may encounter the trials of living in a state shunned by the western world, this image, documents their joy instead of their struggle. They are confident and cheerful in connection with their space. The door behind them remains ajar, welcoming, in the same way their smiles do. Similar to the men in the photograph from Johannesburg, I can imagine these boys joyously saying “take our picture” as they joke and laugh. They occupy a boundary between public and private; bridging the gap between the two spaces with a lighthearted smile, an embrace, an exuberance of love and life. References Mbembe, Achille. 2003. “Necropolotics.” Public Culture 15(1): 11-40 McKittrick, Katherine. 2011. “On Plantations, Prisons, and a Black Sense of Place.” Social and Cultural Geography. 12 (8): 947-963 Roy, Ananya. 2011. “Slumdog Cities: Rethinking Subaltern Urbanism.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 35(2) 223-238