Restless Infections

Restless Infections is an innovative collection of critical essays exploring artistic interventions in urban spaces, focusing on place-making and the politics of space in post-colonial South Africa. The title refers to Cape Town’s popular Infecting the City public art festival and the persistent state of restlessness of a city still grappling with the legacies of colonialism, inequality and racial segregation. The concept of ‘restlessness’ provides a critical tool for understanding public space in a country desiring economic and political stability, as expressed through transient art forms such as Santu Mofokeng’s billboard photography. The volume shifts the focus of public art discourse in South Africa from static forms like monuments and statues to dynamic, temporary interventions, offering fresh perspectives on public art as an interactive, community-engaged practice. The interventions engage with protest, public intimacy, audience interaction and the disrupted topography of apartheid cities. Through an examination of seminal artworks,contributors address diverse forms of expression that range from site-specific performances, immersive installations, film and photography to online performances. They introduce new perspectives on public sphere performance, such as Khanyisile Mbongwa’s re-imagining of township alleyways for public encounters and Mbongeni Mtshali’s study of everyday performances that challenge colonial and neo-colonial spatial organisation. The book is divided into three sections: The Restless City, Public Art for Multiple Publics, and Land, Home, Belonging. It features both critical essays and visual documentation of the powerful, often temporary public artworks, providing readers with an opportunity to explore cutting-edge artistic practices that tackle global issues like inequality, segregation, and public space reclamation. Restless Infections reads public spheres through a multi- and interdisciplinary lens, and makes a strong contribution to our understanding of the complexities of public art in South Africa. It will appeal to academics, students, and practitioners across the fields of art, cultural studies and social justice.

Jay Pather is a choreographer, curator, teacher and writer. He is Professor at the University of Cape Town where he directs the interdisciplinary Institute for Creative Arts (ICA). He is the co-editor of Acts of Transgression. Leila Anderson is a curator and performance maker working between Belgium and South Africa. She also works as a dramaturg, performer, artist and writer. nora chipaumire is an award-winning artist, including the 2016 Trisha Mckenzie Memorial Award for her impact on dance in Zimbabwe, a Doris Duke Artist Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Sinazo Chiya is a director at the Stevenson gallery. Amogelang Maledu is an interdisciplinary art practitioner and research assistant at Creative Knowledge Resources (CKR) based at the University of Cape Town. Khanyisile Mbongwa is a Cape Town-based independent curator and sociologist based at her practice, Curing & Care. Mbongwa is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Creative Arts, University of Cape Town. Mandla Mbothwe is a playwright, researcher, director, art teacher and theatre practitioner. He has won multiple awards, such as the Handspring Puppetry Award for Best Visual Theatre, and two Fleur du Cap Awards for Innovation in Theatre. Mbongeni Mtshali is a performance maker, scholar, artist and teacher. He is a senior lecturer in Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies at the University of Cape Town. Sarah Nuttall is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Thania Petersen is a multidisciplinary artist who uses photography, performance and installation to address the complexities of her identity in contemporary South Africa. Nicole Sarmiento is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and curator based in Durban, South Africa. Meghna Singh is an artist, researcher, Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Communication & Culture at Aarhus University Denmark and Fellow at the MIT Open Documentary Lab. Rike Sitas is a senior researcher at the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town.