DUNDEE : URBAN INGENUITY

While researching parking meters in Dundee, these are some of the interesting alternative uses we found.

DUNDEE : PARKING METERS

The parking meter was invented in 1935 by Carl C. Magee in Oklahoma City and first made an appearance in Dundee in 1961.

The parking meter, ubiquitous to Dundee, is known as the Duncan meter and is the product of American toy company owner Donald Duncan, who other claim to fame is the Duncan Yo-Yo.

When Dick Lemmer, then chief of protection services, arrived in Dundee in 1994 there were approximately one hundred (mostly out of order) parking meters lining the streets of the town. Lemmer was responsible for refurbishing the existing meters and ordering an extra three-hundred second hand ones from Pietermaritzburg and Vryheid.

Presently one is more likely to find the vintage Duncan selling on e-bay (for around $70) or gathering dust on museum shelves, which makes Dundee a sort of living museum to this glorious (or nefarious, if you happen to be the citizen regularly faced with pink fines slapped across the windscreen) old traffic technology.

With this is mind, we set out to draw attention to the anachronistic meter through a series of improvisations with the Siwela Sonke dancers.

Trawling the streets one evening, the performers dressed in historical costume (designs inspired by our collage characters from previous workshops) and armed with a multitude of LED touch lights, strips of meters were magically, and momentarily, illuminated, serving as impassive partners to our animated dancers.

The following day the editor of local newspaper The Courier reported that he had received a few concerned phone calls from residents enquiring if the intervention had anything to do with Jacob Zuma’s visit to commemorate the battle of Isandhlawana the following day.

The Domino Effect - Hermon, day before

Fanwalk poles are in, photographs to come....

D- day tomorrow - last hiccups and changes.

Part of the event programme is 'unknown' - Ghoemma are now 2 performers instead of 4, the Golden Voices have become the Riebeek Kasteel Choir! Not sure what tomorrow will bring........
From zero 'official' senior entries for the domino competition, there are now around 72 entrants, that we know of.....

How to deal with it?

Let it flow Hermon time and pace.....

DLALA INDIMA ePhakamisa

Heres a  FaceBook photo album compiled by a friend on Dlala Indima.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=10150104424953418&id=615953417&aid=284924

Work in progress pictures of our yet to be finished interior.

Dlala INDIMA ePhakamisa

We have finished painting the exterior of the Old Butchery. So much activity everyday. We've started getting in the mood for possible crafts workshops and Mak1one gave the first demo in an interior space that was still undergoing finishing touches. There are a lot more visitors lately.  

Domino Effect - Changing Hermon

Romeo at Coke has been great - he gave us 3 huge banners that we requested, they are 3m long.

Dirk has started with the domino swing - letting the cement dry. Interesting that the burnt out house behind the swing, was part of our initial plan and design - we had thought to renovate it and create a community centre, until we realised the whole house would have to come down.

Lientjie's banner up - a learning experience in the South Easter and 40 degrees.

Then we took over 2 classes at the Rondeheuwel school - 60 children in each. It was chaotic and surprisingly only a few t-shirts got spolit by spills. It was exciting for two mornings.

The t-shirts having assembly while drying.

Then Anna and 2 other women ironed the t-shirts to fix the fabric paint in the 40 degrees heat!

Anna and Doon's bedroom where 4 people sleep. Doons has been painting the 3D domino's and storing them very protectively.

DLALA INDIMA - Phakamisa

Some shots from the roof of the Old Butchery...

Many Hands...

We’ve been a gone a while, but some pretty cool stuff has been happening in Musina.

Some quick updates:

We kicked off November with a few general community workshops focusing on the power of networking. We met with as many people from the Musina arts community as we could, all the while identifying key participants – those who kept showing up at the different workshops – as people to integrate into the planning and leadership process. At each workshop we would mostly see new faces, people who had only just heard about the project, which reinforced to us that there really isn’t an established communication network in Musina. News gets out there, but it seems to travel slowly. Each workshop since then has driven home the same idea – a network is necessary. All the artists in Musina have the same issues and face the same challenges – little information, little support and a desire to grow and perform on a professional level.

Demember marked our third trip to Musina. It’s about a six-hour drive from Joburg up to Musina. The roads are good the whole way, but you need to be quite alert north of Polokwane. You see the evidence of quite a few accidents. So we just take it slow and steady. This trip, we wanted to take the discussion of networking and make it come alive within the context of our own project. We did this by means of a practical workshop on t-shirt conceptualisation and printing. We branded all the t-shirts with the MADE IN MUSINA logo. We then incorporated the name and logo of each of the participating groups on their own series of t-shirts. This process both advertised the MADE IN MUSINA project and it also was an act of networking as it created a link amongst all the participating groups.

This workshop also offered the opportunity for groups to link up and talk about what they can offer and what they provide.

This exercise of identifying 1.) “what I need” and 2.) “what I can offer” was important for identifying what the strengths of the group were. It became clear to us that there is a lot of varied talent and that we ourselves were already resources for one another. The t-shirt printing workshop helped to foster a sense of community, while bringing everyone proudly under the banner of the MIM project. The t-shirts came out great and everyone was excited to walk away with some of the skills that go into making your own t-shirt.

The new year brought with it an important turning point for the project. After having worked for the past few months with large groups of artists, we finally found our “Action Committee”. The first Saturday that we were there we held an “online networking” workshop for the Musina arts community – showing people how to blog, how to use facebook, and looking at the various different resources for sponsorship and support that are available online. At the end of this meeting, we handed out a questionnaire, asking people if they would like to up their level of commitment in the project. We wanted to create an action group/committee – to find a committed group of artists who are eager to manage and run the network (blogging, planning events etc).

Ten people signed up to be a part of the Action Committee and we met the following day, Sunday to discuss the way forward. Creating this group immediately activated the project from the participant side. We decided that the first project of this action committee would be to plan and execute an arts festival in Musina at the beginning of April.

The festival is a major activity to learn about and execute ideas around networking. The Action Committee will be using the local radio station, Musina FM, and newsletters to promote the festival and the project in general. The festival is the first activity towards establishing and solidifying the network. It will also lay the foundation for partnerships with local businesses and NGOs, so that MIM may continue with its work. This festival will also create opportunities for artists to discuss synergies and exchange ideas on how to develop the network. Organising this festival puts into practice the skills that we are developing with the Action Committee in the ongoing workshops.

The Action Committee is also in the process of documenting all Musina’s arts organisations for an active database and getting them to be part of the festival and join the MIM facebook/blog.

Check out the MIM blog-in-the-making at madeinmusina.blogspot.com

The blog is run by webmaster and Action Committee chief organiser Pilot Biller.

And also join the facebook page.

Taking the project to the next stage, we are currently holding workshops with the Action Committee where members are learning how to write mission statements, profiles and plans of action. They are applying what they learn in these workshops to the MIM project in order to create a solid foundation for the organisation. Our long-term goal is to create a network that operates both online, and in the face-to-face world, which is sustained and managed by the Action Committee.

And lastly, for now…

What has been important and exciting for us as facilitators is that each of our networking workshops and activities has had real-life application. This had been crucial to the group’s learning and sense of accomplishment – which has in turn created a sense of commitment to “seeing it through”. The Musina municipality has pledged their support to the organisation, and there are also private companies interested in supporting the festival and the project in general.

Here’s the mission statement that the Action Committee wrote before our last meeting:

MADE IN MUSINA is a project to create a MUSINA ARTS NETWORK.

The MADE IN MUSINA Network is run by a small ACTION COMMITTEE who are working to create the network.

The NETWORK is YOU! ALL THE ARTISTS and ARTS ORGANISATIONS in MUSINA.

Our Vision is to show Musina’s vibrant artistic talent and to inspire and develop every artist.

Our Mission is to work as a unified voice, sharing our resources to make the dreams of Musina’s artists come true.

Our Goal is to create a Musina arts network that will:

• expose new talent
• show that art is a viable career
• operate as a unified voice
• provide access to arts industry information
• improve access to funding and sponsorships
• improve communication within the network and with other networks
• establish Musina’s first arts centre
• create opportunities for collaborations and exchange programmes
• use the arts to bridge race, age and gender gaps
• maximise community participation in festivals and events, workshops and relevant forums
  
  

DUNDEE : CURFEW BELL

Throughout the Oral History component of the project, the Dundee Curfew Bell was mentioned several times. While Dundee has extensive archival records surrounding the Anglo-Zulu and Anglo- Boer Wars, we discovered there were few existing records of the towns more recent history. A majority of younger citizens knew nothing of the notorious bell that wrung nightly from the corner of Wilson and Victoria Street.

With no tangible signs left of the bell, we located it through our conversations with locals, some of whom could recall hiding in trees after 10 pm so as not to be caught by the roving police.

The hall at the former men’s hostel, adjacent to where the boom gate into Sibongile used to stand. The boom gate was used by the Northern Natal Bantu Affairs Administration Board to control and regulate access in and out of Sibongile until the early 1980’s. This was the site of our next Living Within History workshop.

For this leg of the project we set out to unite a variety of traditional music genres. Using the hostel hall as our base, we invited three musical groups and Durban facilitators Clive Gumede, Siyanda Mwandla and Karen Van Pletsen to combine talents and develop two pieces of music: one with lyrics and the other an a capella soundscape.

The 36 participants who took part in the workshop included gospel choir (Ubuhle Bomndeni), Isicathamiya group (Ubuhle Be Sandlwana) and maskandi group (Amaphiko Amahle) while Joyce Makhathini, a resident of the hostel, provided the evening meals.

Ubuhle Be Sandlwana

The Friday session saw each group performing for one another while the Saturday and Sunday workshops saw Clive, Siyanda and Karen guide the groups through a series of musical improvisations and exercises.

Ubuhle Bomndeni

A final performance the following weekend involved two of the groups: Ubuhle Be Sandlwana and Amaphiko Amahle assembling on the pavement site where the curfew bell had wrung decades before.

At 10 pm, the groups, huddled under a street light, began to sing: an incantation (developed in the workshop process) that sounded through the deserted CBD of Dundee.

For the second performance, visiting performers Ntombikayise Gasa and Neliswa Rushualang conceived a haunting visual response to the space, which was performed at 10 pm a few evenings later.