Johannesburg Chronicles: Viewpoints from within

Mapping from the inside out was a response to the national lockdown in March 2020. The imaginary magazine was now chronicling the rapidly changing context over the distance.

The students worked through 4 scales towards a final project:

1 Room: Their private space under lockdown.

2 View: The ‘windows’ to the outside world, their way of connecting beyond the walls that define their space: actual windows, see-through fences, as well as digital networks like radio, television, computers, tablets, cellphones…

3 People: Those they connected with, those they could not meet, those their theme has been investigating, others they were interested in now, individuals, groups, parts of society

4 Landscape: What was their radius before, what was it now? What new landscapes were discovered and which old ones were desperately needed? For themselves, and others.

Loneliness was a big theme, as well as new ways of shopping – and food. One project explored the inversed morphology of South African settlements and the inside of their fridges in terms of density. Overall the elective it was an attempt to visualize one’s understanding of the world beyond one’s owns limits, while still being part of it.