Presentation of Panya Routes, hosted by the African Centre for Cities and Stokvel Gallery with guest Mokena Makeka @ Stokvel Gallery, Johannesburg

Posted in Events, Motto Books on October 22nd, 2022
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Motto Books is pleased to invite you to the presentation of Panya Routes, hosted by the African Centre for Cities and Stokvel Gallery with guest Mokena Makeka.

22 October 2022
from 12pm


Stokvel Gallery
*NEW ADDRESS*
27 Boxes
4th Ave, Melville
Johannesburg, South Africa

Panya Routes: Independent art spaces in Africa
Kim Gurney

Independent art spaces on the African continent have flourished, particularly over the past twenty years in tandem with a youthful population in fast-urbanising cities. This book takes the reader on a journey to discover their DIY-DIT working principles: horizontality, second chance, elasticity, performativity and convergence. The itinerary begins at an empty plinth in Cape Town to closely track the performative and artistic afterlife of a colonialist statue whose toppling turned public space into common space. Next stop: Nairobi, Accra, Cairo, Addis Ababa and Dar es Salaam — all rapidly changing cities of flux. The author visits five non-profit platforms that build narratives in public space by stitching together art and everyday life. They create their own panya routes, or backroad infrastructures of divergent kinds, in response to prevailing uncertainty. Working largely in collaborative economies and solidarity networks through refusal and reimagination, these “off-spaces” demonstrate institution building as artistic practice. By thinking and dreaming beyond the status quo, they fast-forward to creatively inhabit city futures that have already arrived in the global South. The key platforms featured in the book’s research are: The GoDown Arts Centre, ANO Institute of Arts and Knowledge, Townhouse Gallery, Zoma Museum and Nafasi Art Space.

Edited by Mika Hayashi Ebbesen
Graphic design by Márcia Novais
Published by Motto Books, 2022

11.08: Panya Routes with UTC’s African Centre for Cities | Book Launch with the author, Kim Gurney, in conversation with Neo Muyanga @ A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town

Posted in Events, Motto Books on August 10th, 2022
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Order the book here