When I asked him about the process of being commissioned to respond to a topic (no less, a person who will see the work) Wilson said he read Stephenson’s biography, spent a lot of time researching and watched everything he could find about the Bristol bus boycotts.
I Interviewed Baroness Valerie Amos on her visit to Bristol to accept an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Bristol. Amos told me all about her numerous honorary degrees, how they city of Bristol has had an impact on her work and her never-ending love for soca music. Check out my interview in Bristol’s …
Black Beatle: LORD WOODBINE There was a young man from Trinidad who went to England on the celebrated Empire Windrush ship. He played steel pan and sang calypso. He helped build the creative counter-culture that put Liverpool 8 on the post-World War 2 art map. He was the first singer-songwriter the Beatles ever met. His …
Kathrada spent 18 years as a political prisoner on Robben Island and another eight at Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison in Cape Town for his anti-apartheid activism. He was a very close friend of former President Nelson Mandela and upon his release, was elected to parliament.
Rogers Cooke designed many theatres and cinemas in Gauteng and the creative crowd followed him to Auckland Park. Everyone who was anyone in the arts and entertainment industry seemed to have a connection with the spot.
The first people to settle in the Johannesburg area in large numbers seem to have been Iron Age Tswana-speakers. These early ‘Joburgers’ came from the Magaliesburg Valley north of Johannesburg about 800 years ago, though they probably came from northern Tanzania over 1 500 years ago.
The history of Rastafari in Jamaica is marred by not so sweet stories. Nevertheless, sweeping it under the rug does the country no good and clearly says “Jamaica is still ashamed of Rastafari”. While the Jamaican establishment laments Rasta’s lack of political mobilisation and the fact that they often operate on the fringes of the economy, there is no denying the deep cultural impact they have had on the island.
The city’s Corridor of Freedom plans to go through this area in its bid to develop Johannesburg as an easily commutable city. It hopes to dismantle the spatial and social legacy of apartheid characterised by racial segregation by creating easily accessible, high-density developments to break down the barriers of isolation and exclusion.
The epicentre of the tremor was said to be beneath UJ’s Auckland Park campus by the Council for Geoscience but Dr van Niekerk suspects that a more accurate analysis would find the tremor started at a nearby mine shaft.
“It is very difficult to come up with an epicentre because it takes a lot of reading data, but there are no old mine shafts underneath the university itself so it is highly unlikely. UJ may just have been used as it is a recognisable landmark. Now, if you go just over Brixton hill to the southern side of Brixton Ridge, there are many abandoned open mines. If these mine shafts collapse, they will obviously cause the place to shake.”
The trees were planted in diagonal rows to mimic the design of the British flag. Today, the layout can be seen from Google Maps Satellite view, though some of the trees are no longer in place.