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Containers |
Photos to accompany a forthcoming toli project titled Containers and Networks. Taken in Accra, Ghana, New York City,
Oakland, Khayelitsha, South Africa and elsewhere by myself, The Wife, and DK - the brother-in-law with the keen
architectural eye.
In New York the containers were an
aesthetic and artistic display. In
Oakland harbour they were functional,
serving their original purpose in
intermodal transportation from the
container shipping port to the
connecting road and rail networks. In
Ghana and South Africa they were
reinvented, appropriated and used as
storefronts, as offices and as shelter.
Thus a new architecture of utility and
expedience borne of necessity is
developing in my homeland.
The energy of the urban slums and the
strength of our market traditions,
communities and social living belie the
current depictions of Brand Africa and
the souls designated as the bottom of
the pyramid. Like our bags and stamps, our containers and the globalized
networks they encapsulate are forging
new forms of markets, architecture,
folklore and indeed historical memory.
In many ways we are better equipped to
inherit the wind - modern travelers
adept at the hustle of modernity and the
game of cultural interplay.
Containers and networks
Infrastructure and exigency
Markets and shelters
I love tomorrow.
Preliminary soundtrack: Sassafras - Boxcar Hobo
139 photos | 966 views
items are from between 21 Feb 2007 & 26 Jul 2007.