Na Ku Randza public interventions

8.9.2011

Na Ku Randza was a project by the CHR and forms part of "über(W)unden – art in troubled times", conference and cultural interventions by the Goethe Institut, Johannesburg (6-11 Sept).

Na Ku Randza – (“I Love you” in English) - makes reference to a popular song by the late musician Gito Baloi. The phrase “GITO BALOI NA KU RANZA” was, until recently, spray painted onto a wall at the corner of Kerk and Nugget Streets where Baloi was gunned down on April 4, 2004. At the same corner, above the one storey dilapidated building that used to be the liquor store “Jumbo Liquor Wholesalers” remains the store’s most recognizable symbol, a large pink elephant, ‘Jumbo’.

"Na Ku Randza" was a project which focuses on the Doornfontein area where CHR was located at the time and one that imagined the elephant ‘Jumbo’ as a bearer of memory. "Na Ku Randza" was therefore a project about love, (violent) conflict and visualization in which ‘Jumbo’ becomes a model for love, a site of memory and a visual presence - representing a space in which mutual recognition can be imagined alongside violent encounters, the slaying of Baloi being one of them.

CHR staged a series of interventions featuring a spatial painting in progress, a performance by Kemang Wa Lehulere, a public sculpture by Nothando Mkhize, a t-shirt screen-printing workshop by Keleketla! Library and a memorial graffiti mural by Breeze Yoko.

Interventions took place on Kerk, Nugget and End street.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pojoHVob3p4