Initiatives become real when they real. This is the case with “May Johannesburg Bless You series”, its bold and real with change deep rooted in its inception. There’s no other way to explore the inniqualities that exist whithin our sphere’s like exploring this images provided below. Read and admire, become a blessing to Johannesburg.
Impimpi
Every year in May young creatives take the streets of Johannesburg in a way that has never been done before yet familiar to every one of us Joburgers. The team brings forward vivid images of the lives of Joburgers. The photo series unashamedly idolizes the city and elevates it to deity status by suggesting that each and every one of us recites an unconscious prayer to this concrete God everyday.
Drop out.
The everyday scenes of vagabonds in South Africa’s traffic intersections inspired this mirroring photo shoot. The idea twisted and exchanged roles removing the hobo and replacing it with you! The “normal” citizen who is supposedly contends with “less” problems because you have a home to sleep in every night, probably a car and three meals a day. The series then asked is it really the case? Do “normal” and “comfortable” citizenz living without problems, and if they do are they less “tragic” or worthy of donations monetary or otherwise from strangers? Within the 20 seconds you spend at a traffic light, a homeless person wielding a piece of cardboard laden with carefully planned writing regardless of the shattered grammar can tell you his whole life story and have you retched with guilt for driving that car or even having clothes with no holes in them. The stories they write always have a secret weapon or a trump card.
The words “May God Bless You” are as good to a homeless person as a bank guaranteed check. Is there a better guarantee/tool than an all-powerful entity responsible for your existence?
But who is there to help you with your supposedly “easy” problems? Who is there to help an accountant who is ravaged by debt yet lives in a mansion and drives a posh car? Who is there to help him with change? Is there help for a self-confessed gluttonous and greedy B.E.E. struggle hero who religiously prays for another tender after several already won and squandered? How about a white male UCT grad that cannot start a business because he has a low B.E.E rating in a land of native Africans? The series supposes that in all our differences each and every one of us has a prayer to be fulfilled. A prayer for a successful day in Joburg. The images drive forward that we are all the same at the end of the day when we retire to bed or under open skies.
The photo series does not “traditional” captions because the viewer is tasked with answering the posed question
