Lest We ForgetA public intervention by Streetwhys and Fananathi Media04-14 Feb 2014

The Drill Hall intervention is a response to or is inspired by the unsavoury state of the treason trial monument. Due to many reasons the monument has been progressively falling apart over the years. Our aim is to restore the monument to it’s approxiamate original state if not it’s exact original state.

The project is therefore a response to this socio-economic-political climate of the inner city of Johannesburg. This is to create aware-ness about the impact drug use has on the monument. Certain parts of the monument that are made out of aluminium are stripped off the it to be sold for cash.

The intervention is also meant to bring, once again, to the fore the names of people that were involved in their various capacities during the struggle for liberation in South Africa, with a particular focus on the treason trialists.

We also aim to reinforce the notion of reading through cutting out more that a hundred stencils of all the names that have been taken off the monument. The generic nature of the stencil is meant to con-note repetition of text which is a way of condoning the habit of read-ing, and in this case a historical reading. However this reading is not only literal but also symbolic of reading your surroundings and you social climate as well.

Ultimately the viewer or the user of this space are expected to en-gage with the space on many levels. Firstly on the historical signifi-cance, secondly geographic centrality of the site in Johannesburg inner city, and finally the sociological aspects the make up this envi-ronment. In that way we hope to use the medium of visual art to add value to the people that encounter this space in their various capaci-ties.

This document aims to show the process of this intervention as well as the outcome of the project.

Sandile Radebe- cell: +27797325823 e-mail: jybudee@yahoo.com Jabulani Matthews Tshuma- cell: +2782 092 9874 e-mail: fananathistreetmedia@gmail.com