Nelson Mandela died one year ago today. I hadn’t planned to post anything about this anniversary. But suddenly in the middle of this afternoon, Mandela crept into my head.
I remembered how I was feeling at this time last year. (Here’s the post I wrote the day after he died.) Then I remembered that after Mandela died, I took a whole bunch of photos of a new graffiti mural that was painted in his honor. I’ve been meaning all year to do a blog post about it but never did. So, now is the time.
This is my 499th blog post, and the third of my celebratory Jozi top five series.
Upon arrival in Johannesburg, nearly every first-time visitor (myself included) goes to the Apartheid Museum. Don’t get me wrong – the Apartheid Museum is fantastic and everyone should go. But there are so many other great museums and galleries in Joburg, many of which are unknown even to locals. Here are my five favorites.
Last week I spent lots of time watching graffiti artists paint during the City of Gold Urban Art Festival. I took tons of pictures and I’ve been struggling to figure out how to organize them, and also how to write about the festival more broadly. In the end, I just decided to pick my ten favorite shots from the week and explain each picture.
The City of Gold Urban Art Festival is happening all week in Joburg. I was planning an epic post at the end of the week with all the highlights, but I just realized that I’ve already taken far too many photos to fit into one post and the week isn’t even over yet. It looks like I’ll be doing a City of Gold Series.
Several weeks ago, a company called Zavi Traders sent me a 35-millimeter film camera – a funky red model called the Holga 135BC – and some lomography-style film. I was so excited. I slapped a roll of film into the camera (or tried to) and started shooting.
My birthday is on Tuesday. On the actual day I’m going to be in Knysna – a lovely seaside town in the Western Cape – as a guest of the of the Knysna Oyster Festival. I’ll be participating in countless exciting activities in Knysna and I imagine this will be a pretty fun way to spend my birthday. (It’s a big one, by the way.) But of course I am also a little bit sad that I won’t be celebrating in Jozi.