Aims of Public Eye

To develop a greater profile for art in South Africa Since 1994, with the election of the first democratic government in South Africa, the country has been engaged in the massive processes of reconstruction and reconciliation. The transformation of primary structures, such as healthcare, education, security, and communications has been the focus of the commitment of the new state. However, we as artists are committed to the imagination, and believe that much of the work of transformation happens within communities with a capacity to re-imagine themselves and their relationships.

One of the objects of Public Eye, is to stage the significance of art in the work of liberating and expanding public perceptions and expectations. A transformation process that neglects the imagination is, we believe, destined to repeat the blunt instrumentalizing patterns of modernisation. To coordinate and facilitate art based projects to achieve this end. We plan to set up an office that would be a permanent base through which artists could obtain information, and meet to share joint projects, or simply to discuss the viability of new initiatives. In our group, there is a range of different kinds of expertise, from technological to mechanical skills, to writing resources.

We intend to make these resources available to one another as well as to others with similar objectives. Public Eye is not in the first instance a training or teaching initiative: it is aimed at facilitating the work of existing artists. To identify and explore public spaces as places in which to make and engage with these projects South African cities are in a state of neglect, in some cases, in crisis. We hope to begin the work of renewal by injecting energy and excitement about urban sites that have been vacant and disused. We intend to draw private enterprise and urban planners into a sustained conversation about inner city revitalization.

We also intend, through this initiative, to encourage South African citizens to reclaim urban domains that have become unusable. To align ourselves with initiatives that relate to our aims both here and abroad. There have been tremendously successful artistic ventures aimed at the renewal of public space. Given that for the first time in South African history, the majority of the population lives in cities, we feel urgently the challenge to make these cities habitable and humane environments. We aim to draw on the experience of other communities, many of whom have substantially more material resources, to help us in the business of re-imagining city spaces.

We are already engaged in sustained dialogue with linked initiatives in the Netherlands, and hope to expand these contacts to work with other international communities that have had a serious commitment to urban renewal. We also intend to work with other African states, both in order to pass on expertise that we gain, but also to learn from creative ventures that have arisen out of African contexts.