Curating the Ephemeral City

Abstract

Where Do I Begin?, a film by Moshekwa Langa, was screened as part of Shoe Shop, a member of the New Imaginaries trilogy of art projects curated at different times during 2012 to explore notions of public space in Johannesburg.¹ The trilogy forms this book’s case study to reflect more broadly on the constitutive relationship between art, the city and the public realm, at a very particular moment in time and place. The film depicted close-up shots of feet in a line, shuffling towards motorised transport, stepping up, on, back and off, over and over, evoking a never-ending condition of transit. Its soundtrack was also a mesmerising loop, of a popular 1970s love song by the same title — Where Do I Begin?