Joburg’s creative regeneration

WORDS Malibongwe Tyilo PHOTOS & VIDEO Adriaan Louw, we-are-awesome.com

New York-based “fashion and music bible”, The Fader have collaborated with Sprite to develop micro documentaries celebrating South Africa’s street culture. We were particularly enamoured with the Braamfontein edition. 

The video is part of a series that The Fader will be releasing, promising a street-level view of music and culture in South Africa. The first featured a selection of Braamfontein’s creative entrepreneurs, musicians, visual artists, and youth culture experts, including Adriaan Hugo, designer and co-owner of furniture label Dokter and Misses.

The video features lots of cutways to the refurbished building and cosmopolitan spaces that now define what were previously no-go areas, less than a decade ago; along with the multi-cultural mix of the city’s youth connecting around music art and dance. Admittedly this seemingly organic process didn’t just happen. Like most areas that have seen a change, there’s people behind the scenes who see the potential, and start working towards creating an environment that’s conducive to the development of creative hubs.

In the case of Braamies, it was the establishment of the Business Improvement District (BID) just 10 years ago that got the wheels of change into motion. Established by big businesses in the area – Nedbank, Liberty Group and Sappi – the BID studied other cities around the world that had managed to turn things around. It then embarked on a transformation project focused on crime prevention, cleaning, maintenance and landscaping. Ten years later Braamfontein is home to leading galleries like the Wits Art Museum and young ones like the Kalashnikov, trendy cafes and restaurants like Father Coffee, and, of course, the ever-popular Neighbourgoods Market. Seriously, even Mr Scott Schumman, the Sartorialist himself, made sure to visit it and snap a few pics when he was in the country!

It’s easy to forget that just recently, in the past decade, these were no-go no-play areas and the regeneration of Johannesburg seemed all talk. There is no doubt that there is a lot to be done before Johannesburg can be considered fully regenerated, but it is becoming clearer that this rendezvous of business interest and the city’s creative minds is the best vehicle towards that change we have yet.

Follow The Fader’s doccies about South Africa here.