Calendar of the everyday

 WORDS Dylan Culhane PHOTOS Liani van der Westhuizen

Wow. It’s July, which means we’re already halfway through Cape Town’s tenure as World Design Capital. The time is just flying by, but thankfully Liani van der Westhuizen has been taking visual notes on a daily basis.

‘Calendar of the Everyday’ is a visual celebration of the ordinary in an extraordinary city. The project records and shares the everyday experiences of urban life in the Mother City’s reign as World Design Capital, day by day, for a full calendar year in 2014. 

“Being in a city feels a certain way. Each city has its own morphology, identity and character,” Liani explains. “Google images of Cape Town, and you will have to scroll through endless images of Table Mountain, beaches and the ocean before encountering any images of the Mother City at street level. A city’s character is made of more than its physical features and infrastructure. It is the intangible qualities of city life that makes it distinctive – the manifestation of a particular living culture, host to the ‘flow’ of city life, embracing its rhythms, contours, personal histories, eccentricities and contradictions.”

‘Calendar of the Everyday’ depicts this distinctive flow of Cape Town city life, and in the process helps shape its urban identity –  beyond tourist traps and well-known natural beauty. Through sharing these daily photos, Liani hopes to build up a visual essay evoking a powerful sense of place; a sense of the Cape Town as we know it.

Officially recognised World Design Capital Cape Town 2014 project WDC558.

Follow these links for a daily update:

http://www.calendareveryday.com
Instagram: http://instagram.com/calendareveryday
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calendareveryday
Twitter: @LianiWest