More photos of the GSD exhibit

ON VIEW: all the glitters is not gold

Location: Harvard GSD, Gund Hall Lobby

Dates: 3/7-13

Authors: Dorothy Tang & Andrew Watkins

Funded by the Penny White Award

Over the last century, the extraction of gold in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni has created a constantly shifting landscape. Regional urban form is tied to global gold prices, mining, and waste. Deep shaft mining has actively altered the topography, hydrology, and ecosystems of the 80 km mining belt that traverses the two municipalities. In the 1970s, the decline of the mining industry set the state for informal settlements to occupy former mining lands. The degraded environmental conditions are major obstacles for these communities to improve their livelihood. Now, with the advances in technology and rising gold prices, mining has been reactivated and massive topographical and hydrological operations are set in motion once again. Our research documents the physical and invisible infrastructures that support informal settlements and gold mining as a means to reveal opportunities for collaboration and future growth in both constituencies.

Enjoy some images from the exhibit! Drawings will be posted the next time around.

Sneak Preview

My thesis research travel was funded by a Penny White Award, and the required presentation/exhibition is coming up! Drew and I have been working hard to get the materials together, and we finally sent our first LARGE board to print today. The board consists of a series of axons/diagrams that illustrate the physical, social, and economic landscape of the mining belt in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni. It was pretty challenging to diagram all these different factors accross a 100-km strip, but I'm hopeful that they drawings will be well received.

The remainder of the drawings will attempt to document processes that we observed while in South Africa, and you'll have to come check out the actual exhibit at the GSD from 3/7-13 on the student wall! I will post the all the final drawings after the exhibit, but it's much more fun to see them in person!