La Tesi / The Thesis - Final Presentation.

The day has finally arrived for the final presentation. And with this I would just like to thank the people who  played an important part in this:

I would to thank my advisor Bert Theis for his guidance and inspiration. Then I would like to thank all the people who granted me interviews. Thank you to Ra Hlasane and Malose Malahlela from Keleketla!, Ravi Govender, Jacki McInnes, Louise van Zijl at Assemblage Studio, Francios Venter from Goethe and Hayleigh Evans and Bheki Dube from Maboneng Precinct. Thank you also to Joseph Gaylard,Alice Nevin and Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon for sharing your research with me. I would like to thank my dear friends Edith, Leah, Jessica, Wei-Ning and Sibi, for the humour, the support and just being my family here, without you I wouldn't have made it through with all my sanity in tact. Lastly but most importantly my parents for both the financial and emotional support for the two years studying in Italy.

Books

An update and some reads.

Mainly I am just reading and searching and reading and searching and reading for my thesis at the moment which feels like a disaster and like I never know enough, but I am hoping that it is just the normal process of the thing, and that, that is in fact how you learn a lot. The problem is mainly that I end up getting lost and reading to wide or I get of topic. Focus!!!!

Then on other news, my three quilts "Progress and development" from Isola project is on auction at Galleria Bianconi, (also along some of my friends such as Edith Poirier and Cherimus) to raise funding for the book of Isola Art Centre.

Then some reading:

Some great books I got (some on ebook, some actual ones - but considering that I will have to move these back to SA soon, I am trying to supress my need for actuall paper pages):

South African Art NOW by Sue Williamson

Art and the end of Apartheid by John Peffer (reading it right now, very easy to read, not stiff and elitist academic - I think a must  for anyone interested in South African art history).

Impressions from South Africa: 1965 to now

Documenta 13/ The Book of Books (damn expensive but was lucky to get a discount). So far I've only looked at the pictures, read the introduction and  the one On the  Destruction of art, and then had to remind myself that in fact  I should focus on reading for my thesis.

Also if you are interested in urban theory and cities from a non Western perspective please go check out the  African Cities Reader which is an online journal with contributions covering a wider range of topics covering African cities and its diversity.