“Hotel Yeoville - Extended mirror (2013), participatory installation space by Terry Kurgan / Tegan Bristow / Guylain Melki

From the exhibition catalogue: “In May 2008, Johannesburg discovered the extent of the xenophobia that had insidiously taken root with the influx of sub-Saharan migrants in the early 90s. The days of radical violence that shook the townships resulted in more than 50 fatalities and thousands of displaced people, and left scars whose roots many artists set out to explore in order to try to write a new chapter.

The Hotel Yeoville project was created as part of that process. Once the haven of a white, liberal, bohemian micro-society, Yeoville is now home to upwards of 40,000 people, 70% of whom come from across Africa, transforming the neighborhood into an African mosaic connected via internet to the entire continent.  Migrants and Connection are the two focus areas of Terry Kurgan's project, which was launched in 2010 by a community website and an interactive installation. In collaboration with Wits University's postgraduate program on forced migration and with Tegan Bristow, a digital artist, the project positions itself on the opposite side of xenophobic violence: it sheds light on useful resources and a welcoming environment for immigrants, by creating links.

An extension of the project created as part of the Parisian context of La Gaîté Lyrique, Extended Mirror offers a mirror image conversation between Paris and Johannesburg. Engaged in an exchange between the two cities, the public participates by sharing its questions related to Johannesburg and to topics such as identity, solidarity, citizenship, or migration.”

We set up another version of our photo booth. In Paris it became the “Pose your Question” booth, in which the French audience could contribute to the body of the project by posing for a photo and asking/typing a question to Johannesburg which was printed onto it. Then, every Sunday for four weeks we set up a live link between the gallery audience in Paris and the Francophone African community in Yeoville.  Great, big heavy conversations were had, and many questions were asked and answered. We also set up constant live feed (with IP camera’s) between the spaces during the week. This way the spaces were always visually present for each other. Guylain Melki (a sign artists from the DRC who lives in Yeoville) painted our Paris booth in the style of Johannesburg sign writing (he was the sign painter/artist of the original Yeoville project), and he also painted a large mural at Gaite Lyrique depicting the courtyard at Kin Malebo, the restaurant and internet café space where Johannesburg audiences gathered to chat to Paris on Sundays.