image source, Hamilton Wede
- Author, Hamilton Wede
- Role, Johannesburg
“Today we’re going to look for the ‘Big Five!'” South African guide Eelco Meyjes announces from the front of his safari vehicle – an odd thing to hear on the streets of suburban Johannesburg.
He’s not talking about game though, but about the wildlife depicted in the city’s graffiti.
Notorious for its high levels of crime and high walls with electric fences, there are many other sides to South Africa’s beating commercial heart – including what is painted on the surfaces of these walls.
Mr Meyjes, a local businessman, studied art at the city’s University of the Witwatersrand and this led him to appreciate the dramatic street creations.
His first tours began on two wheels. These continue but have been expanded to an urban safari in 2021.
As we set off in our green safari vehicle from a local restaurant, he cheerfully warns us, “You’ll have to look hard to find the animals painted on the walls.
“It’s harder to do city tours than bush tours. There is traffic everywhere. And, of course, there are the potholes to avoid!”
Our first stop reveals a wild pink buffalo smoking a fat cigarette or maybe a joint.
We spotted the first of our “Big Five” – the term coined by big game hunters in the 19th century to refer to elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, lion and leopard.
image source, Hamilton Wede
We continue with the cool, crisp air of a Johannesburg autumn.
Suburban gardens are still green and there is graffiti on so many walls that the casual observer might miss it.
A pink elephant, another of the Big Five and a robot compete for attention with a giant lizard wearing red sneakers. A memorial wall is being painted for dead graffiti writers.
image source, Hamilton Wede
We head downtown where we meet a graffiti artist who goes by the name “Gazer”.
“I’ve been doing this for eight years,” he says as he works.
“I started skateboarding and my friend was into graffiti. He taught me how to draw and then paint on walls.”
“I mostly do orders,” he explains, though not everything is so formal.
“Usually it’s safer during the day, but some places you can only go at night.”
Gazer is an uncompromising artist.
“I enjoy it when people enjoy it, but some people don’t get it. It is not for the public. It is for individual expression. Everything is a matter of the soul.”
“Slegh”, also known as “Krinky Winky”, is another gallery artist who responds to those who believe that graffiti is destructive.
“All I do is spread a millimeter of paint on a wall. So if you call that a disaster, that’s your perspective,” he says.
“But so many things are ruining the neighborhood, billboards, advertisements, corporate signs. Graffiti brings everyone together from so many different backgrounds and highlights political issues.”
image source, Hamilton Wede
Graffiti is not just a suburban thing – and it has brought fame to some like “Dbongz” Mahlathi, who is from a township west of Johannesburg.
“I was an introvert and that was my way of talking,” he recalls.
“I used to go out at night and do illegal graffiti, but doing it was my dream. It was a way out of the city.”
Dbongz started following his dreams when he was 18 years old. Today, almost 20 years later, he has moved from guerrilla graffiti to famous street artist.
One of his most notable works in the city center is a giant mural of the late jazz artist and anti-apartheid activist Miriam Makeba, who was known as “Mama Afrika”.
“I was commissioned to do this by the city to tell the story of South African jazz.
“Graffiti is protest culture, very often political, but street art is more narrative. I am living my dream and I want the young people of the municipality to see me as a role model and to believe in their creative dreams.”
image source, Hamilton Wede
Melissa Calucci, who organizes the annual Cape Town International Public Art Festival, says Johannesburg “is the mecca for graffiti”.
“The culture there is more welcoming to use it for the benefit of the city.
“In the last 20 years it has developed and now the level is very good – some artists have even gone abroad.”
We leave the gallery and our vehicle swerves to avoid a huge pothole and then drives down a narrow alley that smells of urine.
“This is where the children exercise,” says Mr Meyjes.
“They help each other learn. It’s a brotherhood.”
image source, Hamilton Wede
The highlight of the tour is a huge set of amazing panels painted on a building in downtown Johannesburg (see above).
“Work like this elevates the area. It revitalizes the whole street,” says Mr Meyjes.
The work is impressive. And we’re sorry to end the tour, even though we didn’t see the Big Five either.
“Graffiti is growing all the time,” says our Graffiti Urban Safari guide as we drive back.
“It’s making a fashion statement for companies. We had a number of architects on these tours who were looking for ways to bring some life to a building that needs some colour.’
He turns to look at me from the driver’s seat of the vehicle: “We want to turn Joburg into the biggest graffiti park in the world.”
image source, Hamilton Wede
Hamilton Wende is a freelance journalist based in Johannesburg.
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image source, Getty Images/BBC