With more than four million people in Ekurhuleni, the creation of jobs remains a pivotal mechanism to uplift the eastern Gauteng region.
To date, the development of the Harambee BRT, (the City’s Integrated Rapid Public Transport Network), has created employment opportunities for approximately 440 local residents.
Most of these opportunities were the result of two contractors, who have, to date, upgraded the complementary route in Hospital View, in the north, from two to four lanes.
The public art programme created more jobs for 30 local artists while four photographers involved in the project received experience in the form of skills transference from their mentor – professional photographer Raymond Mokoena.
These photographers are Happy Motha, Thabiso Freddie Ntanda, Hlompo Moloi and Nkosana Dube.
The 30 artists are all from around Ekurhuleni, and were selected to take part in workshops, following inclusive briefing sessions.
Artists involved included poets, designers, spoken-word artists, rappers, DJs, photographers, visual artists, sculptors, gum boot dancers, fashion designers and printmakers.
Ekurhuleni Roads and Transport MMC Cllr Petrus Mhlarhi said all of their creative skills mixed together depicted a visual journey.
“Each artwork has evolved and travelled from a moment of inspired interactions between teams reaching a destination of a completed artwork, ready to be translated into a public artwork which can make the community of Ekurhuleni proud,” said Mhlarhi at the opening of the showing.
“The exhibition was curated in way which reflects the journey of all the artistic teams. The journey shows an organic creative process and is mounted in a constructed environment to represent the building of the Ekurhuleni BRT Bus route and the construction of a different and positive kind of travel future.”
Designing artwork for the stations aimed to provide an opportunity to harness and create a cross-section of visual artists, story-tellers and poets who are also future commuters and cultural producers within their communities.
Graphic designer Peggy Mapule Ntsepe said the workshops were positive and well-facilitated in that artists from diverse backgrounds could tell their different stories through art that ultimately speaks to the people of Ekurhuleni.
“I was always aware of the communicative aspect of creating the art with a graphic- or design element in mind, and how it would look on the stations. Collaborating with other artists from different backgrounds, who had numerous inputs resulted in us visualising a multifaceted design that tells the story from different perspectives. We are all very proud of our work,” Ntsepe said.
