City’s historic buildings painted bright pink

Joburg has nothing to fear but colour itself.

It is a refreshing sight to walk next to Marshalltown’s Shakespeare House and be struck by fluorescent pink dripping from window frames, like dew drops on a fresh morning.

But isn’t Shakespeare House considered one of Joburg’s Blue Plaques? Does the paint reflect contempt for the building’s on-going decay? Answers are scarce, but we know that Shakespeare House has been invaded by renegade artists telling us to be #BEWAREOFCOLOUR.

Fluorescent pinks on sidewalks and walls, also dripping from window frames at nearby building, Clegg House, a huge pink #BEWAREOFCOLOUR proudly stencilled on a wall, #BEWAREOFCOLOUR has swept the city, and the fickle artists who have become hard to track down said the project was a form of activism on the Beware of Colour Tumblr-page.

#BEWAREOFCOLOUR is “a new story that needs to be written. We look at buildings that have been left behind by time and we caress their walls with our paint brushes,” the page proclaims.

Posts on the page from August have all been posted with the tag #activism.

Herbert Prins, acting chairman of the Egoli Heritage Foundation said, “In what appears to be an act of desperation in the face of frustration at what is happening in the city, a number of structures deemed to be of cultural significance, [have been painted] bright pink. We are saddened that the state of our democracy has led to such frustration and this in turn, to the destruction of a part of the nation’s heritage.”

Though Prins and the foundation would rap the knuckles of the group of protesters, they also understand the reasoning behind it as being a voice for decaying buildings. “That in such a situation the City of Johannesburg did nothing to ensure the safety of the nation’s heritage is an indictment,” he said.

Urban Ocean, the property developer that owns some of the buildings that have been defaced has voiced its dismay. They told The Star’s Anna Cox that five of the culprits were arrested some weeks ago after targeting Shakespeare House which is owned by the group.

According to the developers, protesters were planning on only defacing buildings owned by the Gauteng Department of Education, which has thus far been mum on the ‘powerful pink’ all over the city.

Details: bewareofcolour.tumblr.com