Out on the streets, Nancy Richards got the inside stories from the locals – on the phone – courtesy VoiceMap.
Lauren Edwards has a spaghetti of earphone cables in her hand bag, and the patience of Job. Lauren is the co-founder of VoiceMap. She’s surrounded by a bunch of us with tech-trouble. Inevitable I guess on a guided walk requiring cell app-loading, that not everyone is going to get it together first up.
But the troubles are soon solved, split ‘phones plugged and shared, and the stragglers on the VoiceMap Woodstock Street Art tour finally head off – reluctantly leaving the coffee fragrance filtering out of the Superette, behind.
The Walk starts at the Woodstock Exchange. Trendy hot spot in this edgy suburb, the focus of much debate about gentrification.
But today’s walk is not about that. It’s about a much more raw and real story. That of Muhammed Sheik Rahiem, also known as Rashied – local graffiti artist, tour guide and committed community builder.Â
Rashied had been working with the VoiceMap team on recording the script for this tour around the extraordinary murals when tragedy struck and he died in a fire. Even more poignant, for this particular walk his brother Ishmael joins us, silently pointing the way as we walk and listen. Ishmael also stepped in to complete the recordings after Rashied died, together with editor John Baartman who has somehow skilfully patched all their voices together. And so the Walk has become a tribute to Rashied.
Then the street art of Woodstock…..wow!
Well driving past many of the murals, if not parking on front of them on a regular basis, they are so much part of a familiar landscape, that you don’t always stop to really look. So there’s a new appreciation to standing in a cracked concrete parking lot in front of a monochrome fist-punching piece called Freedom Day. (See photo above). It’s been done by local artist Freddy Sam, but round the corner is another Black and White piece. This one by two artists from the Ukraine called collectively Kazki. It shows a man in a zebra suit, ‘transforming’. With the clouds tumbling over Table Mountain in the background looking at it is a bit of a transformational experience in itself.
ZEBRA CROSS-OVER: Ukranian artists Kazki collaborated on Black and White
VoiceMap customers usually sign up for and do the walk in their own time, but once a month the team organise a group walk through facebook – and today there are about twenty roving the streets – stopping to gaze up at the giant red hand, down at Rashied’s Palestinian flag, at a portrait of Will Smith between windows, at a feathered bird by Chinese artist, a crane by Cape Town’s best-know muralista faith47 – and another of a dog by her 17 year old son Jack Fox. Wall work clearly in the genes. Towards the end of the tour it’s Rashied’s voice that talks about leaving a legacy – and how prophetic that turned out to be.
Due to time constraints, we had to skip the Superette group coffee stop at the end of the circular tour, but I can attest to the conviviality of these gatherings in the ‘hood.
On another walk in Harfield Village – not known so much as must-see tourist destination as a strip of accessible little restaurants and entry-level cottages (if you’re lucky) – the drinks stop was at the Home Bar where bartender owner Charlie Bowles has a story or two of his own to share. But who knew about humble Harfield Village that it was named after chemist and anti-slavery reformer John Harfield Tredgold and that back in the 1940’s it was the haunt of the Princes Square Swingsters who would rock the square of a Sunday afternoon with live jive and kwela – but who as victims of forced removals in the ‘50’s, got shunted out to Guguletu.
UNPLUGGED: Iain Manley (centre) logs in to the Harfield Village walk.
The other brains behind all these off-the-wall and un-beaten tracks is co-founder Iain Manley. At a Pecha Kuchu* presentation in Cape Town recently he told his own tale of how he arrived at the ‘immersive’ street walks scheme.
Twelve years ago, there he was in Shanghai, then India and South East Asia. He met a nomad in Tibet, and Mongolians, Guajaratis, Syrians – and in this time he found there were more interesting stories to be heard in their own homes and on their streets than in all the traditional tourist sites put together. It was a mind shift.
By the time he came back to Cape Town – the street story bug had sunk its teeth. Cut to the present, he and the team, ensconced in an open attic office space at the top of Woodstock Exchange – looking out over one big urban story-crawling jumble – they sit with their technology to bring the word on city streets to the people – in Cape Town, Jo’burg, Durban, Singapore, San Francisco, Sydney, Bangkok, Beijing…..the list is growing as more and more storytellers emerge from their ‘hoods, with pride.
One day I too look forward to walking with a Tibetan nomad, in the meantime, I’ll settle for Cape Town’s Secret Tunnels and Lost Rivers. Might see you there.
*Pecha Kucha is an international group event where people present their story using just 20 slides at 20 seconds a slide.
INFO: Visit VoiceMap and for info on their regular group walks, check their fb page
Walks are between 20 to 30 minutes long. Some are free, some priced in dollars, from around R25.
This article by Nancy Richards first appeared in the Travel section of the Sunday Times
PHOTO CREDIT: Nancy Richards
