There’s no better way to understand a Culture than to look at their cities, their communities and their spaces. The East Rand is a result of fractions, not from Politics and Polokwane’s, but from the teethings of a new nation. This tumbleweed assortment of imported architecture, mass-malls and Engen quickstops that became community, Suburb, Facebrick upon Facebrick, a place on a map. God forbid even a Destination. The old and new economically empowered dug their trenches and this is their Noman’s land. This is their Middle. The East Rand. No Mans Rand. Here in the Middle, Everybody but Nobody has control. Visually it’s a debris beached by squabbles of Brand and Land. Our history washed this up whole. This is where an essence of our modern national culture lives, between the mess of commonwealth and gated community, flapping like a Checkers packet on a 6-foot steel mesh fence. On a perimeter wall of a Purple castle themed ‘Ultimate Koi Experience’. Maybe an unconscious construction at first, then a rushed confusion. But today the East Rand, No Man’s Rand, seems a calculated plot-by-plot suburban creep masterminded by an aged greek real estate agent driving golden C-Class Mercedes. The luxury of an empty billboard on open veld, the jarring vista of roof tiles and whispering power plants, the swooping fly-overs onto N3 Hiway of a hundred possibilities. The Sandton City Castles glisten their wares. The white tiled golden brassed commercially viable hopes on hazy horizons. Construction pipes exposed Keep left under the Orange flashing arrows Dusk through bridges and streetlights www dot Gigantic Inflatables dot co dot za. Flashing blue police lights orange and JMPD Cheesy la coco racha Music over coffee shop hanging about car guard two fifty Unleaded please. This is the feeling of life on the conveyor belt. If it’s not under construction, then it’s being integrated into a billboard.

But who am I to judge our Cities? Compare it to something from the Italian Renaissance, or a Paris, or a Buenos Aires? Africa is beautiful because it’s a mess. It’s not ugly. It’s not old. It’s beautiful because it’s alive. Spewing color and haze and messages in these shards.