Late last year photographer Justin Keene visited Victoria Yards (VY), an urban complex in Johannesburg which offers a home to artists, designers, small businesses - and lane upon lane of vegetable patches. The project was initiated in 2016 by Brian Green, the developer at Group 44 who is well known for his culturally-bent developments, such as 44 Stanley. With a slow burning dedication to meaningful regeneration, VY has become a serene space deeply appreciated by its tenants and local stakeholders in the relatively poor inner-city area of Lorentzville. It’s this sense of belonging that attracted Keene to document it.

“The complex was built in the 1920s as a grand laundry,” Green explains. “With political shifts and the area subsequently downgrading, the laundry was broken up into many studios that ended up being used as informal panel beating shops and associated businesses. My idea to create VY came to me on my first visit. This needed to be a property where artisans could showcase their work among a supportive community of like-minded people.” Now transformed, Green describes entering the complex as “crossing the threshold into what feels like a sanctuary.”

With studios big and small, VY has attracted a range of creatives from fine artists, glass blowers, carpenters and fashion designers to distillers and print-makers. Names include internationally renowned photographer Roger Ballen, Tshepo the Jeanmaker, leather designer Oscar Ncube, collage artist Dario Manjate and painter Mncedi Madolo.

Beyond the work units and art galleries, VY also acts as an urban farm, an educational facility teaching artisanal and vocational skills and an incubator for budding entrepreneurs at VY Commons - a thriving makers and co-working hub. Recognition for the work done by VY is evident in its nomination as a finalist in the Urban Lands Institute (ULI) Europe Awards for Excellence.

There’s no doubt that VY enters the gentrification equation, but with it, an important discourse on diversity and integration in Joburg. VY’s model is dedicated to grass roots business development, for example offering free rent to selected businesses in the area, as well as welcoming Timbuktu, an organisation providing learning to local children after school. And adjacent to these enterprises are the markets and cafes selling produce from the garden.

Wits MA student Anna Sango is part of Through the Lens Collective of photographers at VY. “This place awkwardly stands out in Bez Valley as an oasis of gentrification but it doesn’t seem to impose violently on the community like other cultural precincts in Cape Town and Joburg,” she says. “There’s much less of a pretentious atmosphere because there is an attempt to add value through the work that artists engage in. It’s a quiet space, with a good creative energy and I love that it is also a pocket of urban agriculture.” Sango is building a portfolio of work exploring narratives of displacement and transnationalism and how these processes inform subjectivity and being. “My photography works to understand modes of healing through decolonial, black feminist approaches to visual storytelling.”

Young artist Chris Soal went from his parents’ 4x5 garage to a 300sqm studio space at VY. After showing at the 2019 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, he was signed up for a solo show by Cape Town gallery WHATIFTHEWORLD. He had to scale up quickly and this new workspace allows him to hang his largescale works made from found objects and industrial materials as well as experiment with multiple mediums. “The VI environment has been great. I’ve enjoyed being located around great artists such as Thenjiwe Knosi and Blessing Ngobeni and emerging artists like Teresa Firmino and Sam Kentridge,” he says.

Commenting on being an artist in this city, he tells us, “Joburg has an entangled, complex history that ripples out into the present in all directions. It seems to be the gritty muse for many of my works, and the backdrop for others. An unavoidable point of reference. There are politics which your work must engage with. Instead of this being an obstacle I see it as an opportunity to rethink much of what constitutes contemporary art through the lens of this space.”

For Joao Ladeira, VY offers a community that is both supportive in practice and mentorship. He heads up The Project Space (TPS), a non-profit cultural laboratory dedicated to the advancement of contemporary African art. There are three studios for artists in residence to work in and it also provides a learning programme in business for the arts. The primary focus is on emerging female artists. “These candidates are given the opportunity to concentrate solely on their works by providing them with accommodation, materials and stipends. At the end of the residency they exhibit at the major art fairs.”

Ladeira is also an artist. His works on paper focus on themes of African migration towards Europe. “I produce works that not only celebrate the originality, cultural wealth and artistic diversity of the African continent, but also remind us of the discord that prevails here. I keep asking myself questions such as, how do we heal Africa’s woundedness and restore our humanity? How do we save our people from poverty, war, hunger, slavery, displacement and dread disease? I therefore view my career as a personal commitment to civic engagement for our humanity.”

Essentially, VY is a neighbourhood that nurtures growth. It’s nothing new that creatives and small business owners are vulnerable in society, but even more-so in an emerging economy like South Africa. Here they can sustain a practice, make a living and go on to shape culture.

Photography Justin Keene
Words Kerri von Geusau

Visit Victoria Yards

Published on 29/05/2020