Restless Infections is a collection of critical essays exploring artistic interventions in urban spaces, focusing on place-making and the politics of space in South Africa. The writers examine seminal artworks, addressing diverse forms of expression, such as performances, immersive installations, film, and online performances.

Restless Infections is an innovative collection of critical essays exploring artistic interventions in urban spaces, focusing on place-making and the politics of space in South Africa. The contributors examine seminal artworks by South African artists, addressing diverse forms of expression, such as site-specific performances, immersive installations, film, photography and online performances.

The volume stems from the popular Infecting the City public art festival, symbolising the persistent state of restlessness in a city still grappling with the legacies of colonialism, inequality and racial segregation. This restlessness is tied to a desire for economic and political stability, expressed through transient art forms. It is divided into three sections: The Restless City, Public Art for Multiple Publics, and Land, Home, Belonging.

The book shifts the focus of public art discourse in South Africa from static forms such as monuments and statues to dynamic, temporary interventions that question the concept of publicness and engage with protest, public intimacy, audience interaction and the disrupted topography of apartheid cities.

As the first scholarly volume to read public spheres through a multi- and interdisciplinary lens, Restless Infections argues that diverse artistic modes are essential to understanding the complexities of publicness in South Africa.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Jay Pather is a choreographer, curator, teacher and writer. He is Professor at the University of Cape Town where he directs the interdisciplinary Institute for Creative Arts (ICA). He is the co-editor of Acts of Transgression.

Leila Anderson is a curator and performance maker working between Belgium and South Africa. She also works as a dramaturg, performer, artist and writer.

Nora Chipaumire is an award-winning artist, including the 2016 Trisha Mckenzie Memorial Award for her impact on dance in Zimbabwe, a Doris Duke Artist Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Sinazo Chiya is a director at the Stevenson gallery.

Amogelang Maledu is an interdisciplinary art practitioner and research assistant at Creative Knowledge Resources (CKR) based at the University of Cape Town.

Khanyisile Mbongwa is a Cape Town-based independent curator and sociologist based at her practice, Curing & Care. Mbongwa is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Creative Arts, University of Cape Town.

Mandla Mbothwe is a playwright, researcher, director, art teacher and theatre practitioner. He has won multiple awards, such as the Handspring Puppetry Award for Best Visual Theatre, and two Fleur du Cap Awards for Innovation in Theatre.

Mbongeni Mtshali is a performance maker, scholar, artist and teacher. He is a senior lecturer in Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies at the University of Cape Town.

Sarah Nuttall is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Thania Petersen is a multidisciplinary artist who uses photography, performance and installation to address the complexities of her identity in contemporary South Africa

Nicole Sarmiento is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and curator based in Durban, South Africa.

Meghna Singh is an artist, researcher, Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Communication & Culture at Aarhus University Denmark and Fellow at the MIT Open Documentary Lab.

Rike Sitas is a senior researcher at the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town.

'Restless Infections: Public Art and a Transforming City' is published by Wits University Press