Red Eye

RedEye_Tank
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

On Saturday night at 6:30pm Robbie jumped into my car and we went off to the middle of town to see the Red Eye art installation. We had to work out before hand the best way to get there because the art installation was happening in the street itself and so Smith street had been closed off to traffic.

We eventually parked in the Royal Hotel's parking lot and made our way into Smith Street. Wow. I was blown away. The art installation was an "intervention". This means that the artists were attempting to intervene with the way the city normally represents itself, in order to intervene with how we normally see the city.

The main street itself, normally filled with cars, had tables and chairs and the Royal hotel was serving food.

And then the statues in the war memorial area in front of the city hall was tranformed. The artists had taken cheap materials (cheap materials found or lost in the city and transformed.) One statue had a blanket wrapping it up. The statue of Jan Smuts had a bright orange flower necklace. The Angel on the WWI memorial had many little notes stuck to it with the names of different geographical areas of Durban, and a bigger banner with the words "RETHINK" written on it.

The water fountain was filled with little boats made out of discarded milk cartons. This was my favourite.

There were thousands of orange gloves hanging from a large tree. The orange and the green provided a strikingly beautiful contrast. There was a variety of different contemporary dances being staged amongst the crowd and there was a stage with live music. It was great fun. I only realised I had a camera on my phone after the show was basically finished, but I took a few snaps. Here is a link.

The DDC followed, which Jaydon's sister won! To reiterate - Roseanne Immerman won the DDC fashion show which is a very presitigious thing; Marc said soon they will have their own Immerman label of clothing.

The Playhouse's theatres were then turned into an after party; which I went to (until Sandra called to tell me to come home NOW.)

I saw quite a few friends and acquaintances that I had not seen in a while. Vernon was there. Brendan Bunyan fom my time in the Natal Symphonic Wind Band was there (he now works for the Natal Playhouse and has two children.) And I ran into Carla to discover she was a recent mother. She has invited us next week for dinner!

All in all, lots of fun!

...later