Nothing good came out of today’s meetings. I am starting to think this project wasn’t well thought out. Is it not possible to write about the Johannesburg Chinese community without concrete information from them? I mean, why not, the West has been writing about Africa without bothering to ask for the African opinion.
My feature article was meant to look at the consumption of art by the Johannesburg Chinese community. All the interviews I had with members of the Chinese community said pretty much the same thing: we don’t do art.
For inspiration, my colleagues and I drove to Cyrildene, the new Chinatown in Johannesburg. The place where the project started.
Then I got the fabulous idea to door-step Dion Chang, a Chinese South African trend analyst, design consultant and journalist and Wilhelm, owner of art gallery on 44 Stanley called Art on Paper. Having stalked these two individuals, Fred (my mentor), suggested I change my incredibly boring feature article from Consumption of art by the Chinese community in Johannesburg to A quest to find a Chinese South African visual artist.