*This article originally appeared in RVA Mag #34, on the streets now at all your favorite spots. “The tension is there, but it is a good tension,” said street artist George “Mars” Kalapov as we toured Art Eye, the gallery he works from in downtown Johannesburg, South...
Last summer, my VCU study-abroad students and I stood in the dim but pretty interior of a little house made of corrugated tin in the Soweto township of Johannesburg, South Africa. With us was Thulani Madondo, a 2012 CNN hero, a vibrant, fast-talking South African who...
The city of Johannesburg, South Africa was literally built on a gold mine. Much of South Africa’s wealth was amassed through gold and diamond mining that began in the late 1800s, and it was this mining that shaped the social and political landscape for South Africans...