An artist has the freedom, at least in theory, to move between sectors and spaces and, in the process, to connect economic and political silos. In my paper, I reflect on my practice as a visual artist and social ecologist working in public spaces and the iterative process that I adopt to connect thriving informal-sector and formal systems, impoverished and wealthy publics. The paper commences with a description of the Hyena Sculptures, upcycled found wood (Fig. 1) developed in response to Nathanael Johnson’s discussion of the urban wilderness [1]. The exhibited sculptures were a key component of the artist’s participation in the Watershed program and were supplemented by a short stop motion animation video, produced with animator Henk Coetzee to capture the hyenas as they “walked” along the inter-oceanic watershed that runs through Johannesburg, South Africa.
In addition to the sculptures and video, I led guided...