Full Description
Based on the concept of the unfinished project Passegen-Werk by Walter Benjamin (which worked towards encapsulating in book form the identity of 19th century Paris), Not no place is a volume that brings together a vast array of texts, essays, poetry, illustrations and photographs, which vividly portray the depth and identity of the city of Johannesburg. However, the lived experience of Johannesburg enters Not no place not only as something textual but as something present and irreducible. The subjective relationship of the contributors to the city over time forms the main fabric of the work and thus is interwoven with selected excerpts, citations, and reflective pieces. The themes vary between the poetic and the concrete, associative and descriptive. Many contain spatial designations, or references to movement: Much of the personal narrative of the city takes the form of a conversation, in letters, recollections and emails. Thus, the book offers a series of personal thick descriptions and a survey of historical and contemporary representations of the city collected over the course of its making.
