Performing (in)visibilities in public space : reflections on the social and aesthetic agenda of contemporary performance art in Johannesburg

This essay examines a particular kind of city dweller and his/her (self-)reflective mode of agency: the performance artists. In particular, it focuses on artists who engage with the city of Johannesburg through their own body and capacity of interaction. Theirs is a practice of performative intervention into spatial and social contexts in order to question given ideas of the city and to unlock new potential spaces of sociability, even normality. It asks on what assumptions the performances are based, and with which strategies the artists attempt to visualize given ideas about the city.