Media City

On a suggestion from the Cape Town Partnership, I head down to a rather desolate scape at the bottom of the city to hopefully…find an ideal retail space to make my TV show. One of the main problems facing Cape Town’s regeneration is the huge amount of land that, unplanned in its use decades ago, is now creating massive blockages in how residents live, work and flow through the grid. It’s like if you follow certain transport patterns continuously, you might never know an entire community even exists below you or beside you – a few metres past your daily turn-off.

I think this is why Africans love living in informal settlements or townships so much - they develop based on community need and not by a few major stakholders that dominate, control or change the human landscape. And typically these kinds of human settlements aren't dominated by cars but rather foot traffic so it feels more normal even though you may not know why. They're like huge connected villages where everything is open, accessible and shared. The commons.

As I venture South of Strand Street I get flashbacks of when I lived in Montreal. Back then I thought the main train station WAS the Southern edge of the city. It seemed a natural stoppage point. You couldn’t see past the thing and there seemed no way around it. Only twelve years later did I discover the entire and gorgeously historic ‘Old Montreal’ hiding on the other side of all the trains. I could cry thinking of all the wine and fantastic cheese I missed out on. That’s why whichever city in am in, I always find the oldest places to understand how things evolved.

Spilling into Herzog Boulevard, I feel like I am entering Tiannamen Square in China or Red Square in Moscow. Everything is HUGE. The roads are huge, the sidewalks are huge, the boulevards are huge and the buildings are even more huge. There are almost no people here. It’s really windy and it feels like it might pick me up and toss me off the edge of Africa. I can’t even figure out where to cross the street. My instincts don’t know how to navigate this kind of place.

I know I will recognize the empty space as soon as I see it. Like everything about how I run my business, I will feel what is right instinctually. And I know what the youth will love, what will welcome them, what needs them. But walking around I think probably nobody ever comes here. It doesn’t even feel abandoned. It feels more like people didn’t know they were supposed to care this place was here in the first place. This wildly dehumanizing system almost scares me as I clutch my digital camera and nearly choke myself with my thin cotton scarf.

And then I see it. A big empty space. Huge windows that could become roll-up garage doors. A parking lot that’s almost pretty. A rear entrance. A boulevard of trees out front. Buckets of light. I can work with that. A friendly gent says ‘I have the key’ so we go inside my space while we talk about kids in Africa. I ask him if the owner of the building is a nice person. How old are they? And where do they come from? What would they think of a TV show for kids here? He likes the idea himself and tells me the owner if a nice Greek chap. BMW and MINI would be our neighbours. Cool.

Walking around the massive ARTSCAPE across the street I start to think logistics. A youth competition poster. An empty concert hall. Two outdoor plazas that could welcome thousands of young people should they make the trip. As I grab my camera a small bus pulls up and out runs a group of young people towards me. ‘Take my picture’ one yells as he jumps up posing for the camera. The last fellow is missing a leg, following behind on his crutches. I wonder if he is from Sierra Leone or Liberia. They are right in front of me. They’re already here. It’s like they discovered it at the exact same time as me.

How do I convince a Greek millionaire that I can create a space for change – that his building could become something more than rent and retail and equity? With paint and cameras and computers and white boards – slowly slowly, bit by bit – that I will do whatever it takes to make this happen. If I can build a home in Cape Town for FANYA KAZI! the youth will do the rest themselves. It belongs to them and it will grow.

When I started my business five years ago I memorized a precious quote that gave me strength when all I had was my dream. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”. If there’s one thing I always tell young people, it’s what I experienced today – that to pursue a dream is living the dream itself. Because that hunger we feel when we dare to dream becomes satiated as soon as we begin to move towards it. All those little moments that unfold before us catching us off guard, making us smile. It’s not a big clunky thing that happens at the end. It’s the infinite amount of tiny little things scattered all around us waiting to be scooped up and put to use. They are the dream if we are still enough and present enough to understand them.

What a beautiful afternoon I had. What an incredible place I got to see. How precious it is to even have the chance to believe, to wonder and to try. So tomorrow I will find the Greek and thank the American who suggested ‘Media City’ might be worth a visit.

Photos; Herzog & Malay Blvd Retail, Artscape Plaza, Herzog & Malay Streets, Artscape poster.