RESTLESS INFECTIONS, public art and a transforming city

268pp., b/w & colour illustrated., paperback, Wits University Press, Johannesburg, 2025

ISBN: 9781776149452

A collection of essays on artistic interventions in urban spaces in South Africa. This book  grew out of the annual Infecting the City public art festival in Cape Town.

Contributions include:

"On Art, Contagion and Immunity" by Sarah Nuttal

"Recalcitrant Aesthetics, Memory and Modernity in the Post-Colonial/Post-Apartheid City" by Mbongeni Mtshali

"Becoming Answerable: Face-to-Face encounters during Infecting the City festival" by Leila Anderson

"iRhanga as Public Space: Transposed and as source for public encounter" by Khanyisile Mbongwa 

"Haroon Gunn-Salie’s Submerged Disruption" by Nicole Sarmiento

"Seeing the Strange Place: African street photography as place-making" by Sinazo Chiya.

"Space and place - so central to all public art - takes on tremendous potency in South Africa, as Restless Infections beautifully conveys. Inserting performing and visual art into the pulse of the city, artists navigate streets and alleys in multiple an unpredictable ways, redeploy plinths and fountains in counter-commemorative acts and dive bravely into subterranean zones ... This book is revelatory" by Catherine Cole, Professor of English and Dance, University of Washington

"With in-depth analyses of some of the most compelling live art in South Africa, Restless Infections bears testimony to Jay Pather's curatorial prowess and the brilliance of artists, scholars and activists who fearlessly offer crucial perspectives on urban public spaces." Ndumsa Makhubu, Professor of Art History, University of Cape Town

 Choreographer, curator, teacher and writer Jay Pather is Professor at the University of Cape Town where he directs the interdisciplinary Institute for Creative Arts. He is the co-editor of Acts of Transgression.