Madison
Paulk

I am a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology. My primary focus is urban anthropology and public art in South Africa. Specifically, I am interested in the ways in which visual artistic practice transforms and transects multiple experiences of the city. As South Africa moves into its twenty-fifth year of democratic governance, I engage with the ways in which black South African artists interpret and reflect socio-political changes, frustrations around the unchanged, and visions and promises for the future. Furthermore, I am interested in the ways in which visual artists incorporate indigenous knowledges into their works and what aspects of this are reflected in a re-imagining of Durban as both a post-apartheid city and an African city.