‘Meniscus’: A Vision for Sensible and Sensuous Geographies

Abstract

‘Meniscus’ follows the journey of a young boy by the name of Thulani from his home in Kliptown to an overcrowded prison in the centre of Johannesburg where his father is incarcerated. Tracing Thulani’s movements in contemporary Johannesburg, the short film by Marc Thomas and Chloe Speller offers a poignant reflection on the physical and social production of space and arrives at the troubling conclusion that the confinement of the prison cell is uncannily reflected in the restrictions of urban life. Inevitably, a film concerned with the lack of adequate and hospitable space in the urban present has to excavate the temporal layers of the not too distant past. And thus, in one of its pivotal scenes, the film returns to the infamous apartheid prison in the centre of Johannesburg. Now known as Constitution Hill, the former prison doubles as a place of commemoration for past human rights violations and as a celebration of those institutions (the Constitutional Court) that safeguard a still young democracy. ‘The architecture of detention’ (press kit) is thus never far removed from the desire for spatial justice and the advocacy for a different, liberating map of the city.