PREPERATION FOR THE SECOND TESTAMENT

The Second Testament is well on its way, due for the 13th of August 2009. This time around the Sermon on the Train has expanded, currently funded by Wits University. This quarter's Sermon will be given by Kirsten Doermann of Blacklinesonwhitepaper and architecture lecturer at Wits University. The lecture title is A strategy for architecture - dialogue with elia zenghelis. The Second Testament aslo includes a two day workshop series called Samson's House and takes the form of an experimental skills workshop on how to conceptualise and manifest plans for building your own house. The workshop will be held over the weekend of the 8th of August, details to follow.

Yesterday, Nare and Molemo took to the train again to map out the new course and procedure of The Sermon on the Train: The Second Testament. On a busy Friday afternoon, pay day nogal, the train to Soweto was packed to capacity with overflow teaming out of the door ways and constant calls to open the windows. Igado (the train) to Orlando station was filled with school children, some as tiny as is legal to be at school, venturing on and off platforms alone, heading off home and looking forward to the freedom of the weekend. A sermon was in full chorus on the other end of our carriage as people throughout sang and beat whatever was at hand in tune to Evangelist preaching and hymns. All the while the solid mass of commuters heaved, swayed back and fourth, grasping for support on whatever they could, row upon row of hands gripping on the bars above our heads. Some in silent and week-weary contemplation, others in casual conversation with the familiar strangers they see every day. The constant clicking of the train and the slow start and stop at each station contrasts with the hustle and bustle of human traffic on the trains and at the stations. yet it's all the same thing, a merging upon itself of strange and familiar, isolation and community, heavy, tense energy and the lulling down of the end of the week.