A participatory makers’ table at Keyes Art Night. 

As construction begins on the next phase of the Keyes precinct, a vast excavation has opened in the centre of Rosebank, a physical reminder that cities are never finished, only continually rewritten. During Keyes Art Night, visitors are invited to participate in GROUND WORK: Mapping a Changing City, an open makers’ table that responds directly to this moment of transformation.

Drawing connections between the Ground Work exhibition in Gallery 1, Titus Matiyane’s map-based works in the Atrium, and the construction site, the activation invites the public to reflect on how Johannesburg is mapped, remembered, and imagined. Using discarded pages from Johannesburg map books, drawing materials, and collage elements, participants will create personal responses to the large construction site currently reshaping the Keyes Art Mile. The table becomes a temporary studio where mapping shifts from navigation to storytelling.

Visitors may draw, annotate, collage, or rewrite maps — tracing lived experiences onto printed geography. Works created will be assembles together on the night to form an evolving portrait of Rosebank as both construction site and cultural space. GROUND WORK extends the themes of excavation, labour, and urban transformation explored in the exhibition programme, transforming spectators into active participants in the making of the city’s narrative.

All drawing abilities welcome.