biography

doung anwar jahangeer is a Mauritian-born, Creole of Indian decent living in Durban, South Africa.  He is an architect. He is not an architect. His experience of the ‘profession’ led him to broaden his definition of architecture focusing on space. A space that unites rather than walls that divide – an architecture without walls.  In 2000 doung conceptualised and implemented ‘The CityWalk’ initiative as a way of directly engaging his adopted city.  It now includes Johannesburg, London, Belo Horizonte, Addis Ababa, Malmo, Marseilles, Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

His work is multi-media and includes live performance, film/video, sculpture, painting, installation and architecture.

He has collaborated with numerous international artists / organisations in Scandinavia,

Europe and other African countries where he has instigated projects of a diverse nature including site responsive architectural installations, both temporary and permanent, that engages the urban fabric often in an openly critical and sometimes provocative manner.

In 2008 he co-founded an NPO called dala. This organisation focus on devising initiatives which engage art / architecture for social justice.  In that same year he was invited to be a judge for short films at the Durban International Film Festival.

He won the inaugural South Award for the design of a mobile fold away shop for hawkers at the Design Indaba in 2009.

His most recent considerable sculptural work is a 4-ton stainless steel sculpture as part of an urban rejuvenation programme of the Ellis Park precinct in Johannesburg.

He was a keynote speaker at the pre-post-per-form colloquium on inter-disciplinary arts in February and his present manifesto was recently published in Urban Future MANIFESTOS (Hatje Cantz 2010) along fellow contributors like Edward Soja, AbdouMaliq Simone , Edgar Pieterse and  Lebbeus woods amongst others.

He was recently a judge for the MTN New Contemporaries Series 2010.