Hotel Yeoville

the long version

Yeoville is one of the most diverse suburbs in Johannesburg, home to migrants from all across Africa. In 2008, artist Terry Kurgen, in collaboration with the African Centre for Migration and Society at Wits University, began 'Hotel Yeoville'. She wanted to find stories about the ordinary lives of migrant in Johannesburg. The project was both online and housed in the new public library in Yeoville. It comprised a website, a photowall, and a series of private booths in which members of the public were invited to tell their own stories through video, photography and texst, using different digital interfaces and online applications. Over the course of a year, this project came to represent an extraordinary, multi-layered document of a segment of one of Johannesburg's most vibrant communities.