Through the Monuments Series, 2001- 2002, my intention was to venerate those members of our community who are ignored, or overlooked, as well as to represent something of the experience of living in Johannesburg city, and in so doing, to investigate issues to do with public artworks. At the time that I began to investigate issues concerning the hawkers of Johannesburg, the Johannesburg City Council implemented their EGOLI 2002 project, which was aimed at rejuvenation of the inner city. As part of this project, the city council organised a kind of “sidewalk clearance”, and forcibly removed many of the hawkers from the streets of Johannesburg and Braamfontien. As a result, many hawkers lost their means of earning an income. The hawkers now have designated areas in which to sell their goods, and have to pay a rental fee, which some cannot afford. [Many hawkers continue to sell their goods in the city streets illegally.] Since then I have made a series of sculptures, which mimic the aesthetics of the hawkers’ stands, and which I conceive of as ‘Monuments’ for the hawkers of the city. My Monuments challenge the conventions around public art works and monuments not only through their subject matter: these are not the grandiose hero’s of history, but the ordinary people who live and work in the city; but also through the scale, they are life size, and through the materials used, perishable items or cement rather than bronze or stone.