(Work by Graeme Williams)
The KZNSA is hosting Graeme Williams, the third winner of
the Ernest Cole Award, on the second leg of a national tour to launch his book
and exhibition, A City Refracted. The
award is managed by UCT Libraries (see www.ernestcoleaward.uct.ac.za)
The images in the exhibition symbolically reflect the
shifting typographies of the inner city of Johannesburg. Using an experimental
style, his work suggests waves of movement and migration.
Williams presents the following potted history within his
introduction: “A potted history: original inhabitants of the geographical space
that is now known as Johannesburg, the San, were displaced in the 13th century
by Bantu-speaking livestock farmers who migrated south in search of richer
grazing land. In the early 1830s, Dutch-speaking Voortrekkers ‘trekked’ north
displacing the Bantu.
“The discovery of gold in the 1880s led to the gold rush
that brought fortune-seekers from around the world. In the early years of the 20th
century the British defeated the Boers and occupied Johannesburg. Under
colonial and later apartheid rule, people of colour were pushed out of the city
to establish whites-only communities.
“In the early 1990s the African National Congress was
unbanned and the first democratic elections were held. This led to black people
moving back into the city and for a while there was a mix of races living
side-by-side. Slowly the city became almost exclusively black as whites moved
out to the suburbs. As the country opened its borders, immigrants seeking jobs
and a richer life, started streaming to the city. For a time Johannesburg,
became a real cosmopolitan African city.
“However, soon South Africans began to resent the intrusion
of foreigners and the business skills that they possessed. Xenophobic attacks
against immigrants became more prevalent and the inner city began a further
process of fragmentation. People originating from a particular country or area
within Africa now gravitate towards particular buildings or city blocks within
the city.”
Williams’s book is accompanied by a text by acclaimed writer
and academic Leon de Kock who grew up in a changing and robust Johannesburg. As
he reflects on the city, “Joburg remains a city that has perfected the art of
the urban ugly. It’s in the built environment, the spatial arrangements, the
social order, and the criminal underground (never too far from the mining
underground). It’s in the city’s genes, its historical coding as a
fighting-ring for fortune hunters. Crime and Capitalism are interlocked in its
founding charters, and these two C’s are enduring reference points for
Johannesburg’s ugly as much as for its beautiful, regardless of the blur of
change with which Egoli wipes out permanence in almost every other sense.”
A City Refracted
has already enjoyed international exposure and recognition. A selection of
images from the series was exhibited at the prestigious Aperture Summer Open Exhibition
in New York in 2014 to showcase contemporary photography. Images were also
chosen for The World Atlas of Street
Photography published by Yale University Press and Thames & Hudson in
2014, stating that Williams, “has developed a language of street photography to
create highly subjective views of Johannesburg. They portray less about the
outside world and more about his internal wars”. The Huffington Post
acknowledged Williams as one of the “10 international street photographers who
change the way we see the world”. A short film presenting the essay and the
photographer was shown at the Rencontres de la photographie festival in
Arles, France this year.
A City Refracted
runs until September 27 in the Main Gallery of the KZNSA at 166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood, in Durban. More information on 031 277 1703,
fax 031 201 8051 or cell 082 220 0368 or visit www.kznsagallery.co.za
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