SA STYLESSilent South African Street Interviews
PHOTOS BY EDDIE GROENEWALD & NORMAN LEVY. TEXT BY HAYLEY SIEBERS
These photos were taken in a part of South Africa known as Walmer Location in Port Elizabeth. The place is a side effect of the implementation of apartheid in the 1960s, when areas like this were established to separate people into groups of similar skin tone. Walmer narrowly avoided being demolished and all its residents re-housed in the 1980s but the ongoing neglect has left a general vibe of it being a really shitty place to live, which isn’t helped by its position directly next to an airport and a rubbish dump. Eddie Groenewald is a South African photographer who recently visited Walmer to shoot the styles on the street.
“In Walmer Location, I found that people were more than happy for me to take their photos, but they refused to answer any of my questions or give me their names—people don’t trust journalists here, especially not white ones. There are bigger black townships around like Motherwell and Kwazikele, but we didn’t venture in as even the roads leading in are dodgy. It’s not unusual to have stones or bricks thrown at your car in the hopes of forcing you to pull over, at which point you’ll be mugged. Walmer’s the safest location for us to get into. During the day, community life is great and peaceful. At night though, when the taverns open and the nightmares start, even basic services like ambulances won’t enter for fear of being shot up or hijacked.”
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Anonymous, on Jul 8, 2008 wrote:
The townships are shitty because the government that is in power, ANC, has not delivered it promises to its people and has actually made life slightly worse for them. So no it is not white involvment, sheesh, and yes maybe the writer should have gone to nightclub, because we all know that by going there we would learn so much about other cultures! It would actually be so much better to go talk to the people, who don’t have anything better to do with their time than drink, smoke and get high, its not worth talking to the people who actually care about real issues! | | Anonymous, on Jun 23, 2008 wrote:
God...
Durban...better than what? Durban is a shithole...
Shouldve gone on jhb town, people make an effort there...
Or shouldve gone to another country, South africa is a shithole...
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Date: May 06 2008 06:45:27 AM
Author: durbanite
how do they keep it shitty exactly? really- i'd like to know - voting for the ANC?
Date: May 05 2008 12:49:25 AM
Author: fuck you guys
Port Elizebeth is fucking dead. Should've gone to Durban.
Date: May 05 2008 12:10:49 AM
Author: sheesh
Not the townships of SA!!! Dakar, Kinshasa, even Accra.... Go to some nightclubs for photos, not just the streets but some nightclubs or something. Someplace where people actually try as hard to dress in accordance with local fashions, not the most desperate part of a country white people have a direct involvement with keeping shitty.
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