Land as Natural Resource
Representations of Mining in Contemporary South African Landscape Photography
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12910495 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Meghan L E Kirkwood (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 429-452 |
| Publication date | 2019-07-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Photography and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1751-4517 • E-ISSN: 1751-4525 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17514517.2019.1628554 |
| OpenAlex | W2964281788 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
Photographic explorations of mining have an extensive history within South Africa. Late nineteenth-century postcards produced by commercial studios celebrated views of industrial sites. In his 1973 social documentary project On the Mines, David Goldblatt challenged the positive narrative of mining in South Africa. Recently, contemporary photographers have explored the industry through landscape images that present multiple narratives, encourage diverse interpretations, and highlight the complexities of modern-day mining. These visual examinations emerge out of a widespread interest among young artists in exploring South African spaces and the uneven social relations that condition their production. This article discusses work from three South African photographers – Ilan Godfrey, Thabiso Sekgala, and Jerry Gaegane – who created projects in the past seven years about mining and its social and environmental impacts. It argues that their work shows how contemporary South African photographers are using landscape images to look at environments in a Lefebvrian manner: not as fixed places defined by their components, but as fluid social spaces that emerge from an ongoing set of interactions between social forces. In doing so, these three artists show how landscape photography can be an effective means of exploring structural inequities in the post-apartheid era
Archaeology · Art · Geography · Literature · Narrative · Natural (archaeology · Natural resource · Photography · Political science · Resource (disambiguation · Studio · Visual arts · Work (physics · African history and culture studies · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · Engineering · History · South African History and Culture
Critical Landscapes
Overcoming Historical Injustices
An Economic History of South Africa
Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor
Beyond ‘Homelands’
American Technological Sublime
Between Manufacturing and Landscapes
The production of space
Marashea on the Mines
Writing the World from an African Metropolis
Impressions of the African past
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |