Page 5 - David Goldblatt _ Johannessburg 1948 - 2018

Introduction
Johannesburg is not an easy city to love. From its beginnings as a mining camp in 1886, whites did not want Black people living among or near them and over the years pushed them further and further from the city and its white suburbs.
Apartheid laws required that only a certain race – Black, White, Coloured, could occupy a given piece of land. Soweto and Alexandra were for Blacks, Hillbrow, Houghton, Pageview for Whites, Lenasia for Asians and so on. Changes were brutally made and people mercilessly moved, invariably to suit White wishes.
Like the city itself my thoughts and feelings about Joburg are fragmented. I can’t easily bring a vision or a coherent bundle of ideas to mind and say, ‘that’s Joburg for me.’ Over the years I have photographed and been engrossed in quite a wide range of subjects in the city; each was almost self-contained, a fragment of a whole that I’ve never quite grasped. When I ask myself why this is so, I think much has had to do with the effects of 129 years of racist demographics. Johannesburg is not a beautiful city. But it’s in my blood and under my skin. I miss it when I’m away and I often rejoice to be in it when I’m there.
David Goldblatt
Photo Credit: Graeme Williams
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