I am very pleased to have recently had a series of my photographs featured on the contemporary landscape photography platform, Urbanautica. You can read the accompanying text and see the featured images on the Urbanautica site or alternatively visit Urbanautica’s facebook page.
I have included the introductory text by Steve Bisson, Urbanautica founder below, as well as a few thumbnails.
DORP*
DORP*
_Statement
The series studies the architectural aesthetic created by the need for physical and economic survival in ‘small town’ rural South Africa.
In Adelaide (Eastern Cape) and countless other poor provincial towns like it, the traditional western notion of home within an urban context has become altered by the need for economic and personal survival. Homes, shops and places of business have security bars over the doors, windows and patios, creating almost ‘zoo-like’ enclosures.
Often windows and doors are removed to the absolute functional minimalism to ensure security. Allowing a sense of normal ‘function’ within the dwelling itself, the resultant net effect on the urbanscape becomes quickly self evident.
The street effectively becoming lined with ‘human cages’ for living and shopping, the latter, with no promotional budget, showcase the veneer of local advertising. An attempt at economic sustainability.
*Title from the Afrikaans phrase ‘DORP’ meaning village/small town. The images were captured in and around the small rural town of Adelaide, Eastern Cape.
This is an ongoing photographic exploration.
To view the series on my own website please follow this link.
