Notes

This extensive landscape was photographed at Nqondwana, a rural settlement overlooking the Mtentu River near the border of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal at Port Edward. It echoes an earlier black-and-white photo by Goldblatt of two rondavels in a lush forested landscape photographed near Coffee Bay. Goldblatt extensively documented the Transkei (now Eastern Cape) in 1975. While interested in the bureaucracy and urban infrastructure of this self-governing black territory, which in 1976 became a nominally autonomous republic, Goldblatt largely focussed on peasant life. He made portraits of young herders, elderly women and hopeful labour recruits bound for the gold mines. He also photographed the construction of traditional rondavels made with a clay wall over a latticework core of light branches under a thatched roof. “These used to be ubiquitous on the Transkei land,” he noted in 2015.¹ While much had changed in the three decades between his two big photographic trips to the region, including the form of people’s dwellings, Goldblatt noted the endurance of grinding poverty and unemployment. A similar colour work, taken from the same roadside vantage but facing south in the direction of Port St. Johns, appeared on the exhibition Intersections Intersected at Stevenson in 2008.

 1. David Goldblatt. (2015) The Pursuit of Values, Johannesburg: Standard Bank and Goodman Gallery. Page 24.