Bryan Heseltine

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'People Apart: Cape Town Survey 1952. Photographs by Bryan Heseltine'

Bryan Heseltine at Pitt Rivers Museum

This striking collection of photographs by Bryan Heseltine, exhibited here for the first time in more than fifty years, offers a glimpse into the lives of South Africans who would feel the full force of apartheid through the 1950s and beyond. The images were made in the late 1940s and early 1950s and provide a rich and intimate description of life in a number of townships and areas of the city: Windermere, the Bo-Kaap, District Six, Langa and Nyanga. The photographs belie the official image projected by the South African government. They show some of the dreadful housing conditions that existed on the periphery of the city, but also testify to the vibrancy of social and cultural life, including the work of street craftsmen, beer brewing, music and dance. A number of photographs taken in Windermere focus directly on the physical environment, with both interior and exterior images of the shack dwellings that dominated the urban landscape. The collection includes some remarkably intimate portraits, illustrating the diverse styles and identities of Cape Town’s inhabitants.

The exhibition is curated by Darren Newbury (author of Defiant Images: Photograhy and Apartheid South Africa, 2010), Birmingham City University, with the assistance of Christopher Morton and Jaanika Vider.

19 July 2011 - 08 January 2012