Living Apart - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0714835234 ISBN 13: 9780714835235

Publisher: Phaidon Press, 1996

Synopsis

This is a collection of work by photographer Ian Berry which reflects his concern with everyday life and the human condition, and segregation in South Africa. Berry has continued visiting and working in each of the different communities throughout the political and social conflict created by apartheid. This book also contains three essays which provide a chronology of his time spent in the country.

About this title

Review:

Berry, an Englishman who first made his way to South Africa as a teenager, has spent four decades documenting ordinary lives in extraordinary circumstances. After photographing the Sharpeville riots of 1960--a pivotal event--he elected to concentrate not on "the violent concentration between black and white, but the society that gave cause to it." His efforts to get "under the skin" of that tense society have resulted in a rich and enlightening chronicle of segregation that recalls the powerful photojournalism of W. Eugene Smith.

From the Back Cover:

In the postwar period the South African government gradually developed a policy that was meant to retain forever the rights and privileges of a white minority - apartheid. Whereas in many other societies racial prejudices and tensions create difficulties, only in South Africa was segregation institutionalized and regulated, producing bizarre and often absurd situations. This aspect of the South African experience, the duty to "Live Apart" while occupying the same space, has been uniquely recorded by the camera of Ian Berry. Berry first set out for South Africa as a boy of seventeen and thus began a career of recording ordinary lives in extraordinary circumstances. While working as a photojournalist for Drum, the major magazine of the black community, he was present at the Sharpeville riots in 1960 and over the course of the following decades he was to return to South Africa many times and capture many of its most significant moments. In the 1990s the collapse of apartheid and the rise of Mandela have resulted in a remarkable form of reconciliation at the same time as an alarming escalation of urban problems and violence. Once again Berry has been back with his camera, recording the election and its aftermath.

About this edition

• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0714835234
• ISBN 13: 9780714835235
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256