Staff Riding Marco Casino
STAFF RIDING SUB ENG from MARCO CASINO on Vimeo.
Staff riding, the local slang for train surfing, is a widespread phenomenon in SA. Katlehong is one of the largest townships in South Africa and has played a key role in the history of the struggle against apartheid. The population is almost entirely made up of blacks, but strongly multiethnic: all the eleven South Africa’s official languages are spoken in the township. The almost total majority of surfers are kids under 25. Amputations and death are really common. The Prasa Metrorail, the SA train company, is one of the foundations of their society.This connection between train and citizens remained very strong over time. The spectacular and risky act of train surfing becomes the framework to tell the Katlehong’s young people social fabric.This place has been the epicenter of the anti-apartheid’s guerrillas, and on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the facts that we all know , the situation of segregation has remained more or less unchanged in daily life. In a context where violence, rampant poverty, abuse of alchool/drugs and infant birth/AIDS are the masters, the train surfing is configured as the search for a social redemption that will never come for the characters of this story . Staff Riding is part of a long-term project about the township lifestyle 20 years later the struggle against apartheid. Staff Riding has been selected as one of winning ’30 Under 30′ PROJECT. The work was included in a curated exhibition between IdeasTap and Magnum Photos held at Birmingham’S NEC festival.
Ponte City Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse
Mikhael Subotzky Ponte City Johannesburg, South Africa, 2008. Copyright Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse courtesy Goodman Gallery © Mikhael Subotzky | Magnum Photos
Mikhael Subotzky Ponte City Johannesburg, South Africa. 2008. Copyright Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse courtesy Goodman Gallery© Mikhael Subotzky | Magnum Photos
Installation, Le Bal, Paris, 2014
Mikhael Subotzky Ponte City Johannesburg, South Africa 2008. Copyright Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse courtesy Goodman Gallery© Mikhael Subotzky | Magnum Photos
Bang Bang Club Ken Oosterbroek
Ken Oosterbroek, World Press Photo collection photo 1993, general news
The Bang Bang Club was a group of photographers and photojournalists active within the townships of South Africa between 1990 and 1994, during the transition from the apartheid system to government based on universal suffrage. Trains linking South Africa’s townships with central Johannesburg have frequently been targets for violent attacks. In 1992, 277 commuters were killed and more than 500 seriously injured. Some people were thrown onto the tracks; others jumped in panic as gunmen burst in, shooting indiscriminately or attacking travelers with knives and home-made weapons. Police and army do what they can to curb the violence and vast sums are being invested in bulletproof carriages and surveillance equipment.
