by Jo Ractliffe
First published 2021
Jo Ractliffe captures South Africa through forty-nine photographs spanning three decades of work from 1985 to 2019. Her images traverse the country from the Great Karoo to Gauteng and Limpopo provinces, extending north to Zimbabwe and west through the Western Cape to Namibia and Angola. British writer Zadie Smith contributes the story "Two Men Arrive in a Village" as a companion piece. The photographs and text create a conversation that examines power imbalances and injustice while avoiding familiar violence narratives and stereotypical African imagery. Instead, Ractliffe and Smith build a complex relationship between actual places and symbolic meaning. This collaboration forms the fifth volume in The Gould Collection, a book series established to commemorate Christophe Crison, a Parisian photobook collector who died at forty-five in 2015. The collection unites photographers and writers worldwide around shared themes.
Genres: art, african-literature, biography-memoir, photography
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: conversation, found-family
Setting: South Africa, Great Karoo, Gauteng, Limpopo, Zimbabwe, Western Cape, Namibia, Angola
Period: 1985-2019
92 pages · Paperback · The Gould Collection