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15 000 copies distributedfree every Thursday in thecentral city and the V&AWaterfront. Copies also goto Robben Island.
Newspaper House122 St George’s MallCape Town 8001PO Box 1983, Cape Town 8000
EDITORIALSwitchboard 021 488 4911Fax 021 488 4615
Editor Chantel Erfort021 488 [email protected]
News EditorSimoneh de Bruin021 488 [email protected]
ReporterCarl Collison021 488 [email protected]: @CarlCollison
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NEWS CapeTownerThursday January 15 20152
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Celebrate Cape Town
Pride with us
CARL COLLISON
In putting together theexhibition Movie Snaps:Cape Town Remembers Differ-
ently, curator Siona O’Connellhas, it seems, had her fairshare of detractors.
“People would sometimesask me what the point is towant to exhibit these old pho-tographs. But these pictureshave everything to do withhow we are living today.
“These pictures matterbecause they indicate to usthat ‘other’ lives are and werehuman too. These picturesspeak to a time that precededit and the future beyond it.”
The images Ms O’Connellis speaking about were takenby the Movie Snaps photo-graphic studio.
The studio, which oper-ated from the 1930s to 1970s,was based in Darling Streetand tasked its photographerswith capturing people dressedin their Saturday-morning-in-the-city finery going abouttheir Saturday-morning-in-the-city business.
This conceptual simplicityhas, over four decades sincethe last Movie Snap photogra-pher captured the last suchimage, yielded telling insightsinto the complexities of mem-ory – particularly in a city associo-politically complex asthe Mother City.
After months gatheringthese images submitted bypeople across Cape Town,“and even some from the UK,Australia, New Zealand,Johannesburg and Durban –the number of responses wegot was crazy,” Ms O’Connellsays with dumbfound pride.
She adds: “During myinterviews with people I foundthose who had their MovieSnaps photograph taken ineither the 1930s or 1940sspoke completely differentlyabout their experience com-pared to those who were pho-tographed after the city andcountry really started chang-ing, around the 1950s and1960s – after the Group AreasAct came into effect.
“People we interviewedwho were from Mitchell’s
Plain or Kensington, forexample, would, without meeven raising it, start speakingabout Apartheid and forcedremovals. They’d start speak-ing about the impossibility ofreturning to that period andtheir glorious, free lives livingin the city.”
By contrast, Ms O’Connell,a senior curator at the Univer-sity of Cape Town’s Centre forCurating the Archive, says:“Those who had photographsfrom either the 1930s or1940s spoke with a sharednostalgia.
“You know,” adds Ms O’Connell, “those photog-raphers used to draw a chalkline in the road or pavementso whenever people theywanted to snap got to it,
they’d know exactly when topress the shutter. So, to me,given how people from thesedifferent decades rememberdifferently, it’s almost asthough that chalk line is asymbolic one that foreverdivides future lives.
“These images really makeyou think about how pro-foundly different the coun-try and city would have beentoday if it weren’t for thingssuch as the Group AreasAct.”
In addition to the photo-graphs, a documentary, pro-duced and directed by Ms O’Connell – and the
result of these numerousinterviews – will be screened.
Coming back to the delugeof responses she receivedafter a call was put out for sub-missions, Ms O’Connell says:“We were invited into people'shomes, where they spokeabout the photographs, andthese were people from allover the city: from Sea Pointto Mitchell’s Plain to HoutBay … everywhere. These arepeople from across the racial
and class divide.”What has she learned from
this experience, I ask? “This showed me many
Capetonians, regardless ofwhere they come from orwhat their social standing is,in some way share exactly thesame experience. I see this assome kind of promise … Apromise that we can find away of not only understand-ing and recognising eachother's experiences, but alsowhat it means to live today.”
Smiling in a manner that isat once coy and proud, Ms O’Connell adds: “So yousee, these photographs andthe stories behind them allowus to look into the past butalso, more importantly, tolook forward.”
● Movie Snaps: Cape TownRemembers Differently will run atthe District Six Museum'sHomecoming Centre, 25aBuitenkant Street, from Satur-day January 31, at 11am, toSaturday February 28. For more information, call 021 466 7200.
A future remembered■ Hundreds of images taken by the Movie Snaps studio will be on display atthe District Six Homecoming Centre.
■ Siona O’Connell has spent months gathering the images which will formpart of the Movie Snaps: Cae Town Remembers Differently exhibition.
They wouldspeak of the
impossiblity ofreturning
‘’
Weekend weather
SaturdayMin: 16ºCMax: 26ºCHi: 00.50am; 12.55pm
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SundayMin: 16ºCMax: 26ºCHi: 01.38am; 1.46pm
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FridayMin: 16ºCMax: 26ºCHi: 11.59am; -.--pm
Lo: 05.48 am; 6.37pm
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An ever-persistent ‘problem’, it is little won-der that issue of homelessness – and themyriad challenges stemming from it – is a
common focus area for numerous CBD role-play-ers.
A tough economic environment, a lack of ade-quate social services and a belief the inner city willoffer more opportunities to fill empty stomachsare only a few of the factors that continue to drawmany of the Mother City’s homeless people to theinner city.
One can only hope the City, in collaborationwith other role-players, will indeed find some wayto offer these members of our disparate societysome dignity through the provision of better serv-ices and job-creation opportunities.
Homelessness will in, all likelihood, never beeradicated.
What we can try to eradicate, however, is thedehumanising conditions under which so manyof these members of our society have to live.
– Carl Collison
Word on the street
What’s On
Hikes
The Meridian Hiking Club will have a
late afternoon circular hike around
Lion’s Head on Saturday January 17.
On Sunday January 18 they will going
up Table Mountain in the cablecar,
then doing a circular hike.
Call Dolores on 021 785 2191 or you
can email [email protected]
The cost is R20.
For more information, you can visit
www.meridian.org.za