By serendipity my work in South Africa grew out of a photographic exploration of the culture of amateur boxing in the U.S. and abroad. This work led me to the Luyviso Boxing Club in Khayelitsha, a township 40 kilometers from Cape Town.

I was taken by the determination and dreams of kids who showed up each day after school to a well-used community center converted into a makeshift gym, in bare feet, ready to sweat and sharpen their jab, hungering to be contenders.

From this inspiring boxing club, my interest grew to include other aspects of daily life in the young democracy of South Africa.

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Since 2004, I have made more than a dozen trips to the traditionally black townships of Langa, Khayelitsha, Philippi, and Gugulethu. I have photographed in classrooms of overcrowded schools, the emergency room of a government hospital, burgeoning and vital churches, precarious streets and the homes of people in these struggling areas. My pictures are a testament to the enduring spirit of those South Africans who face endemic violence, extreme economic hardship, and racism continuing unabated, yet still maintain their dignity, hope and courage. There, outside the cities with tourists and business travelers, in vibrant townships, I have found beauty and strength and all the contradictions of being human in the people I have photographed: a preacher testifying to his rapt congregation, the loving embrace of a couple at day’s end, the proud expression of Sindi in her traditional Xhosa dress, the sad funeral of a young Sotho man, the shock of violence laid bare upon a woman’s face and broken body, the poetry and grace of a girl dancing on a warm Sunday afternoon.

From my first body of work (on Basque life and culture in southwest France) to this current project, I have worked in the humanist tradition of photographers such as Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, striving to make images that foster empathy, understanding, and social change. Above all I have endeavored, through photography, to portray and celebrate the full range of the day-to-day experience of my subjects. Their hopes and dreams of a better life with access to housing, jobs, and quality education for their children are the same as our dreams. I commit to long-term projects, returning again and again to places and people with whom I develop deeper relationships. In many respects, I endeavor to stand with my subjects, rather than in front of them.

My photography equipment is traditional, my medium direct, and these are fitting methods here too. Life in contemporary South Africa is direct; the country wears its history on its sleeve, and I cannot conceive of photographing it except with equal directness, refusing to prettify, even when the camera does find a startling measure of grace.

*Anne Rearick *

Anne Rearick

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