For our first event, we will be discussing Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse’s Ponte City exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. We will be joined by Anne Lydon, International Photography Curator at the NGS and co-curator of the exhibition.
Rising 54 storeys high, Ponte Tower has punctuated the Johannesburg skyline since 1975. Originally offering cosmopolitan living for white South Africa, in the post-apartheid years, it has become home for immigrants from other African countries. In 2007 developers planned a major refurbishment of the block; although the renovation began it was never completed, leaving the structure semi-derelict while some tenants still occupied flats in the block.
Over the next five years the tower became the subject of a creative collaboration between South African photographer, Mikhael Subotzky and British artist, Patrick Waterhouse. They returned repeatedly to document the building: photographing every door and the view from every window; archiving the lives of the residents, from capturing what they were watching on TV to gathering discarded belongings.
The work in this exhibition provides a cross-section of an iconic South African landmark that continues to symbolize the hopes and fears of the country’s most populous city, and in turn, the post-apartheid nation.
