World acclaimed photographer, Pieter Hugo, describes his series Kin as “an engagement with the failure of the South African colonial experiment and my sense of being colonial driftwood. South Africa is such a fractured, schizophrenic, wounded, and problematic place…” In 2006, the Johannesburg native started gathering portraits and landscapes focused on his hometown raising some crucial questions such as: how does one live in this society? How do you raise a family in such a conflicted society? Hugo confesses that before getting married and having children, these questions did not trouble him; now they do.
With previous projects in Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia and Botswana, the renowned photographer has explored racial diversity, economic disparities and the complexity of African identity following apartheid. Kin, his eight-year-long project, follows the same thread, depicting overpopulated townships, abandoned mining zones as well as Hugo’s pregnant wife, his baby girl and the maid who worked for his family for three generations. By confronting private and public places, poor and rich, black and white, the photographer tries to find a place in a country torn between a heavy past and an uncertain future.
Kin by Pieter Hugo runs until April 26th at Fondation Henri Cartier Bresson. 75014 Paris.
Credits
Text Oscar Heliani