For several years, English photographer Jason Larkin has been shooting a documentary series on the African continent. He started in Egypt by exploring the urban expansion of Cairo. In 2010, he moved to South Africa for two years photographing the toxic waste dumps left behind by gold mining.
A photojournalist by training, Larkin began working on long-term documentary projects concerning social and environmental issues in Africa. In the series Cairo Divided, he photographed the construction sites in the desert outside the city. Today Cairo is one of the world’s most densely populated cities and the largest metropolitan area in Africa. Over a very short period, the fabric of the urban landscape changed, with the city’s elites moving to the suburbs to escape the chaos. This series also examined an environmental disaster: the disappearance of the Aral Sea. Cairo Divided was nominated for the Deutsche Börse and Prix Pictet prizes.
Larkin’s work focuses on the environmental issues of large African cities, as in the series Tales from the City of Gold, shot in Johanessburg. The project aims to show the interaction between the citizens of Johannesburg and the waste product of gold mining.
Larkin sees waste dumps as the visual, inevitable link to Johannesburg’s mining past, which permanently altered the trajectory of South Africa. To illustrate this situation, he photographed both the landscapes and the communities that live among these abandoned toxic dumps.
This project was the subject of a book, published in 2013 by Kehrer, and a recent exhibition at the Flowers Gallery in London.
In 2013, Larkin led a short workshop on landscape photography for a group of seven students from the project Of Soul & Joy in the township of Thokoza east of Johannesburg.
BOOK
« Tales from the City of Gold »
Jason Larkin.
Kehrer Verlag
39,90 €
Special collector edition here : £285 (environ 344 €)
http://jasonlarkin.co.uk
Interview Jason Larkin here
Of soul and Joy project .
