Archives

13 07 2020

501XU Art Space
Chongqing, 2019

I is Another (Exhibition Wall Text)

Artists throughout history have learnt by mimicking those they admire, and then through a process of iteration – copying, combining and transforming – found new forms. I is Another pays tribute to this process, and in doing so, it calls into question the notion of pure originality: the idea that ideas form in a vacuum, in one individual alone, rather than broadening our understanding of creativity as something gathered – all we’ve read, heard, felt and seen. Here, we acknowledge the fact that ideas bloom from a lifetime’s collection of other people’s ideas.

This exhibition forms a small portion of a larger project exploring the process and possibilities of copying. To create the drawings currently on show, participants were given a drawing and instructions to copy only what was immediately before them, without sight or knowledge of any of the drawings that preceded it.

Despite attempts to copy precisely, through this process, natural shifts in lines and form occur. Viewing the drawings collectively, we see the adaption of forms, mirroring the history of art itself. Or, in the words of Grayson Perry, ‘Art History is just one big game of Chinese Whispers.’ As something inevitably changes through misunderstanding, interpretation or translation, it becomes something new.

In line with wider principles in Patrick’s work, the project shows art-making as a collaborative project, not only between an artist and his or her personal history of influences; but also between that artist and the extraordinary range of collaborators who bring a work of art to life.

Over the past two months, Patrick has worked with students of Sichuan Fine Art Institute, local artists, artisans and community members in Chongqing, who, through this process of mimicry, have collectively made something new.

Thank you to 501 Art Space, Yin Shiyan, Xi Guanlei, Chen Yuxuan,Yan Yan, as well as all those who put their hand to the work but have chosen to remain anonymous.

13 07 2020

Mapping Stories : Sichuan Fine Art Institute,
Chongqing

Mapping Stories

In this workshop, which took place at the Sichuan Fine Art Institute, students mapped the process of how an idea forms and spreads, in order to track the journey of that idea, whether in the mind or out in the world.

Each student then put their idea on the wall in image form and then mapped the lines of association from that idea. We then, as a group, looked at the way all these ideas relate to each other and often link, forming patterns of how individual thinking exists within a shared space.

13 07 2020

Inside Out Stories : Aiya Contemporary,
Chongqing

Inside Out Stories

In 2019, I was invited by Aiya Contemporary to run a workshop with young people in Chongqing China. The kids explored their unique stories as individuals: what makes you you, as opposed to anyone else. Through a series of play-based activities, the workshop got the kids thinking about their unique creative fingerprint informed by the stories inside of themselves. The second component of the workshop looked at copying, and how ideas spread and are shared – ultimately, how ideas come from outside influences as well as within.

13 07 2020

Global Wardrobe : Instituto Marangoni,
London

14 05 2019

Restricted Images
Front and Side Portraits

In Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899), ethnologists Francis J. Gillen and W. Baldwin Spencer documented the Aboriginal groups living near Alice Springs, with an emphasis on photographing rituals and ceremonies. While these images set a new standard for anthropological photography, the authors were oblivious to the impact they would have on the lives of the Aboriginals. The pictures revealed the gap in knowledge between the authors – whose goal was to show “the exotic natives in their natural state” – and the subjects, who were unaware of the new medium and how it could invade their privacy. They also infringed upon Aboriginal cultural protocols by showing sacred sites and the dead.

Over a century later, growing awareness of the legacy of colonialism has led to indigenouscommunities restricting the use of photography within their territories. Today, taking pictures inthese areas is often prohibited and institutions limit access to the historical record. While suchmeasures constitute a form of protection for Aboriginal people, they can also deprive them of theopportunity to be represented, and therefore acknowledged, as active participants in the history of their own country.

With the complex history of the photographic encounter in mind, Patrick Waterhouse made photographs that were subsequently restricted by the person depicted or a close relation.

Exhibition text from Restricted Images made with the Warlpiri of Central Australia, FotoMuseum Antwerpen, Belgium.

Front and Side Portraits in grids above restricted with Tanya Nungarrayi Collins, Dorothy Napurrurla Dickson, Sabrina Nangala Robertson, Adrianna Nangala Egan, Shanna Napanangka Williams, Nathania Nangala Granites, Athena Nangala Granites, Tasha Nampijinpa Collins, Wilma Napangardi Poulson, Marissa Napanangka Anderson, Julie Nangala Robertson, Lean Nampijinpa Sampson, Angelina Nampijinpa Robertson & Judith Nungarrayi Martin.

10 05 2019

FotoMuseum
Antwerpen, 2019

Restricted Images
Made with the Warlpiri of Central Australia

For the past 7 years, Patrick Waterhouse has been collecting maps, photographs, flags and other documents to create an extensive archive of colonial representations of Australia from 1770 to the present day. In 2015, he took this archive to the Central desert of Australia and began working with local Warlpiri artists at the Warlukurlangu Art Center. During his time there, Waterhouse also took photographs in the communities. The local artists appropriated both the historical collection and his photographs by using the traditional Aboriginal technique of dot painting. In doing so they revised their own representation. The exhibition Restricted Images brings together these artworks for the first time and thereby provides a new reading of Australia’s colonial and indigenous history.


The works in this exhibition were made at the Warlukurlangu Art Centre in the communities of Yuendumu and Nyirripi, Norhtern Territories, Australia, with:

Adrianna Nangala Egan, Alma Nungarrayi Granites, Angelina Nampijinpa Tasman, Athena Nangala Granites, Cecily Napanangka Marshall, Chantelle Nampijinpa Robertson, Daniel Jupurrurla Gordon, Delena Napaljarri Turner, Dorothy Napurrurla Dickson, Felicity Nampijinpa Robertson, Flora Nakamarra Brown, Hazel Nungarrayi Morris, Hilda Nakamarra Rogers, Jeanie Napangardi Lewis, Jessica Napanangka Lewis, Joy Nangala Brown, Judith Nungarrayi Martin, Julie Nangala Robertson, Juliette Nakamarra Morris, Kirsten Nangala Egan, Kirsty Anne Napanangka Brown, Leah Nampijinpa Sampson, Lorraine Nungarrayi Granites, Madeleine Napangardi Dixon, Margaret Nangala Gallagher, Margaret Napangardi Lewis, Margie Napurrurla Leo, Marilyn Maria Nangala Turner, Marissa Napanangka Anderson, Melinda Napurrurla Wilson, Nathania Nangala Granites, Ormay Nangala Gallagher, Otto Jungarrayi Sims, Pauline Nampijinpa Singleton, Polly Anne Napangardi Dixon, Ruth Nungarrayi Spencer, Sabrina Nangala Robertson, Sarah Napurrurla Leo, Selma Napanangka Tasman, Shanna Napanangka Williams, Steven Jangala Hargraves, Tanya Nungarrayi Collins, Valda Napangardi Granites, Watson Jangala Robertson, Wilma Napangardi Poulson. Exhibition text from Restricted Images made with the Warlpiri of Central Australia, FotoMuseum Antwerpen, Belgium.

09 05 2019

Restricted Images
SPBH Editions

Restricted Images is a new art book by Patrick Waterhouse, bringing together an expansive collection of artworks made at the Warlukurlangu art centre, NT Australia, with local Warlpiri artists. This is Waterhouse’s first major work since his Deutsche Borse Photography Prize winning project Ponte City. In institutions across Australia and Europe, archives encompassing thousands of colonial-era anthropological artefacts are now largely inaccessible, and images are often restricted to avoid showing pictures that infringe on Aboriginal cultural beliefs. With rules in place that mean only the descendants of people pictured can decide who is allowed to access them, much of the material remains unseen. Attitudes towards these images have changed since they were celebrated as a feat of anthropological photography by colonialists in the late 1800s, and now lingers an institutional uncertainty in how to approach the question of representation. In response, Waterhouse developed a collaborative venture in symbolically returning to the communities the agency over their own images. Spending several years taking pictures of them, he made prints and then returned, inviting the Warlpiri to paint the surfaces of the images and enact their own restrictions upon them using the traditional technique of dot painting. In intricate, colourful acrylic clusters they transformed the black and white depictions of themselves and their sacred sites. Restricted Images is the first instalment in a long-term project that looks to renegotiate the politics of who gets to decide what is seen and what is kept hidden, and reveals artists and a community trying to understand one other.

Publication date: September 2018
Format: Hardcover
Edition: 1500
Size: 19.7 x 26.6 cm
Number of pages: 208
Type of printing: Offset
ISBN: 9781999814465

09 05 2019

Restricted Images
Made with Warlpiri of Central Australia

The publication in 1899 of The Native Tribes of Central Australia caused a sensation in Europe. The book’s authors, telegraph-station master Francis J. Gillen and ethnologist W. Baldwin Spencer, had written in depth about the customs and traditions of the Aboriginal groups living near Alice Springs and also illustrated their texts with 119 photographs, many of which captured rituals and ceremonies. While the subject, quality and quantity of the images set a new standard for anthropological photography, the authors were largely oblivious to the impact they would have on the lives of the Aboriginals. The pictures revealed the gap in knowledge between the authors, whose goal was showing the exotic natives “in their natural state”, and the subjects, who were completely unaware of the new medium and how it could invade their privacy or reveal their secrets to a wider audience. Unwittingly or not, the authors also infringed upon Aboriginal cultural protocols by showing sacred sites and the dead. Attitudes have changed since Gillen and Baldwin Spencer first ventured in the Central Desert with a camera and institutions have taken extensive measures to ensure that cultural sensitivity is respected. Today, photography within Aboriginal communities is limited and historical images are often “restricted”. Over the past four years, I have taken photographs in the Yeundumu and Nyirrpi Aboriginal communities, and in the surrounding Warlpiri country. After making prints, I returned to Central Australia to work with artists and other members of those same communities at the Warlukurlangu Art Centre, so they could restrict and amend my photographs through the process of painting.

21 06 2018

Basel Unlimited
Switzerland, 2018

Ponte City, Basel Unlimited, Switzerland, 2018
(with Mikhael Subotzky)

04 06 2018

Middle Bound
QUAD Gallery, Derby

From 5th-9th of February 2018, QUAD Gallery became a workshop and open studio, made accessible to the public, where artistic and creative work could be viewed as it happened with the goal of developing, conceptualizing and building an exhibition. Artists, designers, photographers and members of the community have been selected through an open call and they explored questions like: What are the communities that make the Midlands what it is today, and how they relate to each other? What are the stories we tell? How does ethnicity and heritage affect attitudes?

04 06 2018

Albuquerque Museum
USA, 2018

Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design, Albuquerque Museum, USA, 2018

23 06 2016

Ponte City
Images

Ponte City dominates the Johannesburg skyline. This unavoidable 54-storey apartment building on the Berea ridge has become an icon of the city it towers over.

The building has had a chequered history. Built for white sophisticates in the heyday of apartheid, it always held more appeal for young people and immigrants, for those on their way to somewhere else. During the South African transition in the early 1990s it became a refuge for black newcomers from the townships and rural areas, and then for immigrants from elsewhere in Africa. Then followed a calamitous decline, and by the turn of the century Ponte was the prime symbol of urban decay in Johannesburg, and the perceived epicentre of crime, prostitution and drug dealing.

In 2007, developers evicted half the tenants and gutted the empty apartments, but their scheme to refurbish the building soon ran aground. It was in this period that Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse began working at Ponte, getting to know the tenants who remained behind, taking their portraits and photographing the life of the half-occupied block.

In the winter of 2008, Subotzky and Waterhouse started collecting documents and other debris in the abandoned apartments. Over the following five years, they returned repeatedly to document aspects of the block, photographing every door and the view from every window. When they knocked on doors to ask permission to do this work, they were often invited in. Sitting in apartments where the televisions were tuned to South African soap operas, Congolese sitcoms, Hollywood romances and Nollywood melodramas, it sometimes felt to them that all the stories of violence and seduction they had heard about Ponte were not in the building itself but on the screens. Thus the television screens of Ponte became a third typology of apertures alongside the doors and windows: three grids arranged exactly in the sequence given by the building’s structure.

This body of images is presented here in counterpoint with items from the found archive and historical documents, including plans and photographs. The visual narrative is integrated with a sustained sequence of essays, stories and documentary texts presented in 17 booklets. With one exception, the essays and stories were written specially for this book.

Perceptions of Ponte have always been extreme, its joys and ills exaggerated equally. It has been hailed as the next big thing in urban living and derided as a suicide centre and a rubbish dump. The commentary here does not discount these myths but positions them in relation to the many other historical accounts of the building. It is an attempt to understand the unique place of the building in Johannesburg and in the popular imagination.

Today life in Ponte goes on, as ordinary and extraordinary as life anywhere else. But the building is still enveloped in contending projections. It remains a focal point of the city’s dreams and nightmares, seen as refuge or monstrosity, dreamland or dystopia, a lightning rod for a society’s hopes and fears, and always a beacon to navigate by.

22 06 2016

COLOURS
News: A Survival Guide

In 2011, news of Osama bin Laden’s assassination was broken by a Pakistani IT consultant’s tweet. The next year, a computer algorithm composed nearly 400,000 articles on Little League baseball for small-town newspapers across the United States. Now, print journalism has been declared America’s fastest-shrinking industry, but across Africa, newspaper circulation has risen by more than 30 percent. Colors #86- Making the News reveals the backstage of contemporary journalism: With stories on drone-wielding paparazzi, terrorist press releases and anti-mafia vigilante television anchors, Making the News explores how world events are selected, shaped, and sent to you in time for breakfast

20 06 2016

The Photographers’ Gallery
London, 2015

Deutsche Börse: Photography Prize 2015, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, 2015 (With Mikhael Subotzky)

02 06 2016

Ponte City
Johannesburg, 2014

Exhibition and Launch of Ponte City book at Ponte City, Johannesburg 2014. (With Mikhael Subotzky)

20 05 2016

National Galleries of
Scotland, Edinburgh, 2014

Ponte City, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2014
(with Mikhael Subotzky)

26 04 2016

LE BAL
Paris, 2014

Ponte City, Le Bal, Paris, 2014 (with Mikhael Subotzky)

26 04 2016

FotoMuseum
Antwerpen, 2014

Ponte City, FotoMuseum Antwerpen, 2014 (with Mikhael Subotzky)

26 04 2016

Biennale
de Lubumbashi, 2013

The Biennale de Lubumbashi, DR Congo, 2013 (with Mikhael Subotzky)

26 04 2016

Circolo dei Lettori,
Turin, 2013

Protest exhibition, Circolo dei Lettori, Turin, 2013

26 04 2016

International Journalism
Festival, Perugia, 2013

Colors News Machine interactive installation designed and built with Fabrica Interactive Department/Jonathan Chomko for the launch of COLORS #86 – Making the News at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy 2013.

26 04 2016

Doca Gallery
Sao Paulo, 2012

Exhibition of workshop with Unhate Foundation and Projeto Quixote, Doca Galley, São Paulo, 2012

26 04 2016

Times Museum
Guangzhou, 2012

Happiness and other survival techniques, Guanddong Times Museum, Guangzhou, 2012

26 04 2016

The Design Museum
London, 2012

Happiness and other survival techniques, Design Museum, London, 2012

26 04 2016

Hong Miao Gallery
Shanghai, 2011

Colors 81: Transport, Hong Miao Gallery, Shanghai, 2011

26 04 2016

The Walther Collection
Ulm, 2011

Ponte City projections in Appropriated Landscapes, The Walther Collection, Neu Ulm / Burlafingen, 2011 (With Mikhael Subotzky)

26 04 2016

Arts on Main
Johannesburg, 2010

Ponte City Lightboxes, In Context, Arts on Main, Johannesburg, 2010
(With Mikhael Subotzky)

26 04 2016

Goodman Gallery
Cape Town, 2010

Recent Works: Mikhael Subotzky & Patrick Waterhouse, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, 2010

26 04 2016

South African National
Gallery, Cape Town, 2010

Ponte City Lightboxes, In Context, South African National Gallery, Cape Town 2010 (With Mikhael Subotzky)

26 04 2016

The Maboneng Precinct
Johannesburg, 2010

Ponte Obscura, Hotel room design for The Maboneng Precinct, Johannesburg 2010 (With Mikhael Subotzky)

26 04 2016

Goodman Gallery
Johannesburg, 2009

Two Projects, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, 2009
(With Mikhael Subotzky)

13 01 2016

Mesa & Cadeira
Survival Kit, São Paulo

With almost 20 million inhabitants, greater São Paulo is the fourth most populous urban area in the world after Tokyo, Seoul and Mexico City. It makes up 15% of the entire GDP of South America. Its citizens spend on average eight years of their lives travelling from home to work to home again — a favela, for one out of ten of them.

The workshop was led by Patrick Waterhouse with Cosimo Bizzarri and organized by Mesa e Cadeira. They worked with 15 local professionals to produce an alternative survival kit to São Paulo. They took portrait shots in the streets, collected statistics about the city and asked passers-by to give an insight on what and what not to do.

The final results are pictured here. Among the many things included is a prayer that will make you rich, a husband whom women can rent to solve their problems and a neighborhood so wealthy that it has more heliports than bus stops.

13 01 2016

Ponte City: Photo Studio,
Johannesburg

In August 2015, as a final chapter in our six-year project, Mikhael Subotzky and I organised a pop-up exhibition and book launch in Ponte City, the towering inner-city apartment block that was the subject of this project.

As a part of the exhibition, we collaborated with a young artist called Desire Seko who lives in the building by setting up a contemporary digital take on the traditional photo studio. We bought a standard studio lighting setup and added a green screen backdrop. Residents of the building and anyone else who attended the exhibition could have their photograph taken and choose a background to situate themselves.

The result was a playful and unmediated process that put the person in front of the lens in control. The studio has taken on a life of its own and has been great to watch from a distance as Desire has continued to post the pictures from his on-going venture.

13 01 2016

Projeto Quixote
Survival Guides, São Paulo

For 6 days, from the 17th to the 22nd of October 2012, a group of 23 kids shared their techniques for survival in the streets of São Paulo in a workshop led by Patrick Waterhouse, with Auro Lescher (founder of Projeto Quixote). The workshop involved in a series of activities mixing photography, illustrations and storytelling. It ended with a pop up exhibition and projections in Paulista Avenue, one of the most important streets in São Paulo.

The group was formed with kids that live or had lived in the streets of São Paulo and with adolescents in social risk situation, it was supported by Projeto Quixote and Unhate Foundation,

12 01 2016

COLOURS
Art: A Survival Guide

What distinguishes a conceptual masterpiece from a bit of urban debris? A renowned painter from a commercial designer? Is copying allowed in art, and if so, says who? From a 12 million dollar shark carcass to England’s most prolific forger family, from North Korea’s #1 atelier to the fig leaf that hides David’s package, COLORS #87 – Looking at Art explores how we teach, buy, sell, and steal art today. (Plus: Switzerland’s ultra-secret art vaults, the crime behind the Mona Lisa and stickers.)

12 01 2016

COLOURS
Protest: A Survival Guide

Over the past three years, people in more than 80 countries across the world have taken to the streets to protest against their governments. But only in six of the above countries did governments finally fall.

COLORS 88 – Protest tells stories of how protests start, spread, triumph, are repressed and sometimes become revolutions. From South Korea’s anti-uprising volunteer corps to female drivers in Saudi Arabia; from Mexico’s labor rights superheroes to fully-armed guns rights demonstrators in the United States; from the pigs left to roam the main square of Nairobi, Kenya, to Palestinians dressing like blue aliens from Hollywood film Avatar, we’ve interviewed, photographed, and illustrated popular uprising across the world. Plus, Occupy, Tahrir, FEMEN sextremists and a series of illustrated DIY protest techniques and strategies: how to use a mattress as a shield, chain yourself to a tree, and hold your breath until it’s all over.

19 08 2015

COLOURS
Markets: A Survival Guide

Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the free market has dominated the world. Today we can buy and sell, lend and borrow, invest and trade from one end of the planet to the other like never before. It is exciting, and dangerous: the more the market grows and evolves, the easier it becomes to get lost in it. From the Alaba used-electronics market in Nigeria to the marriage market in People’s Square, Shanghai; from Tirumala Temple’s hair auction in India to a bank that uses cheese as collateral for cash in northern Italy, find your way through weights and scales, coins, customers, products and merchants, in pursuit of the invisible thread that links Wall Street to Main Street in one chaotic global market.

19 08 2015

COLOURS
Moving House: A Survival Guide

In the past quarter century, the world’s migration rate has doubled. Today, 232 million migrants live abroad, and 90 million more are currently packing their bags.

COLORS 89 – Moving House follows their journeys. While Spanish homeowners are setting up house on the streets after getting evicted from their homes, Chinese workers are moving into shipping containers in Shanghai. Indian temple devotees are sacrificing toy airplanes in return for a visa; halfway across the world, Mexican vacationists are voluntarily getting chased by fake US border patrol at a local tourist attraction. We’ve investigated people’s motives to move, the borders they cross, the things they carry and the obstacles they surmount. Including a few tips on how to build a temporary shelter and a set of maps to put you on the right path, in case you are looking for one.

19 08 2015

COLOURS
Transport: A Survival Guide

How do you make a boat from rubbish? How do you carry fifteen people on a motorbike? How do you build a submarine in your attic? COLORS 81 explores where, why and how individuals are designing new ways of getting around.

The world’s transport systems are over 90% reliant on oil, and oil is running out. Whether driven by local constraints or simply chasing their dreams, the inventors we’ve found, their strange vehicles and extraordinary stories are proof of the power of human ingenuity to solve problems.

18 08 2015

News: A Survival Guide

In 2011, news of Osama bin Laden’s assassination was broken by a Pakistani IT consultant’s tweet. The next year, a computer algorithm composed nearly 400,000 articles on Little League baseball for small-town newspapers across the United States. Now, print journalism has been declared America’s fastest-shrinking industry, but across Africa, newspaper circulation has risen by more than 30 percent. Colors #86- Making the News reveals the backstage of contemporary journalism: With stories on drone-wielding paparazzi, terrorist press releases and anti-mafia vigilante television anchors, Making the News explores how world events are selected, shaped, and sent to you in time for breakfast

18 08 2015

COLOURS
Apocalypse: A Survival Guide

Hit by a meteorite, wiped out by a pandemic, fried in a nuclear holocaust or frozen in another Ice Age: Civilization could end in a hundred ways. Yet the relentless onslaught of disaster prophecies leaves you overwhelmed, exhausted and unsure who to believe. You’ve got Apocalypse Fatigue, but don’t give up. The climate is the hottest it’s been for 1,000 years, and this century will see temperatures rise five times more than they have already, bringing hurricanes, floods, famine and wildfire. So start preparing: build a bunker, secure your energy supply, stockpile food. When mankind throws itself into the abyss, you need to be ready to climb back out.

18 08 2015

COLOURS
Happiness: A Survival Guide

You get it when you win a race and lose it when you get laid off. Governments put it in their policies, preachers in their sermons, writers at the ends of their stories. Scientists say they’ve found it on the left side of the brain. Pursuing it, Americans spend US$20 billion a year on self-help and antidepressants. But wealth isn’t working: people in the West are twice as rich as they were sixty years ago, yet no more satisfied with their lives. Twenty years from now, depression will be the biggest health burden in the world. Joy, euphoria, satisfaction, tranquility, triumph. It comes in many forms. So what makes you happy?

18 08 2015

COLOURS
Shit: A Survival Guide

Feces. Excrement. Stool. Poop. Caca. Its name changes but not most people’s reaction to it. You probably ignore it, despise it, fear it. You do it behind closed doors and in private. You don’t mention it in polite company. You think shit is unspeakable. That’s if you’re lucky. Nearly two-thirds of the world – who have no toilet – must live intimately with shit. They excrete it, eat it, die from it. Diarrhea – a banal stomach bug for anyone with a bathroom – kills more children than HIV/AIDS. But shit can be fuel or fertilizer, as well as poison and death. It can heat us, feed us, cure us. It is the most underrated resource in the world. It is as rich as oil and as useful. Let us introduce you properly to shit: you won’t regret it.

03 08 2015

Ponte City
Images

Ponte City dominates the Johannesburg skyline. This unavoidable 54-storey apartment building on the Berea ridge has become an icon of the city it towers over.

The building has had a chequered history. Built for white sophisticates in the heyday of apartheid, it always held more appeal for young people and immigrants, for those on their way to somewhere else. During the South African transition in the early 1990s it became a refuge for black newcomers from the townships and rural areas, and then for immigrants from elsewhere in Africa. Then followed a calamitous decline, and by the turn of the century Ponte was the prime symbol of urban decay in Johannesburg, and the perceived epicentre of crime, prostitution and drug dealing.

In 2007, developers evicted half the tenants and gutted the empty apartments, but their scheme to refurbish the building soon ran aground. It was in this period that Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse began working at Ponte, getting to know the tenants who remained behind, taking their portraits and photographing the life of the half-occupied block.

In the winter of 2008, Subotzky and Waterhouse started collecting documents and other debris in the abandoned apartments. Over the following five years, they returned repeatedly to document aspects of the block, photographing every door and the view from every window. When they knocked on doors to ask permission to do this work, they were often invited in. Sitting in apartments where the televisions were tuned to South African soap operas, Congolese sitcoms, Hollywood romances and Nollywood melodramas, it sometimes felt to them that all the stories of violence and seduction they had heard about Ponte were not in the building itself but on the screens. Thus the television screens of Ponte became a third typology of apertures alongside the doors and windows: three grids arranged exactly in the sequence given by the building’s structure.

This body of images is presented here in counterpoint with items from the found archive and historical documents, including plans and photographs. The visual narrative is integrated with a sustained sequence of essays, stories and documentary texts presented in 17 booklets. With one exception, the essays and stories were written specially for this book.

Perceptions of Ponte have always been extreme, its joys and ills exaggerated equally. It has been hailed as the next big thing in urban living and derided as a suicide centre and a rubbish dump. The commentary here does not discount these myths but positions them in relation to the many other historical accounts of the building. It is an attempt to understand the unique place of the building in Johannesburg and in the popular imagination.

Today life in Ponte goes on, as ordinary and extraordinary as life anywhere else. But the building is still enveloped in contending projections. It remains a focal point of the city’s dreams and nightmares, seen as refuge or monstrosity, dreamland or dystopia, a lightning rod for a society’s hopes and fears, and always a beacon to navigate by.

01 08 2015

Ponte City
Windows, Doors, Televisions

Between 2008 and 2011, Patrick Waterhouse and Mikhael Subotzky took a photograph out of every window in Ponte City, of every internal door, and of every television screen. This formed a part of their broader investigation of this giant residential tower block, a building that has come to symbolize the best and the worst of Johannesburg’s past, present and future. The resulting archive of over 2000 images has found form in three distinct triptych works – as lightboxes, as multi-channel projections, and as individual photographic prints.

21 07 2015

COLOURS
Art: A Survival Guide

What distinguishes a conceptual masterpiece from a bit of urban debris? A renowned painter from a commercial designer? Is copying allowed in art, and if so, says who? From a 12 million dollar shark carcass to England’s most prolific forger family, from North Korea’s #1 atelier to the fig leaf that hides David’s package, COLORS #87 – Looking at Art explores how we teach, buy, sell, and steal art today. (Plus: Switzerland’s ultra-secret art vaults, the crime behind the Mona Lisa and stickers.)

07 06 2015

Ponte City
Windows, Doors, Televisions

Between 2008 and 2011, Patrick Waterhouse and Mikhael Subotzky took a photograph out of every window in Ponte City, of every internal door, and of every television screen. This formed a part of their broader investigation of this giant residential tower block, a building that has come to symbolize the best and the worst of Johannesburg’s past, present and future. The resulting archive of over 2000 images has found form in three distinct triptych works – as lightboxes, as multi-channel projections, and as individual photographic prints.

06 08 2014

Ponte City
Afterimages

These photographs were found by Patrick Waterhouse and Mikhael Subotzky in abandoned Ponte city apartments in 2008. They were placed over photographs of the rooms in which they were found or in the space they depict.

05 08 2013

Ponte City
Across the chasm

Photos taken across the core of Ponte city (With Mikhael Subotzky)

22 06 2013

Ponte City
Afterimages

These photographs were found by Patrick Waterhouse and Mikhael Subotzky in abandoned Ponte city apartments in 2008. They were placed over photographs of the rooms in which they were found or in the space they depict.

01 08 2012

Ponte City
The Lifts

Photos taken in the lifts of Ponte City. (With Mikhael Subotzky)

04 08 2011

Ponte City
Lost and found

These documents and photographs were found by Patrick Waterhouse
and Mikhael Subotzky in abandoned Ponte city apartments, 2008

22 06 2011

COLOURS
Protest: A Survival Guide

Over the past three years, people in more than 80 countries across the world have taken to the streets to protest against their governments. But only in six of the above countries did governments finally fall.

COLORS 88 – Protest tells stories of how protests start, spread, triumph, are repressed and sometimes become revolutions. From South Korea’s anti-uprising volunteer corps to female drivers in Saudi Arabia; from Mexico’s labor rights superheroes to fully-armed guns rights demonstrators in the United States; from the pigs left to roam the main square of Nairobi, Kenya, to Palestinians dressing like blue aliens from Hollywood film Avatar, we’ve interviewed, photographed, and illustrated popular uprising across the world. Plus, Occupy, Tahrir, FEMEN sextremists and a series of illustrated DIY protest techniques and strategies: how to use a mattress as a shield, chain yourself to a tree, and hold your breath until it’s all over.

12 01 2011

COLOURS
Football: A Survival Guide

Thirty-two teams. One golden trophy. This summer, an elite selection of extraordinary footballers finally comes together to play the most beautiful game on earth in COLORS #90 – Football. In this issue, a mechanical striker winds up to score at the 2014 RoboCup, a Saudi goalie dives for the save on a top secret pitch for women, and players from the streets of Sao Paulo to the fields of Dharamsala break out their bicycle kicks. For the 226 million footballers who play on streets, at school, at work, in jail and everywhere other than under the spotlight, COLORS presents the world’s most popular game as FIFA has never dared show it.

COLORS’ starting lineup also stars indigenous-only teams from the Amazon forest and Andean heights, a Danish squad of elderly gentlemen, the Czech Republic’s blind Avoy MU club, a team of South African lesbians taking the field to fight homophobia, Tanzania’s Albinos United playing against persecution, Italian priests, Egyptian ultras, and a group of match-fixing imposters from Togo. Each team appears with its own stats, flags, footnotes and crests.

In football’s long tradition of sticker albums, every issue of COLORS 90 – Football comes with a pack of player stickers. Swap with friends to collect the anonymous revolutionary Mexican striker; the Dharamsala sweater salesman Tenzin Kachoe, aka star midfielder for the Tibetan National Team; or a hologram of the trophy that one team is bound to win. Plus stories and strategies from the game itself: illustrated diagrams demonstrate how to scout a child champion, listen for the ball, and play in a bubble, on a skateboard, against Situationist philosophers or with a flaming coconut. In the back, a mini-book of yellow cards recounts the world’s most unusual on-field offenses, to stick in your pocket on the way to the pitch.

02 08 2010

Ponte City
Flat 3607

Flat 3607

The Ponte evictions began in mid-2007 and went on into the following year. When Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse first visited the block early in 2008, they found that the vacated flats had been ransacked. Among the broken furniture and abandoned possessions, carelessly scattered and trampled underfoot, they found an extraordinary array of papers: identity documents, CVs, certificates, time sheets, affidavits, refugee visa application forms, hospital reports, drafts of letters on pages torn from exercise books, rental statements, notebooks, photographs, posters, maps. It was only after many visits, in the winter months of 2008, that they began to collect and preserve these documents.

This paper trail shows that there were at least two people living in Flat 3607: Jerome Matondo Kabangu and Promise Ilunga Kinkela. * Most of the papers belonged to Kabangu.

Kabangu was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1981 and grew up on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. As he tells it, his life was disrupted by the war in the late 1990s, with the murder of his father and the persecution of his family. After hiding in the bush for some time, he made his way to Lubumbashi, where he finished his schooling in 2001 and also did a diploma in pharmacology. To avoid being forced into the army, he joined up with some cousins, including Kinkela, and fled the country. They went from Manono to Pweto, and then across the border into Zambia, where they received help at the Roman Catholic mission. After ten days, they crossed into Zimbabwe and went straight on to South Africa, entering the country illegally in April 2003.

Like many migrants before and since, they headed for Johannesburg. The city has always been a magnet for people who want to make a new start. There is usually work to be had and you can put a roof over your head. But it is not easy, as the new arrivalsalso discover. Johannesburg has a way of chewing people up and spitting them out.

For the first few years, Kabangu lived in a flat in Olivia Road, before moving a few blocks away to Flat 3607 in Ponte. He found work in a Wimpy and trained as a waiter and bartender at a hotel school in Bree Street. In the CV that reflects this qualification, he described himself as a presentable, clean-living and punctual young man: ‘I am honest and reliable, and get on well with my Fellowmen.’ Later he received a certificate from the Yebo Nonke Security Services and Training Academy and became a security guard.

In one of many statements about his arrival in South Africa, Kabangu says he acquired refugee status within weeks. The abandoned documents show that the Department of Home Affairs granted a request for asylum in 2005, issuing him with a certificate of exemption that would have to be renewed upon expiry. He later received a refugee ID document.

Kabangu never seems to have settled down in his new home. In June 2003, within months of arriving in Johannesburg, he filled out an application form for permanent residence in Canada, in which he described the circumstances that had turned him into a refugee. If this application was ever submitted, it must have been rejected. In July the following year, he filled out an application for an Australian offshore humanitarian visa, presumably with the same negative result.

In September 2006, Kabangu was working as a security guard at a complex in Honeydew. When he refused access to a white couple who had no business in the complex, the man began to hurl racial abuse at him. Incensed by the guard’s smiling response, the man drew a gun and fired a shot, which missed. Kabangu laid a charge of attempted murder at the Honeydew Police Station and filled out an official complaint form addressed to the South African Human Rights Commission. A follow-up letter from the Commission shows that he submitted the complaint, but he may not have taken the matter further. Around the same time, he wrote to the commander of the Honeydew Police Station to thank him for his handling of the case, which had led to the arrest of the accused.

Promise Ilunga Kinkela lived sometimes in Flat 3607 and some- times in another flat along the corridor. He seems to have been Kabangu’s cousin and to have followed the same route into South Africa. He certainly tried to cut the same paths out of the country, although at different times. In January 2004, his application for migration to Australia as a refugee was rejected by the High Commission in Pretoria. As late as November 2006, a letter on the subject of the immigration medical examination shows that he was trying to get to Canada.

The stories scattered among the papers left in Flat 3607 are fragmentary and uncertain. Kabangu and Kinkela filled out various application forms, but there is no sign that they were ever submitted. To complicate things, the forms of the two cousins are jumbled together with those of several other relatives, all offering similar answers to certain questions. Disentangling the applicants provides little assurance: these are people desperate to prove that they are deserving of refugee status or humanitarian assistance. Reconstructing their stories accurately and checking their veracity would be a complex task for an historian or a psychologist – perhaps even a detective – and is far beyond the scope of this note.

At a glance, however, the papers reveal some fascinating things. One of the most striking is the instability of Jerome Matondo Kabangu’s name. He uses a dozen different versions, varying the order of the three main elements, occasionally adding a new one and often changing a spelling. His first name becomes his surname, his middle name becomes his first name. The name Jerome morphs into John, used as both first name and surname. His middle name Matondo becomes Mande and then a more recognisably South African Mandla. His surname goes from Kabangu to Kanda. His initials turn on themselves like a palindrome: he is JMK and KMJ. His name, an open-ended play on variants, is an index of his efforts to fashion a new identity.

The papers are full of telling repetitions. The key sections of the application forms, especially those that tell the story of leaving the DRC and make a case for not returning there, are written and rewritten many times. There are divergent versions of the same events in the same hand. If these are not fictions, they are certainly elaborations. In variations on a theme, someone is trying to perfect a story, to get it straight or make the most of it.

Among the papers are several letters addressed to the South African Consulate in Lubumbashi in support of visa applications by Congolese citizens wishing to travel to South Africa. In one sequence, a handwritten document becomes a sworn statement on an official form (unsigned and uncertified) and then a typewritten letter. These successive drafts, searching for clarity and formality, trace an approach to the bureaucracy, an attempt to meet its requirements and crack its codes.

Nearly all the letters, even the formal ones, are stained and tattered. The occasional dusty shoeprint is easily explained by the circumstances in which the papers were found, but the signs of wear tell other stories. The value of these papers lay in their use. They were carried in pockets or folded into wallets. Some of them are faded to the point of illegibility. The refugee identity papers issued by Home Affairs literally fall apart in your hands when you open them. Their ruined state is a sign of how close they were kept.

Why then were they left behind? It may be that the tenants of Flat 3607 had to leave in a hurry with no chance to sort and pack. Or it may be that the documents had outlived their usefulness. Perhaps it was simply time for Jerome Matondo Kabangu to give his name another twist and move on to a new address.

* Not their real names

22 06 2010

LE BAL
Paris, 2014

Ponte City, Le Bal, Paris, 2014 (with Mikhael Subotzky)

01 08 2009

Ponte City
Book

First published by Steidl 2014, Ponte City is a hardcover, clothbound book in a screen-printed cardboard box with 17 separate staple-bound booklets, with texts edited by Ivan Vladislavić. Essays by Lindsay Bremner, Melinda Silverman, Harry Kalmer, Sean O’Toole, Kgebetli Moele, Percy Zvomuya, Ivan Vladislavić and Denis Hirson. It was designed with Ramon Pez

22 06 2009

Ponte City
Book

First published by Steidl 2014, Ponte City is a hardcover, clothbound book in a screen-printed cardboard box with 17 separate staple-bound booklets, with texts edited by Ivan Vladislavić. Essays by Lindsay Bremner, Melinda Silverman, Harry Kalmer, Sean O’Toole, Kgebetli Moele, Percy Zvomuya, Ivan Vladislavić and Denis Hirson. It was designed with Ramon Pez