The Cordoned Heart, 1979-1984

Extent:

184 prints

Scope and content:

These black-and-white images came out of a documentary project by the photographic collective Afrapix, as part of the Second Carnegie Inquiry into Poverty and Development in South Africa. They document a crucial period of protest and social upheaval in South African history, and focus on poverty and the daily lives of people living under apartheid. Photographs depict neighborhoods, rural and urban residences, social life, families, work conditions, events in South African history such as forced relocations, and scenes of political or labor conflict.

Twenty photographers are represented, with their work arranged in this order: Paul Alberts, Joseph Alphers, Omar Badsha, Michael Barry, Bee Berman, Michael Davies, David Goldblatt, Paul Konings, Lesley Lawson, Chris Ledechowski, Rashid Lombard, Ben Maclennan, Jimi Matthews, Gideon Mendel, Cedric Nunn, Myron Peters, Berney Perez, Jeeva Rajgopaul, Wendy Schwegmann, and Paul Weinberg. The matted and unmatted gelatin silver prints range in size from approximately 12x16 to 16x20 inches, with duplicates of images found across size groups.

Textual materials include exhibit brochures and an exhibit installation guide. There is also a limited edition portfolio with ten signed photographs selected from the exhibit; prints have been housed with their respective photographers. Many of the photographs are also available as digital images mounted on the library server; please contact Research Services for access.

The prints in this series were part of the Cordoned Heart exhibit, curated by Cornell Capa, Alex Harris, and Margaret Sartor, which appeared originally at the International Center of Photography in 1986 and toured for a number of years afterwards. An accompanying book, South Africa: The Cordoned Heart (1986), was edited in part by Afrapix member Omar Badsha. There are some images used in the book which are not present in this collection. In addition, there are several unidentified prints which do not appear in the book.

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