Raimundo: reading David Goldbatt's on the mines
Date
2017
Authors
Bennett, Melissa Helen
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Abstract
This dissertation uses David Goldblatt’s seminal photobook, On the Mines (1973, revised 2012) to mediate a biographical conversation with Raymond Zavala, a migrant mineworker who left Mozambique in 1962 to live and work in Johannesburg. On the Mines was used as a vehicle to examine intimate details of one man’s life in the mines, focusing particularly on a mine in Roodepoort known as Durban Deep, where Raymond worked for 38 years. During my visits with Raymond, On the Mines was kept in hand as he and I walked through what once was a prosperous mining town. We would discuss his day-to-day life as a migrant, mineworker, husband and father, and began layering and inserting our own stories and photographs over and into On the Mines in an attempt to portray a more personal account of one person’s life on the mines. Goldblatt’s photographic archive is crucial to this process in that it enabled me to initiate conversations with Raymond about his personal history, memory and identity. This research, encompassed in the visual biography presented here, was created in collaboration with Raymond. He guided me through this process by directing the narrative of his own story, recommending specific landscapes and people for me to meet and photograph. I have chosen to present this practice in the form of a photobook, so that its concept and content can be shared as a critical resolution of my visual and narrative engagement.
Description
Submitted in fulfilment of the Degree of Master of Arts (Fine Arts) Johannesburg, March 2017
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Citation
Bennett, Melissa Helen (2017) Raimundo: reading David Goldbatt's on the mines, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, <https://hdl.handle.net/10539/24481>