target="_blank">Bieber set out to depict the settlement as it lives today. She found thriving communities, cultural innovation and a lot of ordinary, everyday life. The book, Soweto, released in July, challenges preconceived notions of the famous South African township.

“I knew that references to Soweto in the minds of the outsiders would be of Hector Pieterson, who was killed in June 1976, or the famous Vilakazi Street, or Baragwanath Hospital, or poverty & HIV/AIDS, or even dusty crime-ridden streets,” writes Bieber in the book’s introductory essay.

For three months, Bieber crisscrossed the 150 square kilometers of Soweto, clocking over 7,000 kilometers. “The project was built on instinct … and these photographs are what I gathered along the way. The book is by no means the A-Z of Soweto.” Nonetheless, Bieber visited most of Soweto’s 32 localities; painted houses in Jabavu, public pools in Moletsane; haberdasheries in Zola, and Chiawelo’s fish ‘n’ chip shop.

Soweto is a documentary work of personal inquiry, not of journalism. “Soweto is made up of very different individuals with different values and beliefs,” writes Bieber in her essay. Home to 1.3 million people and lying southwest of Johannesburg, Soweto (the name derives from SOuth WEst TOwnship) cannot be summarized by one project nor one photographer; it is best experienced. “I see the work as a whole and not journalistically,” writes Bieber via e-mail.

Bieber had photographed in Soweto shortly after Nelson Mandela’s ANC party claimed victory in the 1994 elections — and her latest project re-calibrated her understanding of the township.

“I knew some things had certainly changed on my visit to the upmarket Maponya Mall,” she writes, “This could be a scene from the upmarket shopping centers in the wealthy northern suburbs of Johannesburg or the USA, except the majority of people at Maponya Mall are Black.”

In contrast to the nouveau riche consumerism at Maponya Mall, Bieber also photographed the Nomzamo Park Informal Settlement in Orlando East (Image 10). On the horizon, are the mural-covered towers of the now decommissioned Orlando Power Station; a plant that under apartheid provided energy for the suburbs but not for Soweto.

During apartheid, Sowetans countered their sometimes brutal marginalization with the grassroots cultivation of art, music, dance and politics of social justice. “The importance of Soweto in the collective consciousness is hard to overstate,” writes Jacana Media, Soweto’s publisher, “It registers as a place born of resistance, perhaps even embodying the South African struggle for freedom.”

Bieber’s images deliver surprise and lively contradiction; they give the impression Sowetans are shaped, but not burdened by, the township’s history. Bieber photographed alternative-rock band Ree-Buurth, ate with counterculture vegetarians and hung out at The Soul Seekers Biking Club (Image 11).

“The people I chose to photograph all had something special that drew me to them,” writes Bieber, “It was not something academic or something that one could research. It was a spontaneous feeling I had because of the person’s character or the individualism they projected.”

Bieber was an unexpected visitor in most cases and in many ways her presence — even before publication of her photographs — was breaking down barriers. White South Africans are a rarity along the streets and sidewalks of Soweto. “Throughout my time in Soweto, nearly every single person I met asked me which country I was from. No one could believe I was South African,” rues Bieber, “People told me only tourists come to Soweto. That made me a bit sad.”

All images © Jodi Bieber and INSTITUTE, from the book SOWETO by Jodi Bieber/INSTITUTE published by Jacana Media in partnership with the Goethe Institute (ISBN 978-1-7709-806-0)

Authors: Pete Brook

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