Skip to content
Graeme Williams Logo
  • Home
  • About
    • My Story
    • Mentor Program
    • Key Notes
    • Links
    • CV
  • Personal projects
    • A city refracted
    • Over Time
    • The Edge of Town
    • Painting over the Present
    • Marking Time
    • As the grass grows
    • Never, Again
    • Scratching the surface
    • Objects of Reimiscence
    • The Last Chief
    • The Struggle for Democracy – 1989 to 1994
    • Diverging Dreamlines (USA)
    • The Inner City
    • Two dogs
  • Portfolios
    • Aid organizations
    • Architecture
    • Industrial
    • Informal
    • Portraiture
    • Reportage
  • Publications
  • Contact
  • FB
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
Personal projectsrasada2014-01-22T18:14:46+00:00

  • Personal projects »
  • Over Time
Kempton Park. Johannesburg.The Emperors Palace Casino and Chariots Entertainment World complex was built on the site where the CODESA (Convention for a Democratic South Africa) negotiations were held. Left: 1991. Nelson Mandela speaks at the CODESA negotiations.Right: 2012. A statue of Augustus Caesar riding a chariot greets visitors at the entrance to the Emperors Palace Casino and Chariots Entertainment World.
The Sam Ntuli Sports Stadium, Thokoza, east of Johannesburg.Left: 1991. Youths taunt the police during an ANC political rally at the Sam Ntuli Sports Stadium.Right: 2012. A mural at the Thokoza Memorial, that was built alongside the stadium. The memorial houses a plaque naming the 688 people who died in Thokoza during the violence of the early 1990s.
PSP06
Mmabatho, Mafekeng, Bophuthatswana Homeland.Left 1994. Linny Moeng is taken to hospital after being shot by a right-wing supporter. She died later in the afternoon. The right-wing groups had attempted to stage a coup in the South African homeland in order to resist the process of political change in the country. Three young right-wingers saw me photographing the middle-aged man as he shot Linny with a hunting rifle. They beat me up and took my cameras and film. At one point during the assault a shotgun was forced into my mouth. An older person walked passed and said in Afrikaans, ‘Don’t shoot them, just beat them up.’Right: 2012. Rose Sebolecwe stands in her house, formerly occupied by Linny Moeng who was her friend and neighbour.
Alexandra, Johannesburg. Left 1992. The body of a man is covered by newspapers after being found in the road after a night of violence between supporters of the ANC (African National Congress) and members of the IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party), living in the nearby hostel. Right: 2013. Bachazile Ximba, now 64 years old, still lives in a shack near the site of the earlier killing. She remembers seeing the body, but says that since that time crime has become the major problem in the area. Last year a body was dumped outside her shack. She says that the criminals removed the victim’s teeth and eyes, in order to avoid identification.
PSP11
Welkom. A large percentage of AWB members were recruited from the poorer sections of small town, urban, white communities. In the post apartheid era, the same areas became the first to be racially integrated due to the affordable property prices. These images were made in the same suburb of Welkom.Left: 1990. AWB members line the route of a right-wing march through the suburbs of the conservative, mining town. Right: 2012. Lenka Lenka is the owner of a home in a previously whites-only suburb. When I showed him the old photograph he said, ‘Those guys are very quiet now. Some of my neighbors are white and we get along fine.’
PSP15
Durban. North beach.Left: 1989. All races are allowed to swim together for the first time in Durban as the race laws are finally lifted.  Right: 2012. Young girls from a nearby township look down at a sand sculpture depicting a sunbathing woman.
PSP16
Phola Park, east of Johannesburg. This informal settlement in the early nineties was an easy target for attack by hostel dwellers, due to the high density of shacks and the absence of established community structures.  Left: 1990. Residents of the informal settlement gather with weapons as they prepare to march on the nearby hostel. The ANC-supporting settlement was attacked the previous night by Inkatha members from the hostel. Right: 2012. State-built RDP houses have replaced the haphazard shack settlement.
The Voortrekker monument, Pretoria.Left: 1993. As part of the Day of the Vow celebrations, women and children re-enact the Voortrekkers’ victory cover the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River. A large crowd amassed below the Voortrekker monument to commemorate the occasion. Right: 2012. Two exhibits at the Voortrekker monument.
Currie’s Fountain Sports stadium, Durban. Left: 1990. Adelaide Tambo, wife of ANC President, Oliver Tambo, greets the crowd at an ANC Women’s League rally. Right: 2012. Nolwazi Buthelezi waits for transport outside the stadium after attending lectures at the nearby Durban University of Technology. Many institutions of higher learning were restricted to white people during the apartheid era.
Pretoria.Left: 1990. Right-wing protesters gather in Church Square to voice their anger at the steps taken by F W de Klerk’s government to dismantle apartheid. Right: 2013. Felicia Shimoshili poses for a local portrait photographer at the foot of a bronze statue of a Boer soldier. Church Square is dominated by a plinth containing a statue of Boer leader Paul Kruger surrounded by four anonymous Boer citizen-soldiers. The square is a popular meeting place for black Pretoria residents. There are generally between 10 and 20 portrait photographers offering their services and the Boer statues have become one of the most chosen backdrops.  In the late 1990s there were complaints from Afrikaners that the statues were being neglected by the ANC-run municipality, however now, because of frequent usage, the green bronze surfaces have been polished to a golden brown.
Pretoria.Left: 1991. Farmers clash with police as they protest against the impact that political transformation will have on the white farming community.Right: 2012. Pretoria University student, Zain Shiba, leans on a tree directly opposite the site where the earlier picture was taken. He is studying Social Work in the hope of helping other people in his community.
Katlehong. The tavern photographed in the original image has been renovated into a modern, mini-shopping centre.Left: 1994. Members of the National Peacekeeping Force stand guard over the bodies of three young men who were shot dead outside a tavern. Right: 2012. Manicurist, Nombuso Ntuli, waits for customers at the Chosen Beauty Salon. She is a tenant at the mini-shopping centre, but has no knowledge of what had occurred at this site 18 years earlier.

Copyright ∞ Graeme Williams | All Rights Reserved
FacebookInstagramYouTube
Page load link
Go to Top