True West
Publisher : Editions Clémentine de la Féronnière
Release Date : 11/2019
ISBN : 1096575132
Book Size : 22 x 24 cm
Language : French / English
152 pages
In 2004, Anne Rearick went to meet the Xhosas, a black population living in two townships in Cape Town. For more than ten years, she returned regularly, particularly in the township of Langa, where she forged strong and intimate ties with its inhabitants. It took so many years to understand the reality of this South African society: at the beginning, Anne Rearick felt the hope that followed the end of Apartheid. 20 years later, the society was disillusioned, a victim of economic segregation. Violence, murder, alcoholism and disease are the daily life of the township… Yet her photographs show us something completely different: they extract the beauty of everyday life. In modesty and poetry, Anne Rearick testifies.
This work was exhibited at Visa pour l’Image in Perpignan in 2014 and received the Roger Pic (SCAM) prize on this occasion. The press and the public were overwhelmed by these images and this book is therefore much awaited.
“Turning her back on sensationalism, the photographer prefers to observe the dignity of the poor, from the serene face of a child, the head on the thighs of a woman who is doing his hair, to the laying of the foundation stone of a house, through all the events that punctuate the daily life of a community: baptism, burial … and marriage included.”