BoKaap to BoKaroo is a project intended to record heritage structures and the environment in which they exist, specifically of what could be termed local vernacular. For this initial stage I have concentrated on this aspect, although it has been by no means the only focus. As it unfolds I will be including other subjects to broaden the scope. Click here to view my journey thus far. I have only attached simple descriptions to each photograph, preferring to let the images of the structures speak for themselves.
This project, like most of my work within heritage, has essentially been inspired by two photographers, and an architect, without whom we would not have some of the available references.
Thomas Daniel Ravenscroft started taking photographs in the late 1800s and in the first decade of the 20th century he was commissioned to take pictures in South Africa and (then) Rhodesia. He later opened a studio in Van Riebeeck Street, Malmesbury before moving to Hermanuspieterusfontein (Hermanus) in the 1930s, where he spent the remainder of his life.
Thomas Daniel Ravenscroft
Arthur Elliott left a legacy of some 10 000 photographs of the early 20th century Cape. Orphaned at the age of 12 he relocated to Scotland, then at 20 left for South Africa. He arrived in Cape Town from Johannesburg in 1900 as a war refugee, and lived at 134 Long Street. Elliott held major exhibitions in 1910, 1913, 1926, 1930 and 1938, which enabled him to make a living through sales. His reason to document has not in any way altered in the 21st century, and he was determined ‘to record as much as he was able of the old farmhouses, buildings and streets that were already rapidly disappearing with the ever-growing pressure to modernise’. The approach is even more relevant today.
Arthur Elliott
Whilst employed as an architect by Volkskas during the 1950s, Gabriel Fagan flew extensively over rural South Africa documenting many buildings, later published as a book called Brakdak. In essence he created another fundamental archive of vernacular styles.
Gawie Fagan (Freunde von Freunden)
I cannot deny my fascination for structures located in the various situations in South Africa. Much of the time I question what they represent. How and why anyone would have wanted to live in certain remote and distant circumstances: heat, cold, pests, lack of water, isolation. Maybe the cities were less stressful in this respect?
When I studied photography at Ruth Prowse School of Art under Ray Ryan, he loved to drag us out at dawn to photograph structures, mostly Cape Dutch vernacular. The light had to be right, creating form. He instilled in me the need to look at the subject, express what I saw and felt. It has stayed with me for a lifetime.
Chris Murphy - member APHP (candidate)
083 540 6131 / orchard@wcaccess.co.za / www.heritagechroniclesa.org / www.swartlandheritage.com
Bokaap Graffiti (Chris Murphy)
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