Saturday, March 18, 2023

Long division

Like his compatriot Ernest Cole, Steve Bloom set out to use his camera to change perceptions of South Africa. As he explains in this piece for the Guardian, his images exposed the abhorrent cruelty of apartheid to the wider world, and meant that he had to remain in exile for more than 13 years until its abolition in the early 1990s.

Not that Bloom is under any illusions that that historic political and legal development brought an end to racial inequality in the country, however: "There's a resonance when people realise that such social and economic differences are still present 45 years later." He sees his pictures as serving a vital function: "They act as a poignant reminder of why history must never be buried or forgotten and how we need to be constantly reminded of such injustices to help prevent them from happening again."

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