I live in a city (London) which is culturally diverse and has a very unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity, and I’ve had the opportunity to visit a good few ‘high contrast’ cities before. Cities like Jerusalem, Hong Kong, New York are all fascinatingly uneven and contested places, but none of them quite prepared me for Cape Town. The Mother City is the most contrasty, contradictory place I think I’ve been. For the most part, the well-to-do areas on the coast and on the foothills of Table Mountain combine breathtaking natural beauty, developed world opulence and a sensibility that is cued-in to current trends. Further inland, neighbourhoods in the Cape Flats are on a sliding scale that runs from modest homes that are properly hooked up to municipal utilities to self-constructed dwellings with corrugated metal walls and roofs, where running water and reliable electrical supply is not taken for granted.
This disparity is absolutely on show in the image above, where a small cluster of unofficial dwellings cluster in a former quarry just off Chiappini Street on the edge of Bo-Kaap. These houses are two blocks from a tall office building and directly underneath a house with a swimming pool at the top of the hill.
Regardless of the conditions in which they live, the vast majority of people were warm, frank and engaging. While I attempt to get my head around the experience of the last two weeks, here are some stills I shot from the rooftop terrace of the hotel bar. These are the arm’s length touristy shots that are the opposite end of the spectrum of filming I went there to do.
Cape Town Bowl is the central business district, and has a lot of International-Style tall buildings interspersed with colonial Dutch and British architecture, and a good bit of Deco concrete, which looks great on bright, clear days.
Looking southwest towards the V&A Waterfront, a quasi-public space which is the most touristy part of town. It has a gentrified docklands feel to it, and is clearly designed to be a place where many of the more problematic aspects of Cape Town are kept at arm’s length by exclusionary urban design strategies and policing. Despite this, it is not a total Disneyland, which is a testament to the enduring spirit of the city.
Table Mountain is ever-present, no matter which neighbourhood you’re in.
Lion’s Head in the background. Bo-Kaap is the brightly painted neighbourhood in the middle ground.
With the Everyday Journeys documentaries I shot in Cape Town over the past fortnight, I have delved into the city at street-level and through the eyes of the people who live there. As I edit the footage I’m really looking forward to moving from a strategic overview of the city into a close-up lived experience of the people and place.
