AMAPONDO

07.04.2015

Photographer, Christopher Rimmer’s latest work entitled Amapondo opens at the Jan Royce Gallery in Cape Town on 4 June, 2015.

Although the cow is holy in some cultures, it is predominantly a creature whose flesh we eat, whose skin we wear and whose bones we boil down to make glue. Yet, here is the same animal experiencing a certain joy at its own existence… meditating in the sun and breathing the salty breeze on the beach at Port St. Johns, the most dangerous beach on the planet!

Central to the series is its title, Amapondo, which means the people of the Mpondo or Pondo, the land of the Xhosa Kingdom. They are part of the Nguni peoples and the area is known as Pondoland, situated on the wild east coast of Mzansi. In naming the series, Rimmer wanted to evoke a ‘sense of place’.

Pondoland is a beautiful and rugged region. A maze of paths and rivers meander through lush valleys, dotted with traditional homesteads sustained by small-scale farming. The misty hills tumble down toward the coast where granite cliffs meet the ocean and ancient Milkwood Trees cling to the sand dunes. The pristine coastline at Second Beach forms the backdrop to Rimmer’s striking portraits.

But Port St. Johns is also infamous for being the most dangerous beach on the planet, the waves seemingly haunted after an unparalleled number of fatal shark attacks stunned the community (and the world) in the last decade. Ironically, it was the sharks that lead Rimmer to this project celebrating Second Beach’s less deadly inhabitants.

Rimmer was browsing a newspaper article about a fatal shark attack at Port St. Johns when he saw a regal bull in the background of one of the photographs: “The large bull was seemingly oblivious to all the drama going on around him and, whilst it wasn’t the focus of the story, I was immediately struck by the graphic power of the huge beast standing on the wet sand with the shimmering cobalt Indian Ocean forming a backdrop. It was unexpected, absurd even, but I also found the scene strangely moving at the same time.”

He later discovered that the striking Pondo cattle visit the beach every day, and have been doing so for a long time. Reports from shipwrecked sailors stranded on the Pondoland coast suggest they have been visiting this beach since at least the 16th Century… but no one is quite sure why.

In a series of twenty large scale portraits which possess an almost Zen like quality, Rimmer invites the viewer to reconsider this everyday beast in a new light and in doing so, perhaps forge a new emotional connection to an animal which has served mankind since time immemorial.

“When people see these animals in such an eccentric location, they are both amused and moved, particularly when they realise the scene is natural and hasn’t involved any digital trickery,” Rimmer says. “I spent a long time observing these animals and, as resistant as I am to anthropomorphising, I could come to no other conclusion than: the bulls visit the beach daily because they simply enjoy being there.”







*Amapondo opens on 4 June 2015 at Jan Royce Gallery, 64 Church Street, Cape Town. Visit www.janroycegallery.com for more info.

*Images © Christopher Rimmer