The ruins of what is thought to be a 15th or 16th century pre-colonial village, Dithakong, North-West Province. 13 June 2003 (4_8886)

David Goldblatt
The ruins of what is thought to be a 15th or 16th century pre-colonial village, Dithakong, North-West Province. 13 June 2003 (4_8886), 2003
Digital Prints on 100% cotton rag paper

Driving across South Africa in a kitted-out campervan, Goldblatt describes the landscape as “deep, bland, vast and seemingly featureless.” He wrote that “precisely in these qualities is a presence that is difficult to hold or suggest in photographs. As soon as you try to bring what is before you into some sort of visual coherence, it eludes, it seems to move away. There seems no focal point, no way of coherently containing it. Often it is what I call a ‘fuck all’ landscape. Somehow one has to find ways of being true to what is there and yet bringing it fully to the page or print.” (Regarding Intersections, 2014).