Ilan Godfrey’s Legacy of the Mine Launched at the Irma Stern Museum with Max Price

Price commented on how Godfrey’s lens focused on the indelible scars that mining has left: socially, environmentally and health-wise. He spoke passionately about the images that examine the impact mining has had on the landscape: “the beautiful landscapes poisoned by acid water, landscapes pitted with dangerous sinkholes threatening to swallow up houses and human beings, and landscapes spewing toxic dust that destroys the lungs of the children who play there.”
He noted the images of communities living nearby mines where workers scavenge for the last residues of gold. Godfrey had focused on communities and their habitats – the houses, shacks and rubbish dumps they inhabit. He also pictured the deserted ghost towns that were left in the wake of a closed mine: “the sad, desperate tiny communities that have nowhere to go after a mine closes”. Price highlighted the large number of Zimbabweans who feature in Godfrey’s images and, in particular, the fascinating photographs of the “Zama-zamas”. He said they are the people who enter the disused mine shafts illegally, living for up to six months underground in order to scavenge and extract a few grams of gold. They take enormous risks under desperate circumstances, often falling to their death in the disused shafts.
http://jacana.bookslive.co.za/blog/2013/08/26/ilan-godfreys-legacy-of-the-mine-launched-at-the-irma-stern-museum-with-max-price/