Photo exhibition: Durban, South Africa, UKZN Centre for Civil Society from August 1-September 3, 2008

Photographs by Oliver Meth, from the exhibition 'Breathing Spaces

Breathing Spaces exhibition can be viewed at UKZN Centre for Civil Society from 1 August - 3 September 2008.

About the Photographer

Oliver grew up and lives in Wentworth, Durban. From 2003 to 2005, he was a youth photographer for the Durban South Photography Project (DSPP), taking place in community photographic workshops and exhibitions held in Wentworth, Merebank and Lamontville. The DSPP culminated in the exhibition in the Durban Art Gallery, Breathing Spaces: Environmental Portraits of Durban's Industrial South, in 2007. Breathing Spaces will also tour to Cape Town in 2008.

About the Durban South Photography Project

The photographs formed part of the exhibition Breathing Spaces: Environmental Portraits of Durban's Industrial South, at the Durban Art Gallery in 2007, and which will open in Cape Town in February 2008.

Breathing Spaces exhibition can be viewed at UKZN Centre for Civil Society from 01 August - 03 September 2008.

It is a photographic exploration of three Durban neighborhoods – Wentworth, Merebank and Lamontville. The exhibition consists of photography by Oliver Meth from the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, taken from a larger collection of the Durban South Photography Project.

Durban's urban geography reflects race and class inequities that persist beyond apartheid. Wentworth, Merebank and Lamontville (formerly categorised under apartheid as 'coloured', Indian' and 'African') are located in the immediate vicinity of refineries and other industry. The area has been the centre of much controversy and activism about the levels of industrial pollution experienced by residents. The exhibition inquires into what it means to live in an environment still strongly structured by the geographies of apartheid city planning, by poverty and industrial pollution.

This is a photographic representation of lives in Durban's residential-industrial hinterland, a part of the city with rich local cultures and histories that have remained excluded from Durban's visual identity as a city. The exhibition explores how environmental injustice translates into day-to-day living and how people have made lives for themselves, also asking questions about gender and identity, and the experience of people from different generations.

Contact: Oliver Meth via e-mail metho@ukzn.ac.za