Garth Walker
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iJusi: issue #33 Durban A sideways look at the city we call home Late 2018
iJusi: Celebrating 24 Years: 1995-2018 PUBLISHER’S NOTES: In the mid-1970s I arrived in Durban to start graphic design at the then Technikon Natal. Being Johannesburg-born and bred, Durban was quite a shock, not least the climate. At art school in 1976 came the Soweto Uprising and the National Liberation Struggle. A few years later, the resulting economic and social fallout triggered the virtual collapse of Durban as South Africa’s creative centre - and in the 70s it truly was - never to be regained. That said, thanks to iJusi, I’ve now been to most cities on the planet, and hold the view that Durban is probably the most ‘creative’ (dreadful word that) city I have known. Anywhere. An online search on Durban as a destination shows endless websites claiming Durban to be ‘The Warmest Place to Be’, or ‘Durban: Enchanted Pleasure-Palace, Africa’s bewitching seaside playground in the sun’... We who actually live here know this to be complete crap. Durban’s secret is it has no idea what it is - or wants to be. Therein lies its charm. Included here is a selection of Durban Stuff I’ve collected over the years (plus some fellow Durban Lovers’ stuff) which showcases the real Durban. The unknown, unfamiliar, quirky, odd, bizarre or plain weird. And the reason why, after forty-four years, I still call this home. CONTRIBUTORS: Suzy Bell, Louise Duys, Arthur Gammage, Roger Jardine, Steve Kotze, Wilhelm Krüger, Travis Lyle, Ross Makepeace, Jo Rushby, Louis Trichard, Marius van Rooy, Brode Vosloo and Ian Wolstenholme.
Published roughly once a year – now 33 issues over 24 years – iJusi aims to explore personal stories by South African graphic designers, writers and photographers, around the idea of ‘what makes me African – and what does that look like?’ www.ijusi.com COPYRIGHT © iJusi 2018 Reproduction in whole or in part of any contents of iJusi without prior written permission from the publisher is strictly prohibited. The publisher accepts no responsibility for content submitted by contributors. Published by Mister Walker | Durban | South Africa garth@misterwalker.net
Front Cover: BRING BACK LOST LOVER A4 street-pole flyer. 2017 Back Cover: Untitled Dried baboon hands used for traditional medicine (muthi) on display at a vendor (inyanga) outside the Victoria Street Market, Durban. 1999. Photograph by Brode Vosloo.
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Beige Hilton Weiner Chinos Days were dark, friends were few, freaks were rare and weird was even scarcer. Back then in the bad old days, in a country that had only 4 TV channels, 6 newspapers and a handful of radio stations – 90% of these media channels run or censored by the state – weird was very far off the chart. If you wanted anything that wasn’t dead-straight mainstream, you had to get off your ass and make it happen, because everything was either watered down and bloodless, or hiding deep in the shadows. Long hair was considered weird. Smoking dagga, whoa – that was considered so weird that you could be arrested just for smelling of it. Dressing in anything other than ‘normal’? You’d stand out like a very weird sore thumb. And sure, the freaks did (occasionally, sporadically, skittishly) come out. They came out to play, where Helge Janssen held sway with his rare-as-rooster-tit imported vinyls at the Community Arts Workshop, and also of course at the early days of 3-30. Weirdness was right at home there: men in dresses, butch girls with buzz cuts, drag divas on leopard-print barstools and freaky dancers all found a home far down the dodgiest street in the city. But in the harsh light of day freaks kept their heads down and flew their flags quite low if they were smart – because weirdness had to live out of the spotlight and under cover of the night.
So if you were weird, and you wanted to find your people, you had to actually build it - or else it wouldn’t exist. Right up until 1993, shortly before democracy thankfully and finally came crashing down around our sheltered yet grateful ears, Durban steadfastly remained about as weird as a pair of beige Hilton Weiner chinos. But things changed quite rapidly then, and the change was most notable in the nightlife scene.
Around 1993, and to a significant extent the result of a deluge of pure ecstasy tablets straight outta Amsterdam, the spaces within which weirdness in musical taste, or dress sense, suddenly began to expand. At that time there were about 10 hotspots in central Durban that were the hot shit on any given month-end Friday night, and of those, eight played a mix of very straight Top 40 playlist hits. The outliers were 3-30, and The Rift - the only joints where you could regularly hear wonderful weirdness like Kraftwerk, The B52’s and Nina Hagen. All of which were most definitely considered ‘weird’ at that time. Only in places like those, where the fragments of a scene were pulled together through the sheer gravity of great music that you couldn’t hear anywhere else, could you find well-adjusted weirdos of all colours and kinds jiving side by side. By the end of ‘94, the mix of clubs had completely pivoted: of those 10 venues, 9 now played house music, and with that welcomed a whole new crop of weirdos into spaces that had for the longest time been reserved for straight-laced behaviour and tastes. It was a strange place back then. Strange in the Stepford Wives way: people lived quiet happy lives, but the shadows were deep and held some fucking dark demons. Late at night the whole of the beachfront boulevard used to be completely deserted. The same went for the middle of town: after hours – and because at that time there were few residential buildings in the centre of town – it was a dead zone. At night a kid like myself could walk all the way from Morningside to North Beach (and back) and hardly see another person, anywhere. Well, apart from cop cars. That was weird – and the reason was apartheid. Travis Lyle Cape Town
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Garth Walker
32 Dalton Avenue, Bellair, Durban. Thursday, December 9, 2010. After midnight on January 8, 1978, university academic and anti-apartheid activist Richard (Rick) Albert Turner was shot and killed by a single bullet through the burglar guards of his daughter’s open bedroom window - after he had gone to investigate a noise coming from the veranda. He died in the arms of 13-year old Jann Turner, who, together with her sister Kim, was visiting her father at the time. After a number of months, police investigators turned up no clues, and his killer has never been identified. However, it is widely believed that he was murdered by the apartheid security police. Jann Turner (born 1964) is a South African film director, novelist, television director and screenwriter. Her feature film directorial debut was White Wedding in 2009. In 1989 she began the search for her father’s killer/s when living in New York. Jann covers the story in some detail in an article published in the UK’s Independent on Sunday on November 9, 1997, and in the South African Mail & Guardian for the week of August 29 to September 4, 1997. Highly recommended. https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/who-shot-my-dad-jann-turner
Garth Walker
The Old Fort, KE Masinga Road, Durban. Tuesday, August 2, 2011. In the middle of Durban’s government precinct a small park filled with massive African fig trees and a jungle-like garden is all that remains of the original British military camp. Dutch-speaking pioneers known as Voortrekkers established the short-lived Boer Republic of Natalia in 1839, with its capital at Pietermaritzburg, shortly after the Battle of Blood River. The area was allegedly ceded by the Zulu king Dingane kaSenzangakhona to Piet Retief and his party in 1838, and stretched from the Tugela River to Pondoland in the south. In 1842, ongoing tensions between the Voortrekkers and the Zulu kingdom prompted the governor of the Cape Colony to dispatch a force under Captain Thomas Charlton Smith to establish British rule in Natal, for fear of losing control at Port Natal. The force arrived at Port Natal on May 4, 1842, and built a fortification that was later to be known as The Old Fort. At midnight on May 23, 1842, the British attacked a well-defended Voortrekker camp at Congella hoping to surprise the Boers who were awaiting reinforcements. The attack failed dismally, and Captain Smith lost many of his men. The remaining 263 redcoats were forced to retreat to their camp which was then besieged by the Boers. A British trader at the port, Dick King and his 16-year-old groom Ndongeni kaXoki, set out on an epic 960km ride to the nearest army base at Grahamstown on the Cape Frontier, to raise reinforcements, which arrived by sea a month later to relieve Captain Smith. The Old Fort is therefore best known for the departure of King and Ndongeni on their heroic 10-day ride for help. Today the leafy bushes provide a different sort of cover, for a different kind of ride, but dick is still involved.
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Roger Jardine
Nursing accommodation, Addington Hospital, South Beach, Durban. Thursday, March 30, 2017. Durban’s first functioning hospital was situated on the Victoria Embankment, known as the Bayside Hospital. In 1859 the foundation was laid, and the building was completed in 1861. In 1879 the hospital was moved to the Point and later taken over by the military. The new Natal Government Hospital was built on the present site, named after Rt. Hon. Henry Addington who held the post of Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1801-1804. The hospital was open to people of all races and the nursing staff were mostly Indian men. The first female nurses were introduced in 1888. The hospital expanded during the following years with a separate children’s hospital adjacent to the site being built in 1931. In 1935 a surgical block with operating theatres was opened, but there was little further development until the 1960s. From 1936 onwards, only white and coloured patients were admitted, with Africans and Indians being referred to King Edward VIII Hospital. The main hospital block as depicted in the photographic mural above, comprised 16 storeys of wards, administration and specialist departments, and was officially opened on November 10, 1967. More recently, state hospitals have experienced difficulties in providing for the less fortunate who are unable to afford private health care. In 2001 there was talk that substantial sections of the hospital would be sold to commercial developers as part of the Health Department’s rationalisation process - and Durban’s unicity vision for an integrated plan for the whole beachfront - including Addington. Currently there are media reports of critical staff and equipment shortages, underpinned by unqualified staff‚ unfilled posts and untenable working conditions.
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Garth Walker
SHOE REPAIRS HERE. Durban Railway Station Taxi Rank, Umgeni Road. Pre 1994. Beginning in the late 1980s I started documenting vernacular graphic design on the streets and townships around South Africa. This was triggered by my interest in the idea of ‘what makes me African - and what does that look like?’ Subjects included typography and signage, graphics, gravestones, burglar guards and security gates, brickwork, architecture and built structures, domestic residences and interiors... basically anything of interest visually. In the early 90s, Durban experienced a huge influx of people in search af a better life in the city, a result of the relaxtion or abolition of apartheid-era controls. This led to an explosion of street traders and the creation of vendor signage, first seen in the form of painted banners for hair salons, which flourished on Durban’s CBD pavements and taxi ranks. Driving past the Durban Station one morning, I spotted this sign attached to a steel refuse bin in the middle of the adjacent bus rank. Nearby was a shopping cart containing shoes for repair, along with the relevant tools, glues, leather bits, and so on. But no shoe repairer in sight. The associated hand-drawn sign was a revelation and, to my eye, a remarkably sophisticated example of vernacular typography. I snapped a quick photo. Later, when reviewing my print back from the lab, my seduction was complete. SHOE REPAIRS HERE was the very start of my journey into a personal graphic style that led eventually to my publishing ‘all this stuff’ as iJusi. In 2000 Brode Vosloo, a designer in my then studio Orange Juice Design, drew a six-font SHOE REPAIRS family - including variations - which is still available online today. Garth Walker
Garth Walker
Airbrushed Bus Livery, Warwick Junction Bus Rank, Durban. Tuesday, September 23, 2014. For almost a century, Durban’s privately owned Indian bus transit industry has provided commuters of all races with a reliable bus service covering the greater Durban area - and on some routes, further afield. Beginning in the 1950s, bus owners customised their vehicles with interesting names like Dehals Starline Cruiser, or Tuff 2 Chase - all hand painted by scores of local signwriters. Then there’s the colourful hand-painted graphics and spectacular typography running along the buses’ sides and rear. Indian buses are decorated with immense pride; the cabin dashboard often displaying Hindu deities or religious iconography which offers spiritual comfort to passengers on their daily commute. Floral garlands dangle above the driver, seats covered in shiny vinyl or fake fur, and music blaring from multiple speakers. Many passengers will only board a particular bus at a particular time to ensure ‘a higher power is looking out for them’. Sadly, with the recent rise of digital printing and vinyl wrapping, many buses no longer carry hand-painted livery. However, all is not lost, as a number of the newest buses now display world-class graphics, airbrushed by hand. I’ve yet to find the artists, but most graphics I’ve seen appear to be by the same highly skilled painter. One artist’s name I have found is R Arieff, who advertises a mobile number. One day I’ll give him a call... Garth Walker
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Garth Walker
Made in China packaging, Warwick Junction, 2004. Warwick Junction is South Africa’s largest transportation and trading hub, with around 40 000 vehicles and 500 000 people passing through daily. Located on the outskirts of Durban’s CBD, the Meat, Early Morning, Victoria Street and English markets are home to an estimated 8 000 traders offering an eclectic range of traditional African herbs and medicine, artisanal goods, fresh produce and a large selection of Indian products. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warwick_Junction,_Durban
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A5 folded flyers, Denis Hurley Street Taxi Rank, 2016
Garth Walker
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A5 folded flyers, Denis Hurley Street Taxi Rank, 2016
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Garth Walker
Sunday traders, Greyville Car Boot Fleamarket, Durban. Sunday, August 14, 2005. The Greyville Car Boot Fleamarket is Durban’s longest-running market, started by Myron Strieman and his mother in 1992. Situated adjacent to the Greyville Racecourse, the Sunday’s-only market is the largest in Durban, selling used household goods and second-hand clothing. One can literally find anything imaginable if one is patient and visits regularly. Not least, the market is a mecca for street photographers, as the patrons are as interesting and unusual as the goods on offer.
Garth Walker
Two young Zulu men. Bobson Studio, Cross Street, Durban. 1970s. Sukdeo ‘Bobby’ Bobson Mohanlall opened his photographic studio in Cross Street in 1961. Unlike many African studio photographers, Bobby embraced the change to colour film in the seventies, and later specialised in hand-tinting black-and-white photographs. Throughout the 60s and 70s the Bobson Studio was Durban’s most famous portrait studio, known countrywide, and open seven days a week. Patrons, mostly young men, brought with them their own traditional dress, beads and accessories, to be photographed against a changeable studio backdrop. The postcard-size prints served as a keepsake or memento for family back home. Tragically, in January 2003 Mohanlall was shot dead in the studio where he had laboured for more than forty years, by two gun-toting youths who escaped with R40 in cash and some camera equipment. They were later apprehended sitting nearby, drinking Coca-Cola bought with the stolen money.
Bobson Studio display window on Cross Street, showcasing studio portraits, ca. 2000. Two Young Zulu Men, above, formed part of the Towards Transit, New Visual Languages in South Africa exhibition in Zurich, Switzerland, August 28 to September 25, 1999. The multidisciplinary exhibition was hosted by Pro Helvetia, Arts Council of Switzerland. Bobson Studio and iJusi were among the invited artists. Garth Walker
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We’re rough and we’re tough, and we’re from the Bluff We were in Durban Harbour and the tide was still out. Our feet squelched through the thick mud. There was a rotten smell of dead fish and sewage, but this was our new garden across the road from our new home, John Ross House. No foul stench would stop us exploring and having fun. My brother Simon and I clambered over broken tins, fishing hooks and fishing gut wound around a stinking dead seagull until we came across a little wooden boat half-submerged in water. We spent the day digging out a black hump that wouldn’t budge. After two hours of sheer determination in the scorching January heat, it finally loosened. When we pulled the boat up on to the mud, Simon scratched his name on the side using the lid of an old tin can. We found some rope and used a long piece of plank as a paddle. We dragged the boat, still heavy with its bottom loaded down with wet mud. We scooped it out by the water’s edge. Simon made me get in first to see if it would sink. His gangly, long legs slowly pushed us away from the bank. He hopped in gingerly.
We drifted off into the bay with that feeling of starting a new life. We got so carried away we landed up on the other side of the harbour beneath a massive ship called Mercy Lover, so close we felt we could reach out and touch her.
We found ourselves beaming stupidly at one another. We looked back toward Durban, our new city, and John Ross House, our new home, another massive block of apartments. It looked like there was a space ship revolving on its 24th floor.
Locals joked it was the ‘Revolting Restaurant’. Its real name was the Revolving Restaurant. It’s where old fogies celebrated their golden anniversaries and their children celebrated glitzy 21sts, their weddings and then probably their divorces. It’s where the Italian restaurant owner, with his snake-skin shoes, greeted you with aplomb. If it was your birthday he personally presented you, together with the staff of Indian waiters, a polystyrene board with your name in gold glitter carved into it. There was a bronze statue downstairs of John Ross, a boy on a horse. Across the road on the other side of Victoria Embankment, separating us and the Indian Ocean was the Vasco da Gama clock in soft lilac colours, like Zoo biscuits. “We’re living in Durban with a garden full of ships,” I excitedly told Dad when he called. “When are you coming to visit?”
Soon, he promised, and he had a present for us. It was Simon who managed to get it out of him. He’d bought us a pair of binoculars! It was so we could see his ship when it came in. We kept a logbook of every ship that docked. Each day Simon and I took turns in the early mornings scanning the horizon. I imagined it would have Dad’s name on it, like he’d ordered the ship through Reader’s Digest or something. Staring at the ships in the Indian Ocean, in the distance, there was a long green band of beautiful dark green forest. It was called the Bluff. We’re rough and tough and we’re from the Bluff… I could hear the boys from across the water sing.
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Lazing in the bay in our new boat now getting closer to the Bluff, we wondered if Mum could see us. Was she smoking her Cameo Lights out the window wearing her worry face, cursing Dad? Or was she wearing her happy face daydreaming about buying a new summer dress from The Hub? My pants felt wet. The boat was taking in water. Simon frantically paddled us back to shore. We were frightened we’d have to swim. I could barely do doggy-paddle and I’d never seen Simon swim.
We weren’t like proper swimmers who bravely dunked their faces under water. Our romantic excuse was we grew up in the mountains of Bulwer, Underberg and Ixopo where you sat under waterfalls to cool down, skinny-dipped in shallow streams, waded kneeheight across rivers, or swam in the shallow-end of swimming pools. Swimming lessons were for the rich. Simon grabbed my hand, “Jump!” he shouted, and we jumped into the warm gravybrown sea.
We were so anxious to get to shore we never even looked back. The dirty harbour water was known for its sharks. I could barely stand with the water coming up to my chin. Simon, tall like Mum, bravely dragged me back to shore, breathing heavily. I was terrified he would have an asthma attack. He stopped at one stage, 30 metres from the shore, his chest heaving, trying to catch his breath. I kept thinking of the movie Jaws and squirmed at the thought of my jelly-fish slippery white legs being snapped off and dragged down under any second.
Simon recovered, and next minute we were lying spread out like a starfish from Gericke’s Point, in wet clothes, on the soft, squelchy mud, squinting into the glaring sun. It was the best day of my life. Just me and my brother. That night, sunburnt, we proudly pencilled Mercy Lover into our shipping logbook.
It was the first time we had hung out. It felt like I had a brother at last. Simon, like Dad, was not always around. Like Dad, he kept leaving then returning, leaving then returning, like Durban’s tide. Suzy Bell Los Angeles, California
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Roger Jardine
Boltha (Rubberman) Ntuli, Durban Beachfront, Tuesday, October 28, 2008. ‘Rubberman’ is a longstanding street performer and contortionist, most often seen at weekends on the beachfront promenade, where he stages ‘shows for donations’ for whoever happens to be on the promenade at the time. Rubberman appears to have a large, extended, and ever-changing family of fellow contortionists, who participate alongside him in his acts. Usually girls ranging in age from about four or five years old to mid-teens, and the occasional small boy - all of whom have a slightly bored expression as they clamber on to one another to assemble a human pyramid. Or, like this portrait, contort arms and legs into impossible positions, to the delight of the crowd. Rubberman has been performing most weekends year-round for at least a decade, and he’s still at it in 2018.
Garth Walker
Beachgoer, Addington Beach, Durban. Sunday, December 31, 2006. Durban’s beaches are well known for their overcrowding on public holidays - particularly over the Easter, Christmas and New Year holidays. This hursuit bather enjoying the sun avoided the crowds by swimming during the day on December 31. By contrast, over Christmas 2017, nearly 1.7 million people descended on Durban’s beachfront over what the eThekwini Municipality describes as a “fun-filled and incident-free Christmas weekend”. These are some of the numbers from December 23 to 25, 2017, as reported in the Sunday Times: 1 686 174 people visited the various beaches on eThekwini’s 101km stretch of coastline. 13 785 identification wristbands handed out over the three days‚ containing details of parents/guardians. 1 905 people received first aid treatment‚ mostly for bluebottle stings and minor cuts. 172 arrests for drink driving by the city’s Metro Police. 154 lifeguards on duty. 64 children separated from their guardians; all were reunited safely. 11 rescues carried out by lifeguards. 2 arrests made at the beachfront for cellphone and handbag theft. 0 drownings.
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Ross Makepeace
High and Homeless in Durban. Durban has a growing social problem relating to the so-called ‘whoonga’ drug addicts; homeless youths, generally male, most of whom are living in the city’s parks or under freeway viaducts. Assumed to be foreign nationals, research has shown many are local to Durban. Whoonga is a drug cocktail, the principal active ingredient being heroin, and is often smoked with cannabis. The drug is widely available, relatively cheap to buy, and users suffer unpleasant side-effects. Once addicted, it is near impossible to seek help, and the cycle continues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoonga https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-08-13-whoonga-durban-municipality-needs-to-put-its-money-where-its-mouth-is/
Garth Walker
Ntombenhle Hlophe at her stall, Bovine Head Cookers’ Market, Warwick Junction, Durban. Wednesday, November 15, 2006. Beef head-meat, called inhloko, is considered a great delicacy of Zulu cuisine. Traditionally only prepared and eaten by men, the meat of cattle cheeks is prized among Zulu connoisseurs for its tenderness and rich fatty flavours. An urban market such as Warwick Junction allows access to the bulk meat trade stemming from local abattoirs, where cattle heads are sold whole and affordably, as they are considered offal. A long row of frozen heads defrosting in the roadside sun provides an attention-grabbing sight for anyone seeing this for the first time. Cooking inhloko is no longer seen as a male-only domain and the majority of people who work in the Bovine Head Market are now women. On the day this portrait was taken, Ntombenhle Hlophe had been preparing and cooking heads for more than four decades. Steve Kotze
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