¶ Calvin and Holiday Script by Simon Gush
¶ My wife was in Paris, so I had a reason to go to Europe. She had been away for a few months for her work and I had just finished an exhibition, so it was a good time to visit and have a break before going back to my paid jobs in Johannesburg.
¶ It was a working holiday but, to others, it could have appeared not to be work as I stood in public spaces with my camera filming buildings, tourist sites and monuments, probably looking like an overzealous tourist. One woman did ask me if I was from the local news, but I think she just wanted to be on camera.
¶ Most of the Parisians had left the city by the time I arrived there in the hot summer month of August. Many had closed up shop and headed south for their holidays, with a healthy disregard for tourists visiting the city. My working holiday instead took me to Geneva to look for images and resonances of Jean Calvin. For many years, I’ve been interested in an aspect of Calvinism: the conception of a work ethic that is naturalised within most of South African society.
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