Durban - Durban-born photographer and journalist Daylin Paul has come home to launch his first exhibition, Broken Land.
The exhibition at the city’s KZNSA Gallery and book features his searing photographs documenting the true cost of South Africa’s addition to coal in the mines and power stations of Mpumalanga, and their devastating and lasting impact on the environment, and the health of local people.
The winner of South Africa’s
top photographic award, the Ernest Cole Award in 2017, Paul describes how he was awakened to the pollution crisis.
“When you mention Mpumalanga most people think of fly fishing at Dullstroom or Kruger,” he said. “But I was staying on a job at Secunda and I couldn’t believe how bad it was. I couldn’t sleep that night and opened the curtain and looked out at a mine dump. It was like the Eye of Sauron, real The Lord of the Rings stuff.”
The former Westville Boys’ High School pupil spent two years exploring the effects on the community.
“Vast tracts of fertile, arable land are being ripped up, the landscape scarred with the black pits of coal mines while coal burning power stations are one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the world.
“It’s poisoning the air, poisoning the water sources, the dust. I decided to explore what it was like to live (like) this.”
For Paul, 34, the exhibition is also something of a homecoming.
It was an opportunity to visit the Chatsworth of his youth and a city he left 17 years ago. He studied journalism at Rhodes University, before a stint at the Daily Voice in Cape Town.
He spent five years in Asia “partly to pay off his student loan”, while teaching English. “I bought a film camera and got a job in South Korea. I saw a different way of living life.”
He also spent two years in northern Thailand working and photographing for an NGO, before “mom begged me to come home”.
He soon found himself in Johannesburg. “I hated the idea of the big smoke, but couldn’t find work anywhere else.”
He witnessed first-hand the xenophobia in Jeppestown in 2015, shooting pictures for whoever would buy them. It’s a topic close to his heart and the current situation in Johannesburg clearly worries him.
A series of freelance jobs with mining reporter Lucky Biyase, to whom he has dedicated the book, saw him increasingly reporting in Mpumalanga. “The scale of destruction in Mpumalanga is whole scale. It is difficult to get a sense of how vast the torn-up landscape is. It’s easy to forget that this affects human beings whose stories are even more beautiful and tragic than the landscape that mirrors their lives.
“People are dying so we can charge our phones and watch football on a Saturday afternoon.”
Paul was touched by how individuals in the mining communities shared their stories.
It would often start in the local taverns over a quart of Milk Stout.
“I spent countless hours driving around Mpumalanga, stopping, and starting a conversation. I’m still amazed at how willing people were to share their lives and the trust they placed in me.”
Paul shot the images in black and white because he liked the immediacy. “It demands your attention because it’s a document.
“Look at Picasso’s Guernica, which was so effective in illustrating the Spanish Civil War at the advent of photojournalism. It’s about composition and textures. Besides, these are not beautiful pink and purple sunsets, it’s f*****g benzene.”
For future projects, Paul would like to look at Chatsworth.
“I went to India last year and was struck by how totally different we
are in Chatsworth, and that it’s uniquely African.”
The exhibition is at the KZNSA Gallery until September 22, after which it will travel to Johannesburg and Cape Town.