The Matric Queens of the Cape Flats
I think, dear Hatpeople, that this is one of those posts where just a few words will do.
Here’s a few words: dignity, beauty, aspirations, achievement, SouthAfricanness.
Photograph: Araminta de Clermont
This is an image from Araminta’s Before Life exhibition, a sumptuous celebration of young women from the Cape Flats achieving what their parents and grandparents rarely had the opportunity to do… pass matric. And doing it in remarkable style. Courtesy of Araminta de Clermont, the Joao Ferreira Gallery in Cape Town and News24, please enjoy a slideshow of this extraordinary work… click here.
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Sep 09, 2009 @ 17:40:49
Stunning pics – really well done, and beautiful girls (and brave guys!) but it does leave me wondering about the matric dance, and the pressure that is put on these girls and their families to spend an absolute fortune – on the dress, the hair, the makeup, the shoes, the limo, the whole image – just for one night, usually in the school hall, with the same people you’ve been seeing every day for the past many years. I understand the celebration and the dressing up, but it seems that people are expected to go waaaayy beyond their means for this. Does this leave room for the girl who makes her own dress, borrows shoes and jewellery, does her own hair and makeup and gets dropped off by her parents or partner’s parents?
But still, incredible images indeed, even from my soap box.
Sep 09, 2009 @ 21:52:28
Me again… thinking more, and maybe I’m being silly – maybe the matric dance does mean so much more to these girls – for whom it has not always just been a given that they will get to/through matric. Maybe they have every right to splash out on this occasion, because it is such a huge achievement… something “their parents and grandparents rarely had the opportunity to do”.
Still thinking…
Sep 09, 2009 @ 21:55:36
@Luna You make a good point about the pressure to spend. But I suspect – and I really don’t know – that the opportunity to rise above the mundaneness of the reality of life on the Cape Flats, and the attendant poverty, is attractive. It’s a chance to shine and feel good in an otherwise quite dreary life. The juxtaposition between the for-one-night-only glamour of the matrics and their very rudimentary environment is very powerful. And there is still a sadness, don’t you think, in Araminta’s amazing portraits?
Sep 09, 2009 @ 22:01:39
@Luna (2) I completely agree with that. For many it probably represents one of the apexes of life achievement, right up there with marriage and bearing a child. But, honestly, it is a culture quite alien to me… and I simply don’t know!
Sep 09, 2009 @ 23:25:48
Really really stunning!
How you been keeping mate?
Sep 10, 2009 @ 07:49:27
I’m very good, Chris. Love this blogging gig. Just wish it had been around 162 years ago when I went into snoozepapers!
How’s life on Planet Imod?