Commute my second body of work set in South Africa explores multiple themes; fear, xenophobia, fate, issues such as crime, urban decay, the existence of the individual in an 'unpredictable & unsafe' world.

The work intends to tussle with both literal and figurative notions of fear through objective and subjective record of place. That place for the purpose of the narrative of this collection of photographs, is the commuter railway journey from Cape Town's city central station to the quaint coastal enclave of Simon's Town.

This is not a random selection of one route over the many routes which the state run Metro Rail runs across peninsular Cape Town. Or to neglect the countless other city commuter rail services globally that cut through diverse social, ethnological & geographical zones and could be treated with equal consideration! I choose this route because in contemporary South African terms it has been regarded as a heaven and hell experience. Scenic yet dangerous. Violent crime on and off the train has been and continues to plague the route.

There are certainly social and political inferences built into it's very essence, but I don't dwell on the complexities of them here. Possibly subliminally though I do gather referrals from another period in South Africa's history.  That of the 1980's, apartheid and the 'old' South Africa.  Certainly there continues to be much social comment that, under the authoritarian and draconian ways of the apartheid regime, this very same commute was clean, orderly and safe.

Certainly the seed from which this work germinated was a flashback to riding this line during summer of 1985. Recalling the fresh south easterly wind off table bay wafting through the window......

(fore more reading, click STATEMENT above