ISTD 2012 // It happened on this day
From the 2012 ISTD brief, I chose the topic 'It happened on this day'.
During the end of Apartheid in South Africa there occurred a hidden war in the Soweto hostels between the ANC voting Xhosas and the IFP voting Zulus. They murdered each other brutally within a blink of an eye. During these times the Bang Bang Club, a group of four photographers namely Joao Silva, Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbroek and Kevin Carter, came together to document this hidden war. I chose the photograph taken by Greg Marinovich on 15 September 1990. This photograph, Human Torch, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1991.
LindsayeTshabalala, a Zulu, got off the train at Inhalaze station in the Soweto township on 15 September 1990. The Xhosa residents immediately targeted him as an enemy spy, and dragged him into the township. The crowds attacked the Zulu with hitting, kicking and stabbing him with a bowie knife. After a while of beating he lied almost dead on the ground. Marinovich was present the whole time and tried to stop the beating but couldn't do much because he was an outsider who could very easily become the enemy too. A Xhose boy poured petrol from a molotov cocktail over the body of the Zulu and lit it. The Zulu jumped up and tried to run away from the pain. A Xhosa man ran in from the lefthand side and slammed a machete into the blazing skull of the Zulu. It is at this moment that Marinovich captures this horrifying event on film.
I only made use of this one image throughout the book, distorting and cutting it into pieces. I also only used orange with the black and grey to emphasize the color of the blazing human torch. In the photograph there are three parties present: The blazing Zulu, the Xhosa hitting the Zulu with a machete over the head and a young Xhosa boy running past. They represent the three parties on this event: the Zulu, the Xhosa community and the photographer only running by. For this reason I divided the book into three sections and used a three-column grid layout. I tried to emphasize the cut into the blazing Zulu's head throughout the book by cutting into type in different ways. I made use of Courier, to covey the feeling of documenting an historical event, and Akzidenz-Grotesk which was used on protest posters during the Apartheid.
I received a ISTD merit award for this project.
I received a ISTD merit award for this project.