A Thursday Night in the City

I was struck by a number of photos in the apartheid exhibit at the International Center of Photography two weeks ago. I felt they really captured the essence of a rather tumultuous movement in history and were successful in depicting its progression (or in some cases, regression) over time. The photo I chose to describe was taken by Margaret Bourke-White in 1950, and its caption read “Carpenter Phillip Mbhele wearing “We Don’t Want Passes” tag.” It is of a single black man whose mouth is wide open, with a double chin framing its round shape. His eyebrows are furrowed, nostrils are flared, and eyes appear slightly squinted as he looks out toward the left of the frame. He has a thin mustache, but no hair on his head. There are gaps in his teeth of the top row, and about 4 teeth are visible in the bottom row. His shoulders are at an angle, with the right shoulder slightly behind the left one. He is wearing a button-down shirt with a vertically-knit sweater on top, as well as a light grey suit jacket with a dark grid-like pattern. On the left side of this jacket, there is a slightly bent piece of paper that almost appears to be stapled on; it reads, “We Don’t Want Passes.” The letters are all capitalized, with the word “passes” bigger and bolder than the other ones. The viewer is able to see all of the man’s upper-right arm, but the frame cuts off his left one at the shoulder. The bottom of the frame also ends about halfway down the man’s torso. The background appears to be a grey, cloudy sky and is only visible in the top half of the photo. Finally, one of the most important details of this photo is the angle at which it was taken. The viewer is looking up at the man, indicating that the photographer was way below his eye level, possibly even at ground level. This certainly gives the man a sense of authority and conviction as he passionately speaks out against the injustice of the time.

The second half of our evening was spent at the performance of Luz at LaMama Theater. Overall, I thought the play was well done; it conveyed a very serious and relevant message that the violation of human rights is rampant around the world. The victims, however, are essentially silenced and ashamed to tell their stories as the rest of us simply turn a blind eye, refusing to acknowledge and thereby act upon this injustice. I felt this was reflected in the set, there being a large and rather obvious mountain of disorganized paper in the center contrasted with the orderly file boxes on the sides. I also enjoyed the playwright’s juxtaposition of stories; I believe she was successful in weaving them together in such a way as to reflect off of, rather than take away from, one another. It would have been less interesting (at least in my opinion) had she chose to focus on any of the stories individually. Overall, it was a rather enjoyable Thursday evening in the city 🙂