Lard Buurman: Africa Junctions. Capturing the City

In Lard Buurman’s African urban scenes, the street brings different forms of daily life together. A pavement can become a family kitchen or a shop; a traffic jam brings delay for some and paid work for others. Buurman photographs the informal arrangements and improvisations that keep such places running, together with what colonial history has left in the present, in social inequality and in the failures of governance. His subject is the changing city and the encounters that take place within it. The overlap of public space and private routines is central to the project.

His working method is the book’s quiet provocation. Each image is assembled from several separate exposures made over time and combined into a single scene, so that a view which first reads as one street moment is in fact an accumulation. The final image brings different moments into one constructed space. The crossings of people, vehicles and improvised commerce are combined within the same frame.

The photographs are set alongside writing that approaches the subject from different directions. Chris Abani, Alexander Opper and Chris Keulemans contribute texts, N’Goné Fall supplies a foreword, and Nina Folkersma edits the volume. The accompanying essays consider African urban life and Buurman’s photographic approach from different perspectives.

For a collector, the book’s claim rests on that constructed image. Hatje Cantz published it in 2014: 216 pages, eighty-seven photographs, hardcover, 252 by 310 millimetres, in an English-language edition, designed by Roosje Klap. Buurman, born in Zeist in 1969, builds each final scene from observed moments. Temporal construction and the changing uses of urban space give the publication its particular focus.

In African cities, life takes place on the streets, where public and private spheres blend. A sidewalk inconspicuously becomes a family kitchen or is suddenly transformed into a shop. A traffic jam might mean delay for one and work and a lucrative income for the other. Metropolises in Africa are characterized by informal structures and the art of improvisation; their colonial pasts have left marks that continue into the present in the form of social inequality and bad governance. The photographs by Lard Buurman (*1969 in Zeist) capture the African city as a site of permanent change and incessant encounter. The images are the result of combining several snapshots in time into a single scene, enabling the viewer to take in vibrant urban space. The eighty photographs are accompanied by essays from different authors that reflect on the African city and on the work of the Dutch photographer from different perspectives.

Edited by: Nina Folkersma
Designed by: Roosje Klap
Texts by: Chris Abani, Alexander Opper, Chris Keulemans
Vorwort von: N'Goné Fall
English
July 2014, 216 Pages , 87 Photos
hardcover
252mm x 310mm
ISBN:978-3-7757-3791-3

Publisher page editorial text:
| The significant social and economic aspects of African cities in richly composed photographs
In African cities, life takes place on the streets, where public and private spheres blend. A sidewalk inconspicuously becomes a family kitchen or is suddenly transformed into a shop. A traffic jam might mean delay for one and work and a lucrative income for the other. Metropolises in Africa are characterized by informal structures and the art of improvisation; their colonial pasts have left marks that continue into the present in the form of social inequality and bad governance. The photographs by Lard Buurman (*1969 in Zeist) capture the African city as a site of permanent change and incessant encounter. The images are the result of combining several snapshots in time into a single scene, enabling the viewer to take in vibrant urban space. The eighty photographs are accompanied by essays from different authors that reflect on the African city and on the work of the Dutch photographer from different perspectives.

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