We Gave You Forgiveness - You Kept The Krugerrands

This series of photographs won the Juror's choice at the Lensculture Awards and has since been exhibited internationally.

Alongside each photograph continues an article about this photo series by Cat Lachowskyj of LensCulture.

British photographer Chris Kirby first visited South Africa in the late 1970s, a few years after the introduction of the Krugerrand, a South African gold coin developed by the country’s apartheid regime in 1967. Kirby vividly remembers this initial journey because it took place three years after the Soweto Uprising, a massive protest that resulted in 20,000 schoolchildren taking to the streets in response to a declaration that Afrikaans would become the primary language of instruction in the classroom. The young protestors were met with police brutality, and an estimated 700 of them were killed. While Kirby arrived with the intent to photographically document the effects of apartheid on South African citizens, he soon realized that the ripple effect of the Uprising’s violence meant that he had to leave his equipment at home. “I was advised not to use my camera, as only the hated surveillance police used them. When apartheid ended, I resolved to go back to Soweto and photograph the changes that were going to inevitably happen there. I’ve been back to Soweto and South Africa countless times since.”

Continued, next photograph

Photographer: Chris Kirby

We Gave You Forgiveness - You Kept The Krugerrands

This series of photographs won the Juror's choice at the Lensculture Awards and has since been exhibited internationally.

Alongside each photograph continues an article about this photo series by Cat Lachowskyj of LensCulture.

British photographer Chris Kirby first visited South Africa in the late 1970s, a few years after the introduction of the Krugerrand, a South African gold coin developed by the country’s apartheid regime in 1967. Kirby vividly remembers this initial journey because it took place three years after the Soweto Uprising, a massive protest that resulted in 20,000 schoolchildren taking to the streets in response to a declaration that Afrikaans would become the primary language of instruction in the classroom. The young protestors were met with police brutality, and an estimated 700 of them were killed. While Kirby arrived with the intent to photographically document the effects of apartheid on South African citizens, he soon realized that the ripple effect of the Uprising’s violence meant that he had to leave his equipment at home. “I was advised not to use my camera, as only the hated surveillance police used them. When apartheid ended, I resolved to go back to Soweto and photograph the changes that were going to inevitably happen there. I’ve been back to Soweto and South Africa countless times since.”

Continued, next photograph

Photographer: Chris Kirby