One of five new films kicking off Art21’s 2019 programming season

Driving around the Johannesburg suburb of Fietas, David Goldblatt (1930–2018) tours the region that became a recurring subject in his photography. Goldblatt began photographing Fietas in 1976, witnessing its evolution from a thriving and diverse community to its erasure by apartheid—leveling the vernacular architecture and forcibly removing its residents. Officially called Pageview, the area had a large Indian population and was a popular shopping destination for people of all ethnicities. A crumbling concrete structure—once the home of Ozzie Docrat, an Indian merchant and hometown hero—embodies Goldblatt’s time in Fietas, representing a failed attempt of government demolition that now stands as “monument to apartheid.”

“Fietas had the elements that were essential for good cities: density, diversity, and complexity,” explains Salma Patel, founder and curator of Fietas Museum. “It was a community of blended cultures.” A Fietas native, Patel recalls seeing Goldblatt navigate the town’s bustling corridors by bicycle. Housed in one of the few original structures that remain, Fietas Museum regularly displays Goldblatt’s photography of the district, paired with images by Paul Weinberg, another noted South African photographer. The collection serves as a pictorial record of Fietas and carries the legacy of David Goldblatt, who passed away just months after the footage featured here was filmed.