A settler climbs out of the passenger lift, off the East London coast, South Africa.
Image courtesy of the East London Museum archive, South Africa. Date unknown.
The New Arrivals Project
2011/2012
Wapping Project, London
Interpreting and re-figuring a similar action that the colonial passenger would have experienced climbing out of the
passenger lift onto a lesser known ground, BB photographs visitors to Wrecking at Private Siding 661 momentarily
climbing out of a hole in the wall: a rite of the New Arrivals. Faking the role of the commissioned portrait photographer,
using an unreliable large format film camera and a constructed wall as the backdrop, these images are somewhat
insignificant and perhaps not destined for the archive, much like the action they capture: a moment of suspension fixed
between apprehension and delight, soon to be lost within more relevant, implicating histories.
image credit Daniel Isherwood
© images Bridget Baker