Johannesburg Book Launch: House of Bondage

Doors open at 6:00 p.m.; Presentations start at 6:30 p.m. SAST

Wits Art Museum, Corner of Bertha Street and Jorissen Street, Johannesburg, South Africa

Join Aperture, the Photography Legacy Project, and Wits Art Museum for an evening of special presentations by Professor Hlonipha Mokoena, Nozizwe Vundla, and Dr. Mongane Wally Serote on the new edition of Ernest Cole’s pivotal volume House of Bondage (Aperture, 2022).

First published in 1967, Ernest Cole’s House of Bondage became one of the most significant photobooks of the twentieth century, revealing the horrors of apartheid to the world and influencing generations of photographers around the globe. Reissued for contemporary audiences, this edition retains Cole’s original writings and images, while adding new perspectives on his life and the legacy of the book, as well as a chapter of unpublished work. Available again over fifty years later and for the first time in South Africa, House of Bondage remains a visually powerful and politically incisive document. 

This event is presented in partnership with the Wits Art Museum, Photography Legacy Project, and Olamuk.

This event has a maximum capacity of 150 guests. To ensure a spot, please email your RSVP to nonhlanhla@olamuk.co.za, or call 082-296-2074.

This book launch will be recorded and available on our YouTube channel following the event.

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Ernest Cole (born in Transvaal, South Africa, 1940; died in New York, 1990) is best known for House of Bondage, a photobook published in 1967 that chronicles the horrors of apartheid. After fleeing South Africa in 1966, he was banned from South Africa and settled in New York. He was associated with Magnum Photos and received funding from the Ford Foundation to undertake a project looking at Black communities and cultures in the United States. Cole spent an extensive time in Sweden and became involved with the Tiofoto collective. He died at age forty-nine of cancer. In 2017, more than sixty thousand of Cole’s negatives—missing for more than forty years—resurfaced in Sweden. 

Professor Hlonipha Mokoena is associate professor at WISER (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research), Johannesburg. Hlonipha is a multitalented public intellectual, well known for her work in many different parts of the world, speaking particularly to the complex entanglements, as well as the striking differences, between South African and US cultures.

Nozizwe Vundla was recently appointed as the head of the Sanlam Foundation. Before that, she was the executive director of the Student Sponsorship Program, a non-profit trust. Nozizwe sits on the boards of the St. Mary’s Foundation and the Women’s Legal Centre, where she serves as the chairperson.

Mongane Wally Serote is a renowned South African poet and writer, inaugurated in 2018 as South Africa’s national poet laureate.

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Image: Ernest Cole, Untitled, South Africa, ca. 1960s; from House of Bondage (Aperture, 2022) © Ernest Cole Family Trust