ABSTRACT
Reflecting on the photography exhibition Zilande: The Evaton Peoples’ Archive (2022), this chapter addresses the class politics of historical and recent photographs of Evaton – a freehold area that lies south of Johannesburg, South Africa. Designed to catalyse intergenerational dialogue among residents, the exhibition sought to uncover the suppressed histories of a place once defined by its flourishing Black transnational and pan-African institutions and the locus for key intellectuals in the liberation movement and protests in South Africa. Currently it is mired in land disputes and state neglect. Portrayed in 20th-century Evaton photographs are cosmopolitan, well-travelled, educated landowners who were part of the founding of major educational and religious institutions as well as social and political organisations. The interest of the chapter encompasses inter-class dynamics and photographs, how the middle class shaped local and transnational solidarities and organisations, and what the lessons might be for the decolonial perspective.
