Eleven years ago Jodi Bieber followed people being arrested in Hillbrow Johannesburg as ‘illegal immigrants’, and their journey as they were being taken back to their home country, Mozambique. She took pictures in the police-bus, at the deportation camp of Lindela, the train journey and the arrival in Mozambique, this shortly after the heavy floods in 2001. ‘Operation crack down’ was the name of the police initiative to address the high crime level in South Africa at the time, which saw also the detention of ‘illegal immigrants’.
Bieber’s work is shown in the place where the series was partly shot, and brings back to the Hillbrow of today one narrative of its history of immigration, as much as questioning the history and aesthetics of violence. 17 pictures have been selected out of the series of 22.
An anthology of the Shoe Shop Project has also been made to accompany the exhibition.
