Completed 2002

The Jacobs Hostel, Block A, Durban’s oldest remaining men’s hostel with its 561 registered bed holders, is the subject of Block A. I did not take on the politics of this - and other hostels - in any overt and didactic manner. Rather my interest lay in the way people ‘personate’ and personalise their space in environments such as this one. In the large impersonal and unnatural dormitory environment of the hostel, beds are the only private space that individuals have. I was struck by the detail; the objects and things people had collected and the way in which these were displayed seemed emblematic of a universal need to humanise space. I wanted to reveal how people retain their human dignity despite extreme living conditions.

I photographed every bed in the hostel and dedicated less than a minute and one film frame to each bed, photographing without manipulating anything in the space such as objects and light.

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