Love from Manenberg
Published by Kehrer Verlag and designed by Bonnie Briant, Love from Manenberg is available for purchase.
With over 150 reportage images, 80 studio portraits, historical drawings, and intimate dialogue, Love from Manenberg is a moving portrait of three families in Manenberg. Notable authors Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Carl Collison, and John Edwin Mason contribute text essays with invaluable historical and contemporary context. The book ends with an essay by Sarah Stacke that recounts experiences and insights from working in Manenberg for over a decade.
Hardcover, 8.5 x 11 inches, 256 pages, 249 color photographs, English and Afrikaans.
Love from Manenberg looks at life in Manenberg, South Africa, in particular the experiences of women and their children. The work makes room for complex narratives pushed aside by the media and shows the ways families look to the future and carry the joy, grief, and everyday realities of life in a community plagued by gang violence. A total of only 1.29 square miles, statistics reveal that people living in Manenberg are three times as likely to get murdered than anywhere else in South Africa. Through fortitude and faith, they persevere and prosper.
Sarah Stacke first photographed this neighborhood of Cape Town in June 2011. For over a decade, the women of the Lottering, Pietersen, and Adams families have shared their lives, showing the texture, unity, and comfort of their home. The title of the book reflects the love these women embody, but also describes the relationships the photographer has formed with them. They have become a part of the fabric of each other’s lives.
For more information, please visit the book's successfully funded Kickstarter where you will find a video, page spreads, and text excerpts.