collaboration between photographer Mark Lewis and urban planner and writer Tanya Zack.
The cow heads, or s’kop, are bought for R10 each by nearby formal butcheries and delivered to them in shopping trolleys. Every part is sold in this marginal economy. Flesh is stripped off the skull, bones are taken to be crushed for bone meal, and skins enter a unique processing operation in invisible spaces in the city and transformed into an edible form.
Stallholder Monica Chauke, originally from Limpopo province, is unperturbed by the competition for the appetites of the 600 taxi drivers. She knows that by midday she will have sold out of her unique offering and made her R300 daily profit. Her niche is simple: she serves only breakfast. But there’s nothing simple about it. Monica has, over four years, worked out who likes what and caters to the specific tastes of her customers.
Each person wants to make their way in the world: find a job, reconnect with lost family, get access to healthcare or simply secure a decent place to sleep. . It does not deter anyone. Least of all those with the grit to seek a living or a fortune in the abandoned mine shafts of the Witwatersrand reef., they work the dumps and cavities underneath the city. We visit the Langlaagte belt, which contains more unmined gold than any other vein in Johannesburg’s gold reef. They call it FNB . Here zama zamas of all ages, backgrounds and ethnicity use the same ancient pick and shovel method to wrestle with the rock face.
Young Mozambican Lucas Ngwenya and his two South African friends have lined up. It’s 6am. There’s a cold wind blowing on this open piece of land suspended between the private estate of the, South Africa’s wealthiest family, and the headquarters of Hollard Insurance. It’s 4℃ as the men begin their 5km trip to the recycling depot in Newtown to sell the materials they’ve collected from suburban dustbins over a fortnight. It will take two-and-a-half hours to drag their gargantuan loads.