THE BLACK SIDE OF SOUTH AFRICA
150 km northeast of Johannesburg, in the city of Witbank, there’s a sorting centre of coal. In the middle of one of the biggest areas of coal mining with its 22 mines, Witbank, with its 450,000 inhabitants, fights daily against pollution and coal mining. In the province of Mpumalanga, 12 active stations produce energy using coal. People soffering the most of this situation, are the 150,000 inhabitants of the townships of Driefontein, Mthopisi Vilakazi and Witbank, as they don’t have even a sanitary system nor water. If the wind blows, coal dust can be found everywhere; on fields, in the houses and in the lungs. Water in this region is used in the mines, and underground water is toxic and flows in the layer, putting at risk the supply of drinking water. In 2007, the governament named Witbank “National Air Pollution Priority”, but the laws to protect it are not applied.
Fausto Podavini
Fausto Podavini was born in Rome, where he currently lives and works. He began his photographic journey first as an assistant and studio photographer, to approach gradually to photo-reportage. Podavini has also been part of MIFAV Tor Vergata University, where got to know and been in contact with many photographers. After abandoning studio photography to devote himself exclusively to reportage, he then embarked himself as a freelance, working with various non-profit organization for the realization of reports in Italy, Peru, Kenya and Ethiopia, where he currently is pursuing some personal photo projects. In 2009 he began a collaboration with the Collective WSP, joined permanently in 2010, where, in addition to work as a photographer in collective projects, he works as a professor of Photojournalism. In addition to his various reports in Africa, South America and India, Podavini has carried out important work on the Italian territory such as a report on sport for disabled, a report in a juvenile prison and a work on Alzheimer's disease, with whom he won the Daily Life section of the World Press Photo 2013. His works have won international awards such as The World Press Photo in 2013 and 2018, Il Poy in 2016 and 2018, Sony, Yves Rocher Grant and have been published in the most important international magazines such as 6Mois, LeVie / LeMonde, GEO ES, Stern, Internzainale, Donna Moderna, National Geographic, Days Japan and has exhibited in major cities such as New York, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Rome.
