TRAVELS AROUND SOUTH AFRICA

IN ALPHONS HUSTINX’S FOOTSTEPS.

Alphons Hustinx was a Dutch film maker, writer and photographer. In 1934 he sailed from Europe to the Cape and spent the next year travelling around Southern Africa. The country was in the midst of a crippling depression and there were simmering tensions between the English and Afrikaans sections of the white population. The huge racial tensions, mostly ignored by the Union government since 1910, were also showing signs of future unease. Some 72 years later photographer traveller Obie Oberholzer was given the opportunity to follow in Alphons Hustinx’s footsteps. He records the monumental changes that have come over South Africa and experiences along the road travelled by Hustinx a journey of self discovery and reflection of his own youth. Parallels can be drawn bewteen Hustinx and Oberholzer as persons, but in essence their bond lies in their love of travel and their adventurous spirits