Missing Person
“Missing Person” is a photo series shot by Henrik Purienne between 2001 and 2007 where he would “religiously” visit Milnerton Flea Market on Sundays. The photos depict a world of their own, filled with characters and their random belongings creating a unique narrative and universe with each vendor’s homemade stores. Located outside of Cape Town, the market included many vendors that were also subjects of Purienne’s Sony PC-1 camcorder home videos.
““I guess the characters at this market informed my early documentary work. It was a real cross-section of society. The human condition. I would get to know several of the vendors personally over time. I once spend Christmas with a family we met at the market. She was blind after a hit and run on a rainy day. He was healing her sight with crystals drawing power from aliens across the universe via a cluster of TV antennas. It was fun. We got fleas.””
““Most of the vendors were impoverished or lost track of their lives in some way or another. Some on the edge of insanity. Often as a result of their white middle-class existence being disrupted by post-apartheid affirmative action.””
Image courtesy of Henrik Purienne
www.purienne.com
words PERWANA NAZIF
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