Here we have Qhawe posed in various scenes around Wentworth, Durban. These spaces that served as backdrops for our portraits hold a lot of meaning to me; these are the scenes that I grew up with, became well acquainted with. Watching as the foundations of the old Whaling Station fence crumble, the paint at the public pools flaking off, stepping over the broken concrete fence of the local sports field, I was reminded of the concept of Solastalgia.
Developed by Australian geoscientist Glenn Albrecht, Solastalgia started from an interest in exploring the relationship between ecosystem distress and human distress, originally linking it to our sense of loss with a place. The concept is still in incubation mode, restricted to the realms of neologism and has yet to fully evolve. As the environment deteriorates, humans mourn the changing of natural landscapes that they grew up in, experiencing nostalgia (nostos = return to home or native land, algia = pain or sickness), yet not for home this time, but for the environment as it once was; we are now separated from that which made us feel whole.
Solastalgia; derived from solari and solacium, holding meanings in alleviation of distress, the provision of comfort, consolation in the face of distressing events. It has its origins in desolare, connected to desolation and abadonment. The structure of the word itself a ghost of nostalgia, connecting nature to a home that we mourn. It is the pain that we feel when the place we love is under attack, manifesting in the feeling that one’s sense of self and place is in distress, almost a feeling of “erosion [in their] sense of belonging”.
I can feel this when I see the aftermath of the recent Durban floods, of the trash that flooded out from the rivers into the seas, only for them to wash up on the shore in piles. I can see it in the fires that propel out of the mouths of chimneys in oil refineries, the crumbling sewage treatment plant, litter collecting in Blood Reef, and before the litter it was plumes of blood that washed out onto shore during whaling times. These have all lent a hand to the deterioration of the land, yet are in turn deteriorating themselves, and we feel sense of loss that comes with both phases of deterioration.
These systems are all synchronised with one another, therefore when a space is in distress, its partners and connections all mourn and suffer with it. The loss is felt within humans, too, yet the change is not so quick that it only occurs within the experience of one individual, but rather seeps into the lives of the next generations, all mourning the loss of a safe haven that once was. The grief is passed down through generations through words and emotions, consuming us all.
Yet as Sophie Strand astutely points out, “the empty spaces we have created, beg to be filled”, we cannot create structures and leave them to crumble, surprised when nature reclaims the space. We cannot apply anthropocentric concepts of individuality to such spaces, these places that are connected to other plants, animals, and minerals.
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