On the Queen Elizabeth bridge in Newtown, Johannesburg, South African artists William Kentridge and Gerhard Marx installed an 11-meter artwork called The Firewalker. The sculpture depicts a woman holding a brazier on her head that one may see on the streets of ordinary Johannesburg. It contains live coals that she will eventually set up on a roadside shoulder to roast mielies, or sheep heads, to sell to onlookers.
Taxi washers and scavengers used to frequent the Queen Elizabeth Bridge. The Firewalker is not your ordinary public sculptural structure made of bronze. Instead, it is composed of steel plates that only combine to form a coherent image when viewed from a specific angle. Every other view is only a collection of pieces or fragments in black and white. It took only six weeks to manufacture and install the theme, which was an everyday lady rather than a notable public office-holder.
In December 2011, shortly after a copper cable theft left the sculpture’s base covered in paving stones, popular photographer and political commentator David Goldblatt took a picture of the sculpture. At the time, the copper cable connecting the sculpture and another post was tied to a rope, hitched to the back of a bakkie, and then ripped out of the ground.
The City, the Firewalker, and the aftermath of copper wire theft is how he titled his image. For more than three decades, David Goldblatt has captured images of South African architecture that reflect the country’s turbulent history, ideals, and power dynamics.