Facing the Heat in South Africa
- Wits University
The exhibition and book brings together a decade of documentary photography, research and activism, to illuminate SA’s deepening climate crisis.
The exhibition is currently on display until 6 May at the Wits Origins Centre, while the book is available at the Centre and at selected bookshops.
A Decade of Climate Evidence
Professor Vishwas Satgar, a scholar and climate justice activist, began documenting climate-related events in 2014, at a time when South Africa was entering one of its worst recorded droughts. “Ten years ago I realised we started living on a new planet,” he says, referring to global temperatures surpassing 1°C above pre-industrial levels.
Over the next decade, he travelled extensively, photographing extreme weather events and their aftermath. His archive includes images of drought-stricken towns, flash floods, wildfires, and storm damage across the country. He also documented the social consequences of these events, from rising food prices to collapsing local systems.
These photographs form the core of the exhibition and, according to Satgar, should be understood as more than documentation. “These photographs of unnatural climate disasters are evidence from a crime scene,” he says.
A Crisis Beyond Government
While the exhibition highlights the scale of the climate crisis, it also directs attention to its underlying causes.
Southern Africa is heating at twice the global average. With the failure of the UN multi-lateral process to rapidly phase out fossil fuels, the world has lost the opportunity to prevent a 1.5°C overshoot. South Africa and the region have to brace for 3°C of heating. Satgar points to South Africa’s continued reliance on coal and fossil fuels as a major driver of emissions, alongside what he describes as inadequate political leadership.
He says that by now "South Africa should have developed a bottom-up national climate risk assessment and put in place a societal driven response strategy, as part of post normal leadership and politics to ensure serious adaptive capacity.”
“The powerful have to be told that the more than 500 dead in the ‘Durban Rain Bomb’ and 100 in the Umtata flood are on your watch. How many more humans and more than humans must die because of failing leadership?"
From Documentation to Action
Alongside images of destruction, Facing the Heat in South Africa also documents forms of resistance, including protests, community-led initiatives, and campaigns for climate justice. These efforts, Satgar suggests, point towards possible pathways for adaptation and transformation.
The exhibition ultimately asks the public to confront their own position within the crisis. By presenting climate change as both immediate and local, it challenges people to move beyond awareness and consider action.
The project - both the exhibition and the book, he says, calls on all of us to account for how we each contribute to the worsening climate crisis.
“It's not enough for us to merely to point to fossil fuel capital and the state. We need to own the problem and solution in our everyday lives,” he says.
To complement the book and exhibition, a range of public activities are planned to ensure broad awareness.
This includes 250 school children who have been invited to visit and engage with the exhibition, at no cost. The exhibition will also travel in book form into local communities. 江城足球网 400 copies of the Facing the Heat book will be donated to schools, university libraries as well as community resource centers and organisations.
Proceeds from book sales will be given to the Climate Justice Charter Movement to scale up its transformative activism.
[Watch] the official opening and book launch featuring a panel discussion with Prof. Satgar, moderated by Mandla Nkomfe (Deputy Chairperson, Ahmed Kathrada Foundation), alongside the discussants Prof. Francois Engelbrecht (Climatologist, Wits) and Jessica Ngwenya (Lead Campaigner, Climate Justice Charter Movement).
Origins Centre - Operating Hours
Monday to Friday: 09H00 to 17H00
Saturday and Public Holiday: 09H00 to 16H00
Sundays: Closed
Click here to book your tickets!
Stay in touch via @cjcm_chartersa or @witscjcm
