Notes

Something very interesting to me is how our bodies will adapt to what we're doing. Not unlike a dancer or an athlete will develop the appropriate muscles to do what they must effectively, so do our bodies adapt to the work we do. Another thing that I noticed especially in your area [KwaZulu-Natal] is a body scar that can be traced back to a work. Correct me if I'm wrong but when I photographed the sugar cane cutters, I noticed that all of them had fine scarring on their faces. My conclusion was that this was from previous cuts from the sharp-edged sugar cane leaves? I started noticing more people with the same scarring around the KZN area, but who were now doing different jobs. The fine lines on their cheeks and fore heads all says that they once were sugar cane cutters. The man facing the viewer in the painting called 'The beer run' is one of these.

Lena Hugo