01/06/2026
Thanks to everyone that joined us on Saturday for the launch of .bernstein debut photo book - MAPALAKATA published by
MAPALAKATA engages with landscape via a visual reassessment of a key historical, geological and geographical region in Southern Africa. The title, meaning ‘visitors’, is drawn from oral histories and was used to describe traders from the East who moved through Southern Africa before European colonisation.
The work is situated in Mpumalanga province, South Africa, on the escarpment bordering Mozambique and Eswatini. A place where lush cliffs abruptly pierce the hot, red earth of the lowlands. It serves as a geo-physical symbol for the edge of the South African frontier. A collision point that has inspired countless folk tales and the beginnings of the modern-day story of gold in South Africa.
Today, plantations of foreign trees blanket the landscape while mills churn steam as they pulp pine into paper. In the valleys below, gold mines that have been chiming steel against rock for the past one hundred years ring their ceaseless chorus. The surrounding terrain is littered with relics of another time — the remnants of a forgotten pre-colonial society and wild descendants of horses abandoned during wars and a failed gold rush.
We still have a few signed copies available in-store and online now ✨
