Marco Casino: Staff Riding (South Africa),
via photographicmuseumofhumanity
Staff riding, the local slang for train surfing, is a widespread phenomenon in SA. Katlehong is one of the largest townships in South Africa and has played a key role in the history of the struggle against apartheid. The population is strongly multiethnic: all the eleven South Africa's official languages are spoken in the township.
Almost the total majority of surfers are kids under 25. Amputations and death are really common. The Prasa Metrorail, the SA train company, is one of the foundations of their society.This connection between train and citizens remained very strong over time. The spectacular and risky act of train surfing becomes the framework to tell the Katlehong's young people social fabric.This place has been the epicenter of the anti-apartheid's guerrillas, and on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the facts that we all know , the situation of segregation has remained more or less unchanged in daily life.
In a context where violence , rampant poverty , abuse of alchool/drugs and infant birth/AIDS are the masters , the train surfing is configured as the search for a social redemption that will never come for the characters of this story . Staff Riding is part of a long-term project about the township lifestyle 20 years later the struggle against apartheid.
