Shot in South Africa in 1992, Moyra Davey’s Gold Dumps and Ant Hills is a series of black-and-white
photographs of mounds left behind by two types of excavation—one human and one non-human. For Davey,
the pairings of gold dumps and ant hills “invite not only our imagined associations but, as South African
landscapes, our received, politically charged associations as well.” The photographs are presented here in
book form for the first time.
“Gold Dumps and Ant Hills, 1992
Surrounding Johannesburg are the gold mine dumps—giant mounds of excavated yellow earth and sand
which is the byproduct, the waste, of the country's signature industry. They are the most visible symbols of
South Africa's material riches, yet they exist as its mountainous refuse. This contradiction echoes the
disparity between the gold for which these piles are a permanent record and the labor which has excavated
it. Shown with the gold dumps are a parallel set of ant hills. The ant hills have many reverberations in the
gold dumps—the process of creating them is remarkably similar, they represent proportional amounts of
labor to the quantity of material, and they are both “typically African” phenomena. As pairings or groupings,
the ant hills and gold dumps suggest an attempt to project an alternate history on one of Africa's most
historicized countries, a history which can compare human and non-human phenomena that both leave the
landscape dotted with harsh outcroppings of earth. As mute landscapes they invite not only our imagined
associations but, as South African landscapes, our received, politically charged associations as well.”
Moyra Davey