Background information, content
"During apartheid, blacks were not allowed to meet or drink alcohol. In the townships of the time, huts functioned as secret bars, the 'shebeen'. These shebeen were the only places where freedom found an outlet, locked in backyards or in walls .There gathered the lost, the workers, ordinary alcoholism, as well as opponents of the subversion regime.The shebeen were melting pots, the system was forgotten there as well as the weapons were being prepared to overthrow it...
Fifteen years after the end of apartheid, what remains of the shebeen? This reflection is the genesis of the work. Ananias Léki DAGO, photographer, entered the Shebeens today. He took his time observing, landing, soaking up the atmosphere to try to reproduce his perception of reality as closely as possible.
The photographs taken with a Leica by Ananias Léki DAGO for the photo book 'Shebeen' are fed by lines; Bottles, billiard cues, excised body fragments, hands linger; Shadows deepen, stand out." (Editor's note)
In his short story, writer Mongane Wally Serote uses the inside of a shebeen: one evening, a former apartheid resister exchanges disaffected confidences with a woman who is as lonely as he is. Piece by piece he remembers the past.The Shebeen, yesterday as today, is a world unto itself; described as a living organism in which body heat mixes with the vapors of alcohol and cigarette smoke. Between her disillusioned short story and the silhouette fragments in the photos by Ananias Leki DAGO, the reader gets a picture of Shebeen. Far from a romantic vision, it appears as a closed, timeless place; almost ordinary, but difficult to access and escape from." (Editor's note)