"There is something universal and timeless in Daleside. It’s hard to date and locate the photographs. This is what fascinates me from this body of work. Daleside embodies the decadence of a world. "
Artist: Cyprien Clément-Delmas
Project: Static Dreams
Book published by Gost Books
"I see Daleside (South Africa) as a lost town. Less jobs, less opportunities leads to an hopeless future. Roads and houses are falling into decay. The rich families already left the place years ago selling their houses and looking for a better place to live. The families that stay in Daleside are mostly the one that can’t go anywhere else. They can’t escape from this place.
Daleside’s people dreams about a better life or a different life. But, reality wake them up all the time. They are static dreamers, stuck in this town, in their lives and in their social class.
Fatally, they are stuck in their dreams."
"There is something universal and timeless in Daleside. It’s hard to date and locate the photographs. This is what fascinates me from this body of work. Daleside embodies the decadence of a world.
The more I immersed myself the more I saw that the patterns are the same as those I have observed elsewhere. Daleside could be a town in Texas, a small village in the northern France, a small city in Ukraine or a farmer town in Australia.
Daleside, like everywhere in the world, suffers the lack of education and opportunities. Alcohol and drugs fill the void for some people. Religion fills it for many others. Violence and abuse causes more violence and abuse. They last for several generations until someone break this vicious circle. The lack of resources and work puts society under an inevitable social tension. The lack of investment in education reproduces inequalities.
Shot between 2015 and 2019. Book published in 2020 called "Daleside, Static dreams" (Gost books) together with photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa."
© Cyprien Clément-Delmas published by Gost Books
Editor : Ecaterina Rusu