Traces and Tracks is the culmination of a 30-year journey that
photographer Paul Weinberg undertook with the San of southern Africa,
beginning in 1984. He had previously studied the San at university and
was aware of their special relationship with nature, survival skills,
and their hunter-gatherer existence. Celebrated filmmaker, John
Marshall, was Weinberg's first guide to the San, but nothing could have
prepared him for what he was about to see. Many of the San men in
Eastern Bushmanland had been recruited into the South African army to
fight against SWAPO, who at the time were engaged in a struggle for
independence and liberation. In this first encounter, he witnessed signs
of a society under severe pressure, grappling to hold on to their land,
way of life, culture, and values. The conversion of a people's way of
life that was dependent on the land into cash wages from the South
African army created traumatic circumstances for the San. As Weinberg
notes, "My collective journeys [...] have been to understand and
document the conundrum between these peace-loving communities and the
challenges they face in a modern and fast-changing world. How can they
hold onto and share their culture, heritage, and skills with others who
wish to dispossess them? How can their lifestyle be accommodated into
various shifting ecologies?"
