Joseph

This work, Joseph, has a story that is very personal to van Coller, as many from this series do. It deals with, in his words. "the hidden impacts and costs of apartheid that I was so innocent of when I was growing up in South Africa. They are about the black African people that had significant impact on myself or another family member while growing up. Joseph was a man who worked for my family for many years. I made this piece as a memorial soon after he was killed by a minibus that ran him over when he was walking near his rural home. The image was a portrait I made of his family as a gift for him. Because I was older when I know Joseph I was probably most keenly aware of the impact that apartheid had on his family. He always struggled with his marriage partly because he worked in the city which was so far from home" Joseph's situation, and that of many black South Africans in apartheid-era South Africa, is analogous to that of Mexican and other Central American illegal immigrants coming to the United States, crossing over the border under perilous circumstances, to work and earn money for the families that they are separated from.