This Home of Ours: Ayesha Kazim’s photographic time capsule of Cape Town’s Bo-Kaap region

Whether you realise it or not, you’ve likely seen pictures of Cape Town’s Bo-Kaap neighbourhood. Lined with houses of all colours in their most vibrant hue, and encircled by grand mountainous scenery, it feels like one of those places that only exists in films, or a screensaver. As like most places of unique beauty, it’s become a popular tourist destination, especially in the age of Instagram aestheticism. But now, its popularity is coming at the expense of families who have called Bo-Kaap home for generations. While many people simply pass through on holiday, some have taken affordable properties and turned them into expensive Airbnbs to accommodate an ever-increasing number of visitors.

“As real estate prices soar, long-term residents are fighting to retain the essence of Bo-Kaap’s cultural heritage amidst growing geographical changes,” says the photographer Ayesha Kazim, whose recent series This Home of Ours captures the people and places of the Bo-Kaap region. “The Coloured community, a multiracial ethnic group native to South Africa, has faced multiple cycles of displacement and now comprises a majority of the Bo-Kaap population,” says Ayesha. (“Coloured” is a term that has been widely accepted and reclaimed in South Africa.) “After being uprooted from their homes abroad during the early Cape slave trade and forcefully segregated under the Apartheid regime, gentrification has become the latest threat to the predominantly Muslim community of Bo-Kaap.”

Rather than directly focussing on the issue and impact of gentrification, Ayesha instead set herself on creating what she describes as a “contemporary time capsule” of her neighbourhood’s rich history, spotlighting the members of the community who play an integral role in preserving Bo-Kaap. “In exploring the cultural implications of displacement, this project examines the way history permeates one’s landscape,” says Ayesha. One of her favourite images from the series is a portrait of Masturah Adams, captured in a moment of peace and happiness.

At the time of the portrait Masturah was the director of the Social Welfare Department of the Boorhaanol Islam Movement and manager of the Bo-Kaap Cultural Hub, and, after interviewing her Ayesha felt as though her words captured the sentiment of many Bo-Kaap residents: “We cannot stop people from buying in Bo-Kaap. We cannot dictate whether or not they are allowed to buy property, they are entitled to that right. However, the [individuals] coming in need to accept that there’s a particular lifestyle in Bo-Kaap. They need to accept that if you live here, you need to adapt to the culture.”

Not only focusing on others, the series is also a meditation for Ayesha, drawing on her personal connection to Bo-Kaap. Ayesha was raised in South Africa for the first five years of her life before moving away; she then lived in several different countries across her upbringing. “As a result, photography became the means through which I made sense of my surroundings and attempted to establish common ground with the people I met,” she says. This Home of Ours is a result of Ayesha moving back to Bo-Kaap as a young adult during the Covid pandemic, returning to the people and places that raised her. To make the series, Ayesha spent several months speaking with her neighbours and capturing moments of their daily life. “It was a therapeutic process that brought me back to the community that seemed to remember me growing up, but I was coming to know it in a new light for the first time,” she says.

This sense of Ayesha’s connection to the Bo-Kaap is palpable from the very first image. The people she photographs seem entirely at ease in her presence, carrying on their conversations, or resting serenely for the shot. She also captures the nooks, crannies and spaces of life that tourist snaps and Google Image searches rarely capture – places where locals’ lives actually play out: in front of hand painted shop fronts, in living rooms and community kitchens. “I want people to recognise the importance of maintaining sacred communal spaces like the ones that exist in Bo-Kaap,” says Ayesha. This Home of Ours series is a beautiful means to ensure this, visually retaining the essence of home that’s so important to maintaining a healthy, happy community.

You can pre-order the This Home of Ours is photobook here.