Demonstration of the Ponte City book boxes
by Patrick Waterhouse and Mikhael Subotzky
Thu Nov 12, 2026 2pm – 2:30pm
Sat Nov 14, 2026 2pm – 2:30pm
At Paris Photo - Booth C19

IN-DEPENDANCE by IBASHO is excited to present Ponte City by Patrick Waterhouse and Mikhael Subotzky at Paris Photo. Since its first presentation in France at Le Bal in 2014, Waterhouse and Subotzky have continued to expand this ambitious project, leading to the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2015, and now to the introduction of the Ponte City Book Box at Paris Photo.

This landmark project explores the history of the iconic 54-storey Ponte City apartment building and its residents in Johannesburg, South-Africa. For fifteen years, the artists photographed Ponte City, its architecture and residents, while gathering documents, objects and stories from the building’s past and present. They photographed every door, the view from every window and the image on every television screen. Together, this material traces the changing life of a building where the ambitions of modernist architecture, the structures of apartheid and successive waves of migration have left their mark. At the same time, it records Ponte as a home, shaped by the lives and hopes of the thousands of people who have lived there.

Ponte City Book Box

The presentation introduces new elements, including a modular installation of four free standing units for displaying various photographic components of the project, reconfigured daily throughout the fair.

Originally created to house the archive of book dummies made during the development of Ponte City, the Book Box has grown into an artwork that can be displayed and used in many different ways. Its four mobile towers contain books, photographs, objects and archival material that can be opened up, explored and rearranged, inviting people to make connections and discover different ways a story can be constructed.

On Thursday, 12 November Patrick Waterhouse will give a presentation of all the possibilities of the Book Box at 14:00 in Booth C19.

Ponte City Combine Works

New photographic works will also be unveiled, combining earlier images with photographs and archival materials discovered within the building. These earlier photographic works from the first phase of the project are an integral part of the exhibition.