“Attached to the Soil,” the Fulbright Scholar portrait project by Peter Glendinning, Professor of Photography in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design at Michigan State University, is a featured exhibition and was the kick-off event for the month-long inaugural Cape Town Photography Festival in South Africa.
Consisting of 50 photographic portraits, Glendinning’s “Attached to the Soil” was created over a seven-month period in 2019 as he traveled throughout South Africa as a Fulbright Scholar to each of the country’s nine provinces to produce a body of work inspired by the words of Nelson Mandela in his May 10, 1994, inaugural address as the first President of the Republic of South Africa.
The portrait project’s title is drawn from the first words President Mandela shared when he took the oath of office. He conveyed his hopes for unity among the citizenry by proposing a soil-related metaphor, stating that they were all “as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country as are the famous Jacaranda trees of Pretoria and the Mimosa trees of the bushveld. Each time one of us touches the soil of this land, we feel a sense of personal renewal.”