Postcard from Johannesburg

The photographer Krisanne Johnson believes you can learn many things about a country by the way youth live—from fashion to music to home environments.

Image: Krisanne Johnson.

Like many others, US photographer Krisanne Johnson headed to South Africa earlier this month but, as The New Yorker points out, she didn’t go there for the football. Johnson has been to South Africa several times over the years to document youth culture in Johannesburg, including the culture surrounding Kwaito and, most recently, the fashion movement known as the Smarteez.

On her work, Johnson states: “I believe you can learn many things about a country by the way youth live—from fashion to music to home environments. And this is a recurring theme in most of my work, whether in the United States or southern Africa.” I like this.

You can view more of Johnson’s excellent pictures from across southern Africa and the United States here.

Further Reading

Kagame’s hidden war

Rwanda’s military deployments in Mozambique and its shadowy ties to M23 rebels in eastern Congo are not isolated interventions, rather part of a broader geopolitical strategy to expand its regional influence.

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahel States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.

Whose game is remembered?

The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations opens in Morocco amid growing calls to preserve the stories, players, and legacy of the women who built the game—before they’re lost to erasure and algorithm alike.

Sovereignty or supremacy?

As far-right politics gain traction across the globe, some South Africans are embracing Trumpism not out of policy conviction but out of a deeper, more troubling identification.

From Cape To Cairo

When two Africans—one from the south, the other from the north—set out to cross the continent, they raised the question: how easy is it for an African to move in their own land?