Carl van der Linde - A Day is Short in Africa
By now, we’re sure you’ve come across Carl van der Linde’s transportive photographs detailing his most recent trip to Zanzibar. Carl’s series, which first debuted on i-D, chronicles his time in Zanzibar where he documented, interacted, and immersed himself within the vibrant youth culture of young Zanzibari men.
Towards the end of 2020, Carl was looking to satisfy his growing travel-itch from experiencing an extensive South-African lockdown. He ventured to Zanzibar in East Africa, where he then stayed for a total of three months. While Zanzibar has been popularized by media as a typical, “exotic” resort destination, Carl says that he was immediately swept off his feet by the reality of a much more infectious energy and cultural fluidity that tourism frequently overlooks. He compared the archipelago’s bustling scenes of pride, style, and striking individuality to other major African hubs like Lagos, Accra, Johannesburg, etc. Such scenes are largely attributed to Zanzibar’s history of trade and the congregation of cultures from around the world. Carl writes, “While parts of Europe were still struggling in the dark ages, the bright light of East Asia had summoned settlers and traders from the Middle East, India, South-East Asia and Europe to The Swahili Coast.” The Swahili Coast in East Africa—a narrow strip of land that stretches along the eastern edge of Africa from Somalia in the north to Mozambique in the south—formed a thriving mercantile civilization. Off the southern tip of the Coast is Zanzibar, which allured travelling ships with its wide harbour, temperature weather, and promise of riches. Carl continues, “Many social, religious and economic structures intersected at these ports resulting in the exchanging of open-minded thoughts, world-views and provoking opinions amongst the ethnically diverse inhabitants.”
Today, the youth culture in Zanzibar radiates what Carl observes as “both boldness in attitude and kindness of heart.” This was his first long-format photographic series, which meant he had a lot of time on his hands to bring his connections with his subjects into focus. Every day at sunset, Carl would walk around with his camera and tripod, looking for subjects to interact with. Being a young African man himself, he was naturally drawn to the vibrance and energy of young Zanzibari men’s style.
He found himself spending most of his evenings at Stone Town watching the local boys jump in extravagant, acrobatic flips, and dive from the pier into the scarily shallow water. Sunset ocean swims, he noticed, were the locals’ favourite way to wash off a long hard day. As Carl would watch the locals play on the beach, a phrase his friend mentioned has stuck with him ever since, “What the West does not understand - you need but a tyre to have fun."
When he wasn’t shooting and directing scenes, Carl was hanging out on street corners vigorously jotting down such phrases into his journal. Instead of recording his daily doings and events as per usual, he recorded these one-liner ideas and thoughts as he interacted with Zanzibari people and “navigated [his] way through the introspective, equatorial voyage [he] not so accidentally found [himself] in.” His words, lines, rants and rhymes gave birth to a short written piece titled after his photographic ventures, "A Day is Short in Africa":
"The trade winds exchange feelings.
They caress me in the balmy humid breeze,
they drench me in the cascading, sultry rain.
I have sympathy for you brother,
even though we feel the same pain.
I can't forget what my camera remembers.
Lead us not into temptation
and deliver me from fear.
A day is short in Africa,
At least nights are long with you my dear."
