A Stone’s Throw is a series of 64 silver gelatine photographs made 2019 and 2020 on Robben Island, South Africa. All the photographs were made facing south, so that different aspects of the island’s terrain, buildings and infrastructure are viewed against a constant backdrop of Table Mountain, a few kilometers distant across Table Bay. Beginning with an exposure made soon after sunrise and progressing to one made shortly before dusk, photographs are arranged in groups of eight to suggest notional days. However, as each group comprises photographs made on different days, a sense of linear time is lost. A black page separates one group from the next. The title refers to the proximity of Robben Island to Cape Town; a history of political prisoners forced to quarry and crush stone; and to the so-called ‘klipgooiers’ (‘stone throwers’), dissidents who were imprisoned on the island in 1976.
The book includes essays by Lionel Davis, artist, former political prisoner and Robben Island Museum tour guide, and Cape Town-based writer, Sean O’Toole.