ZEITGEIST
Diving deep into SA’s cool, unusual beauty in public pools
It’s the symbol of summer, and in the heat the ultimate respite. But the swimming pool, particularly the public kind, has anything but a frivolous place in SA’s history
It’s the symbol of summer, and in the heat the ultimate respite. But the swimming pool, particularly the public kind, has anything but a frivolous place in SA’s history. Once segmented along colour lines, today municipal pools are at the mercy of drought, negligence and lack of funding. Two local creatives, Writer Sam Woulidge and painter Willem Pretorius, have found divergent inspiration in their depths. Chasing the blues Woulidge writes: Public swimming pools have always filled me with dread. I have an early memory of an indoor heated swimming pool. There were children chasing one another, laughing loudly and splashing wildly. It smelt musty and there was a soggy chip floating near the stairs of the shallow end. Public swimming pools are the pools of my swimming lessons where I was intimidated not only by the teachers but also by my competitive, confident peers. I learnt to swim, not because I loved it, but because I feared it. Public swimming pools were where I swam in school gal...
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