Gallery Talk | “Healing in Apartheid South Africa: Michael Goldblatt’s Photographs of the Alex Clinic”

Please join us for a tour of Healing in Apartheid South Africa: Michael Goldblatt’s Photographs of the Alex Clinic, led by David Gordon, Roger Howell, Jr. Professor of History, and his students. The tour will begin in the entryway Pavilion in the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.

On view through February 7, 2027, this exhibition presents Michael Goldblatt’s never-before-exhibited photographs of the Alex Health Clinic in Johannesburg’s Alexandra Township during the 1980s. The photographs capture community care, activism, and education amid anti-apartheid turmoil, raising broader questions about health care access, inequality, aid, and photography as activism.

Bowdoin College is committed to providing an accessible and welcoming environment. Please contact the Events Office (events@bowdoin.edu or 207-725-3433) with any questions regarding the accessibility of this event and/or to request accommodations. Please note: some accommodations require advance notice and may require documentation of a disabling condition.

Image: Michael Goldblatt, “Alexandra Township, South Africa Polio Vaccination Campaign during Anti-Apartheid Rebellion,” 1986, silver gelatin print on paper, 20 x 26 in. Courtesy of David Gordon.