Cut into the flesh with nails and makeshift blades, rubbed into the wounds with a mixture of melted black rubber seals, ground red brick, trash bins, batteries, and saliva — these tattoos are forbidden in the South African prison system. Despite the severe penalties and permanent stigma, tattooing persists. For her photo study Life After, Cape Town photographer Araminta de Clermont sought out former inmates of “Numbers” prison gangs who were struggling for acceptance and survival since being released after years, sometimes decades of incarceration and shot their portraits in their current environment. Faces. Signs. A sailor’s grave. A note to a deceased mother, inked across the forehead. These full body and facial tattoos serve as narratives of crime history and life struggle.
Omar is well over 6ft tall and covered in scores of small tattoos. He was jailed for 15 years for stabbing a man who had hit him over the head with a rock. He was a ‘king’ in prison, a high status member of the 28s gang – the tattoo of a hand on his neck is their salute. The scorpion on his upper arm shows his membership of the Cape Town Scorpions gang. Omar was released from prison in 2004 and now sleeps rough and sells wine to his fellow street people. Ali is a quiet man who now works at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town as a cleaner and handyman. He was once a high-ranking gang member, as shown by crowns on the front of his shoulders. His eyelids are also tattooed. Joseph, now a part-time odd job man, once had the rudest possible insult about someone’s mother tattooed across his forehead but fearing it was too offensive he covered it with another, larger tattoo of a wine bottle pouring wine into a glass. Removing facial tattoos through the conventional means of laser treatment or skin grafts is out of the budgets of most former prisoners. Some choose to remove the tattoos with nail clippers or by burning them off, which leaves terrible scarring. Johannis is an old school Number gang member and his tattoos show the strong Zulu influence in ‘Number lore’. He lost his legs after leaving prison when he was run over by a truck. He makes his money begging and is often attended by two other former gang members who push him where he wants to go. PKD, 35, has served 15 years for five offenses, including armed robbery and murder, and was released last year. He said tattooing was a release because it was a form of self-expression that was forbidden but could not be confiscated. He has ‘vra my nix’ (‘ask me nothing’ in Afrikaans) written across his forehead, and his gang number, 28, on his neck. Small dollars by the side of his mouth show the influence of Cape Town’s newer street gangs. Bless and Kojak: The twins are 43 years old and spent 19 years in prison for stabbing a man who was ‘interfering’ with Kojak’s girlfriend. Bless, who is more tattooed than his brother, is a member of the 28s. A spider web on his neck shows that he will wait patiently for prey, and the four stars on his shoulder are like epaulettes, indicating his high rank. Both men have fangs tattooed under their lips to signify that they will bite, and devil horns on their foreheads.
Not from here brings you the stories of people who move. People who move themselves physically, learning about new cultures and exploring the world. People who move our societies forward with their ideas and creativity, and people who have an innate desire to move everyone around them with raw and engaging storytelling.
