Tag: documentary photography

Prince Gyasi – instilling hope through imagery

Ghanaian photographer Prince Gyasi likes to describe himself as an artistic vessel who uses imagery to express how he feels, and to share what he cares about. Primarily producing portraits and documentary photography, his work creates a collage of his city and the people who live in it. Playing with colour, shadow and composition, he has developed a style that beautifully captures planned and candid moments. With Instagram operating as an online gallery and portfolio for his work, he is able to curate the collective visual narrative for his photography, pushing against the fetishized and problematic representations of African cities by outside photographers.

Reflecting on his portraiture, Prince expressed in an interview with Sukeban Magazine that, “Portraits are part of human history…Portraits go way back; it helped people keep track of growth, express creativity and record memories. I believe portraits are important in our generation; it helps you communicate your emotions to others just by the way you look. As a photographer when you’re taking portraits you’ve got to be the mirror! People have to look at their portraits and say I feel dull today, I’m happy today, or I feel I’m really pretty or fine. It helps people grow and tackle their day to day issues with hope.”

His most recent project continues with the idea of instilling hope in people. Prince co-founded Boxed Kids with his partner Kuukua. This nonprofit project aims to help creative children in Jamestown with getting access to education. The name “Boxed Kids” refers to the fact that many of the children Prince came across in the small fishing district were in places and situations that are difficult to come out of without any assistance. Inspired by an event that his mother organised to help underprivileged children, his aim was to go further by helping them to develop their creative talents through education.

The initial plan was to launch a campaign that offered direct access to school, but with this own limited means this was not an option. Working within his own creative practice, Prince took photographs of the city, some of the children and the conditions in which some people live, and shared this on Instagram. Titled ‘Boxed Kids: Accra, Ghana’, this work received an increasing number of likes and shares, and this response encouraged him to set up a gofundme page for some of the children he has gotten to know, with the hope that this will assist with the initial goal.

15 August 2018
Dune Tilley – A young photographer documenting the world around him with beautiful frankness and subtlety

Diluted tones, traditional composition married to the monumentalizing of subject matter. Human and non-human. This acts as a description of Dune Tilley’s work; Cape Town’s rising star photographer. The now 18-year-old image creator has made his mark with images that consume you. Images that pull you closer and beg you to question “Who are the people in these images? What are they like?” or “Where is this amazing building?”.

His interest in documenting the world began at a very young age. As is the case with many photographers today, it is difficult to label Dune’s specialty. His work extends over the disciplines of documentary, portraiture and fashion photography.

With an emphasis placed on capturing his subject matter’s (human or not) soul he seeks out to document the feelings he observes around his subjects. His style has shifted since the first time I saw his presence online two years ago – a natural happening for a young creative in any medium. What stays is a rather peculiar objectiveness in his images. A frankness which can be attributed to his aim at making his images genuine, and project integrity onto his sitters.

“I think there is beauty in both well thought out, staged, conceptual photographs and spontaneous photographs on the street. It all depends on your intention and your reason for taking that picture in the first place. The most effective way to capture great images, in my opinion, is just to constantly have a camera on you…” he states in an interview with DEAD TOWN Zine.

Dune’s style is one that can be summed up as beautiful frankness with immense sensitivity. I look forward to witnessing his growth into an even greater and skilled photographer than he already encompasses.

22 February 2018
Nkhensani Mkhari creates dreamy photographic masterpieces on film

“A visual dissertation, a meditation on time, place, memory and personal history; amalgamating the passage through life and dreams, bridging philosophy, politics and prose. A reflection of my being in abstract form.” – Nkhensani Mkhari on his work.

A dreamy reality caked with attention-halting architectural shots, documentary images and glamorous fashion depictions come together to create the visual language of a budding artist. Nkhensani Mkhari is a young multi-disciplinary practitioner who grew up in Mabopane, township in the North of Pretoria. “I consider myself a hybrid artist,” he tells me. Completing his studies in Film and Television production at the Open Window Institute in 2016, he traverses between directing films, script writing, photography, art direction and music.

Editorial with Ilaphulam for Inga Madibyi (2018)

His childhood was spent around a hum of creativity with his father practicing as a landscape artist and his mother as a Setswana teacher. Nkhensani shares with me that his mother’s vocation acted as an introduction to language and narrative. “I’ve had an affinity for storytelling and aesthetic for as long as I can remember. Cognizance of how concepts and ideas can affect society drove me towards wanting to participate in the creative field.”

‘Portraits for consolation’ (4) with Buyani Duma

Non-linear, acoustic, literary and artistic attentiveness attracted him to his chosen mediums of expression. “Growing up in the internet age assisted in idealizing and realizing my artistic vision. I always felt like we live in a multidimensional universe, which is also part of a multidimensional infinite consciousness we call God or the universe or nkulu nkulu or creation. We are multidimensional actualities. Therefore, I feel like my work should be multidimensional if it is to have a remarkable influence on human freedom. I make art in the hope that it will call me and the audience to a deeper awareness of living itself.” An interest in Afro Futurism was explored with his final film during his studies. The premise of the motion picture was that of software that alters human beings’ consciousness and is used by the government to indoctrinate citizens. Since graduation, he has been occupying himself with the writing of an African feature-length film. To add to his merits, the passionate creative self-published a photobook ‘grain’ Volume 1 and a conceptual EP, ‘23′ that he describes to me as a personal interpretation of science fiction soundscapes – released under the pseudonym, Ndzilo Xiluva.

Project Mayhem (1) in collaboration with Bambatha Jones (2017)

“I’ve also been busy shooting an array of photo series, portraits, editorials and experimental films themed on a range of subjects from mythology to Artificial Intelligence, I’m fascinated by the prospect of these ideas and how they influence society especially African communities.” The photographic side of Nkhensani can only be described as one of calculated risk. Utilizing manual, vintage Japanese film cameras and countless rolls of film as his visual narrative tools. “I come up with titles and captions from conversations, reading books or watching movies, certain words and phrases stand out. These titles usually form the centrifuge for my conceptual photographs like fashion editorials and commercial work, I’ll research the etymology of the word or the origin of the phrase or word and create a mood board from that. With my fine art photography, it’s a more organic cathartic process based on intuition, the work is unscripted.”

His widespread influences include Pantsula culture, African Neo-expressionism, conceptual fashion, Jean Michel Basquiat, Zanele Muholi, FAKA, Frank Ocean and Claude Monet, to name a few. Delving deeper Nkhensani shares with me the concept of his ongoing personal portrait series, ‘Portraits for Consolation’. It is focused on the idea of the “Gaze” and it confronts commonly held notions of beauty.

Essence editorial (4); (2017)

A preference for analogue photography is explained in his statement, “I like how skin tones, light and tone are rendered on emulsions. I like the simplicity of the technology, the mechanics, chemistry and the historical aspect. I like seeing photographs develop in a seemingly magical way in the darkroom, it’s an enthralling process I feel like films limitations have been advantageous in developing my eye.” From my own experience, I tend to agree with Nkhensani; nothing develops your eye, technical skill and understanding of lighting combinations quite like the unknown world of an image caught on film, only to be reviewed after development.

Nkhensani, like many young content creators, chooses not to box himself into a specific field of photographic study. “I don’t think photography is fissiparous. I shoot from an artistic eye whether it’s fashion, documentary or fine arts.”

‘Portraits for consolation’ (7)

Nkhensani’s sound technical understanding of his gear, his unique focus on titles, the etymology of words as well as an uncanny ability to traverse a multitude of photographic disciplines shows not only skill but talent. The artist has another ability, that which is perhaps the most difficult to cultivate – Nkhensani is a psychologist. To be a photographer means to have an innate understanding of the human psyche. The intimacy recorded in his technically excellent images is a clear signifier of his ability to relate to the models in his unforgettable images. His experience orientated work is hoped to take on a more holistic nature in the coming year. Keep an eye out for him, he’s taken my cognitive consciousness by a storm. On another note, I want a print of one of his images on a t-shirt.

‘Portraits of consolation’ (5)

‘Untitled Theory’ (1); (2017)

‘Between distance and time’ (2017)

16 February 2018
Jenevieve Aken’s photographic series Great Expectations

Nigerian photographer Jenevieve Aken focuses on documentary photography, self-portraits portraits and cultural issues. Her work was selected to be part of the Photographic Museum of Humanity, which launched in 2013. As the first internet museum dedicated to contemporary photography, the museum created a category specifically for photography from Nigeria. This was curated by LagosPhoto founder Azu Nwabogu, and shows work by emerging photographers exploring themes related to identity, relationships, and cultural representation. Aken’s self-portrait series Masked Woman with a character named “super femme fatale” is a visual exercise of subverting the patriarchal male gaze.

With a fascination for how events shape characters, her photographic series ‘Great Expectations’ takes inspiration from the book by Charles Dickens. In the book the character Miss Havisham is left at the altar, leading to a breakdown and becoming a so-called “man-hater”. Aken translates this into a Nigerian context, photographing herself in wedding attire. This series is a commentary on the pressure women face to get married and the emphasis placed on marriage as the ultimate goal for women. Her works also highlight how this has an effect on the emotional wellbeing of women, leaving some to feel a sense of incompetency when not married despite the successes they may have achieved.

There is a haunting melancholic aura that surrounds these images which comes directly from the silence communicated in her eyes. A photograph with her lying on the bed in a wedding gown highlights the mournful attitude attributed to this series. A white dress, pearls, a bouquet and a wedding magazine are symbols of the institution of marriage. Being covered as surrounded by these objects while alone invites viewers to imagine the internal dialogue she is having with herself about the desire to be a bride.

19 October 2017
‘Aquarium’ by Camilla Ferrari

Camilla Ferrari was born in 1992 and took her first photograph when she was 14 years old. Camilla did not study photography. She instead majored in Communication and Humanistic Studies at Università degli Studi in Milan, Italy. After her studies she decided to dedicate herself to capturing images and developed her skills via workshops with photographers she looked up to such as Harry Gruyaert, John Stanmeyer and Gueorgui Pinkhassov. Here I take a look at Camilla’s technique through reference to her body of work, ‘Aquarium’.

Camilla’s work is concerned with the relationships human beings have with their surroundings and their stories. Selected by Photo Boîte as a part of their 30 Under 30 Woman Photographers for 2017, she was also chosen to feature in their exhibition in Rome from 30 September to 30 October 2017.

Her artist’s statement for ‘Aquarium’ reads, “The sound of the hands moving the bathroom curtains is so loud that it’s almost disturbing. And so it is the noise coming out the karaoke bars during the night and the chitchatting of the people walking on the sidewalk. Sometimes you observe and sometimes you’re being observed. It’s almost like seeing through a glass that distorts what your eyes see, that makes the light flicker in front of you second after second and inserts you in a completely different world. And suddenly you are on the other side of that glass. You cannot hear what others say but you can feel the sweet cuddle of the water that surrounds you. And before you know it, that sound of the hands moving the bathroom curtains become a lullaby. The noise of the karaoke bars turns into music and the chitchatting evolves into rhythm. Everything becomes so gentle, even the unknown.”

Camilla here talks about how she perceives the city, and viewing and observing people in the city to be like an aquarium that works both ways around. Sometimes you are the beautiful sea turtle, and sometimes you are the person viewing the sea turtle. She speaks of a constant shift and this idea is visually mimicked in the way that she has chosen to photograph this series.

At heart Camilla is a documentarian and she thus relies heavily on the available light technique, which can be seen upon examination. A characteristic of available light photography is its quality to be as accurate a depiction of the scene in front of the photographer’s lens as possible. Detail in shadow or harsh light is often lost to attain authenticity. Camilla’s series strikes a middle point, as this body of work is very focused on it’s purpose and it fulfills its purpose beautifully. Namely, to capture this aquarium feeling that she experiences from being an observer and being observed. Her images are thus often taken through windows and other transparent surfaces. The reflections on these surfaces add to the depth of this work and the natural light casting from external light sources add to the ethereal quality of her work.

Camilla’s series is striking and beautiful and makes use of off-centre framing, slow shutter speeds, perspectives that seem clearly observational and are not extremely intimate. She has the ability to create intimacy by means of playing with available lighting and her play on reflections and certain light castings to evoke moods within her viewers. All of this is good but the fact that she links the idea of looking at people to an aquarium could be regarded as problematic.

18 October 2017
An assemblage of 35mm photographs on South East Asia as seen by Duran Levinson

A number of months ago, browsing the Internet I was moved by analogue images that I found of South East Asian street culture. It was a very specific image that had mesmerized me: an image of a topless young woman with dark hair and haunting eyes. A lizard shaped tattoo crawling up her neck, she was fashioned in gold loop earrings and a peach coloured cap. In her one hand she holds a bucket of noodles and in the other, chopsticks with noodles pinched tight. Behind her a cityscape. Inspired by the striking image I immediately saved it to my phone without looking into who the creator was. As I started my research for this article I found the image again and was delighted to know that it in fact, it belonged to a South African creative, Duran Levinson.

Image from ‘Backchat Boys Volume 1 – all image no spinach’

Traveling on work holidays, the Capetonian filmmaker and photographer, Duran Levinson has captured the people and places he has encountered while globetrotting. Today I would like to focus on his work put together in Hong Kong consisting of architectural shots, portraiture and street photography.

In 2016 Duran teamed up with two other South African photographers, Dustin Holmes  and Gideon de Kock and brought out Backchat Boys Volume 1 – All image no spinach. This book was a collaborative project between the three friends and features imagery of street photography and venues in Hong Kong, captured on 35mm film.

The aim of the project according to Duran was to document the street culture that he witnessed in the area and what I find the most intriguing is that the entire project was documented on a single point and shoot camera. Duran navigated the streets and was essentially perceived as a tourist with a little flimsy point and shoot camera and because of this, I believe that the result of his photographic documentation was influenced. The work that Duran produced in this project was obtained as a result of his unobtrusive tool to document with and this caused people to come across in a more authentic and natural way, as they were not necessarily posing.

Image by Duran Levinson. ‘Hong Kong Forever’ series

Duran has been known for working on expired film and the only changing factor in his project was changing between colour and black and white film. Expressing that the expired film he used during this collaborative project was between 5-10 years old, he believes that it leaves more room for experimentation and keeps the medium alive for him. The expired film creates a cool, subtle feeling to the images and the entire concept is captivating as not many photographers using the analogue medium opt to shoot that way. Duran however, adores the film stock and expresses that in Asia, expired film is cheaper than water.

The images that Duran captured for this project are justly some of the most intriguing images I have seen of South East Asia and I believe that they show a different look into the culture that I have not been exposed to before. The imagery is fresh and honest documentation yet simultaneously, upon viewing them I feel like I can see Duran’s own sentiments towards the subjects that he is capturing. It is documentation, yet at the same time it exudes emotive expression.

Image by Duran Levinson. ‘Hong Kong Forever’ series

Duran has said before in conversations about this self-published book that it was a poor attempt at documenting human nature but I must say I disagree, the work speaks of a humanist approach. When I think of the documentation that I see in Backchat Boys Volume 1 – All image no spinach, I cannot say that it shares similarities with the kind of photographic documentation you would see in any National Geographic. Perhaps this collaborative project that Duran worked on with Dustin Holmes  and Gideon de Kock, can be regarded as a new way of executing documentary photography.

“Travelling is the only way to understand a big part of the ‘human condition’ and how you fit into this world in whatever way you perceive it.”

Image by Duran Levinson. ‘Hong Kong Forever’ series

Image from ‘Backchat Boys Volume 1 – all image no spinach’

21 August 2017
Cahil Sankar: making waves with documentary photography

Cahil Sankar has gained popularity with his vivid motion blurring band photography. Sankar shoots interchangeably between digital and analog, and has a particular fondness for Fujifilm. “I think I just picked up my dad’s old camera when I was super young and just never stopped taking photos,” he explained when asked about where his interest in photography came from. As one of the artists selected to exhibit in the AUTONOMY WAVE Future 76 exhibition, I had a conversation with him about his work.

Marcia Elizabeth (ME): How do you like to describe your art? Which photography style do your images fall under?

Cahil Sankar (CS): I would describe my art as a way of documenting narratives that aren’t told. I would classify my photography as more documentary photography than anything else.

ME: What is your background? Where did you grow up? What are you currently doing? Are you working on any current projects?

CS: I grew up in JHB and went to school at St David’s. I am currently studying creative brand communications at Vega, specializing in multimedia design. I think my photography has always been an ongoing work. I do not necessarily work on specific projects but my work is just a culmination of images. And I think my photography definitely influences what my designs look like.

ME: Who are the people that you photographed?

CS: I worked quite a bit with bands. I have worked with the Tazers, Soul Gems and The Moths. I work with them a lot and the rest is just random people that you see on the streets.

ME: In a lot of your band photography you play around with shutter speed. Is that something you conceptualize or is it something that just happened and became a thing?

CS: I think it happened because I refused to use a flash in my band photography. I use natural light. I played with how low you can take your shutter speed while still getting a clear image. When you push that you get movement. So it stemmed from not using a flash.

ME: What are your views on Future 76 and the artists that are exhibiting? Do you know some of the other artists you will be working with?

CS: The project itself is such an awesome platform. It is great to be working with Bubblegum Club and I am privileged to be working with some of the best young artists in Johannesburg. I am just so happy to be working with everyone. If I’ve not met them, I have seen most of them online. We are all a part of the same circle.

Do you think that your art will work well with the other artists exhibiting?

CS: It will be a challenge to get it to mesh with the other art forms. My approach is to document and not really to create. I think once we get it to work together it will be pretty cool.

ME: In this month will you be focusing mainly on photography or are you going to bring in other elements of your creativity?

CS: I think I will be focusing mainly on photography but different to what I normally do because I will be collaborating with the other artists and try to merge the different styles of art.

ME: What is the future vision you have for your art?

CS: I am hesitant to pursue photography as a career because I fear falling into the trap of spending my life shooting weddings or commercial photography. I looked at other creative fields and came across multimedia design and fell in love. I will always do photography but it won’t be my main source of income.

ME: I was having a look at your work on Instagram and came across a project where you took some images in a butchery. I found that very interesting. Can you tell me more about this project?

CS: The project started as an assignment from Vega. The assignment was to go into a space that makes you feel uncomfortable or a space that you didn’t really ever interact with. We went to a Halaal butchery in Mayfair to see what it was all about. We were also attempting to remove some of the stigma around Halaal meat. We documented everything that happens behind the counters. What happens behind the counters; to show what people don’t see.

ME: Do you think that you have a visual signature?

CS: I think over the past 3 years my photography has changed a lot. I went from shooting a lot of black and white to shooting super high contrast colour. In the last few months I have settled on shooting low saturation colour. I think you will be able to tell from my perspective or what I am shooting that it is me. But I am not sure that you will be able to tell specifically from the look of the image that it is mine. So you are getting the same perspective, it is just the style has changed.

ME: Are you trying to convey any kind of message with what you are doing?

CS: I feel like my work is quite subjective. Depending on who looks at it they will see a differently story or feel a different emotion. I don’t need my work to have a meaning. I feel like the viewer will make a meaning. It depends on what I am shooting though. With the project where I was shooting at the butchery there was a clear narrative behind all the images. But if I am shooting band photography I am just trying to capture the emotion.

ME: Would you say that you have found your voice as a visual artist?

CS: I would say I have found a voice, not my voice yet. I have been able to tell certain narratives but there is also stuff that I wouldn’t be comfortable putting out there yet. Just because of the social climate in our country you can’t just say whatever you want to say.

ME: Do you feel like you and your work are a fair representation of South African youth?

CS: No. My work is a very narrow view of South African youth. I’m from a privileged background so you are not going to see what the majority of South African youth is actually like. You are getting my perspective not an overall perspective of South Africa.

ME: Are there specific issues that your generation is faced with that are not voiced? And if so would you attempt to voice them during the Future 76 exhibition?

CS: I think there is a lot that is not spoken about, a lot that is pushed under the carpet. I think if I find the right mode of talking about it then I will.

12 June 2017
Vicky Grout – documenting London’s grime scene today

Grime is a music genre which originated in East London in 2002. During its first wave MCs like Kano, Dizzee Rascal and Wiley shook UK culture to its core. Rejecting very stylized beats, MCs were more drawn to a DIY sound. The music was often made on free computer software such as FruityLoops. Creating a voice and platform for disillusioned youths, grime took to the underground rapidly.

The name on the UK scene’s lips is the young Vicky Grout who has swiftly become as much of a trademark as the faces documented with her camera. Skepta, the London grime artist who won the Mercury Prize for his fourth studio album “Konnichiwa”, was shot by Grout in 2016 for the cover of Time Out. Skepta made a post on Instagram stating, “Hate photos, love Vicky Grout”.

Grout’s respect and hunger for the scene combined with her self taught talent has enabled her to embed herself in a scene that is intensely protective of its own. By staying real she has become the go-to documentarian for musicians of grime. She has images of some of the biggest names in the scene featured on her Instagram gallery. Her portraits are clean, cool and show distinctive detail.

The photographer that fell into the scene by accident has been dabbling in photography since she was a child, taking photographs in her grandmother’s garden with the family DSLR. She got her first camera, a small compact Olympus 35mm, when she was 13 years old.

Initially documenting her friends and the world around her, when she got older she started taking her camera with her to raves. Her analogue images were put on a small blog she started. Grout got noticed by taking pictures at shows and posting them on social media together with the appropriate tags. The artists she photographed would see her images and say ‘‘these are sick’’ and invite her to their next show.

Grout did not intend to blow or to become the photographer she is now, at the time she was merely taking photographs for herself. The shows were often held at small venues that allowed her to interact with the MCs and make bonds by networking with her camera. Grout has said that, “I was fangirling really”.

Now an integral feature of grime she has been at the forefront of what has been called the scene’s round two. A new age of artists has come through in the grime scene since the days of Ewan Spencer and Simon Wheatley, with his ice cream van portraits in 2002 of Roll Deep. Grout has often been associated with Spencer and Wheatley, the first documentarians on the scene.

Grout’s weighty digital following and acclaim came about in 2014 with her halting portraits of Section Boyz. With her lens she has captured everyone from the young starters to the top boys and it is difficult to name a player from the UK scene Grout has not photographed, except Wiley.

A regular feature at grime shows, Grout can be found snapping away and spitting every bar, applying the scene and its culture as a second skin. At a Section Boyz show there was a surprise appearance by Drake for which she was the only photographer on stage. It came as a massive surprise to her that he was there and she risked it all to get her shot by climbing onto a speaker.

In 2014 she met Skepta for the first time who reposted some of the pictures she took of him on social media. The connection that she made there led to her being asked to do the behind the scene’s shoot for his music video “Shutdown” by filmmaker Grace Ladoja. She has also been featured as an expert in Grime photography documentation on BBC Radio1 and has shot Novelist for the cover of Viper.

“I feel like if you’re not at the front then you’re not involved. Like, if you can’t feel the energy and the sweat on your face, then it’s not worth it. Go home. Do you know what I mean? You need to be in it. You need to be spitting every bar with them” – Vicky Grout.

24 May 2017
Rethinking documentary photography – A conversation with Giya Makondo-Wills

Giya Makondo-Wills is a young British-South African documentary photographer based in the UK. I had a conversation with her about her latest project They Came From The Water While The World Watched, within which she explores both sides of her heritage through the history of colonization and the clashing of beliefs.

Tell our readers about your journey as a photographer and the approach you have to your work.

I just enjoy working with people. It’s about human interaction and meeting people. I am able to explore and visualize things that I am interested in that I otherwise would not be able to do. Things around history and race. It might be impossible for me to put these into words in the same way that I can describe in pictures. Photography started as hobby. I used to take photos with my brother’s camera. I started studying photography when turned 18.

What kind of themes do you like to work with? Perhaps you would like to talk about this through other projects you have worked on?

I started an ongoing project around Coloursim titled I take these differences and make them bigger. In this project I work from the alleged speech by William Lynch, a speech which was given to slave owners in America. After a slave uprising he was brought from the Caribbean to teach slave owners how to control the slaves. In his speech he said if they put men against women, light skin people against dark skin people, the slave owners would be able to control the slaves. In the project I photographed various tests that have been used throughout history to separate people of colour. These are used in relation to the social media. I was on Instagram and saw a lot of hashtags related to light-skinned vs dark-skinned. I realized that the roots of these was in something that was implemented by Lynch. I find it interesting that that way of talking has continued.

I also started another ongoing project by photographing her two grandmothers. One lives in a township in South Africa and the other in suburbia in England. Both women are incredibly similar. In the work I explore themes around identity and aspiration.

Tell our readers about the title for your project They Came From The Water While The World Watched. Discuss how this relates to the themes you look at (i.e. clashing of beliefs, colonizer vs colonized, etc.)

I don’t really remember how I came up with the title. I think I was in a lecture and someone said something about water and then I started piecing it together. But the title is referencing the first ships that came and landed in SA. ‘While the world watched’ is effectively saying that no one did anything about it because it was deemed normal. I am talking about Europeans here. The work directly carries on with the work on my grandmothers, which is looking at it from two sides. Being brought up in UK and being half British half South African, I think it does give me that dual perspective on themes of Britishness and South Africaness. In the work I am trying to find little pieces of both sides of my heritage in exploring this idea of a clashing of beliefs. The title talks more about beginning of European colonization in South Africa.

You deal with contested topics in this work. What made you feel you wanted to explore this in your work? Perhaps you would like to mention the research you conducted for this project as well as your creative process?

I came about it because my family in South Africa are pretty religious, Christian, but also have traditional ancestral beliefs. The combination of the two I have always found really interesting. The more I looked into themes around colonization it started springing up more and more – this kind of clash of beliefs and the attempt to rid a country of indigenous religion, which happened around the world. With regards to the research I conducted, I spent some time at the University of Johannesburg in their archives. But most of my research comes from talking to people. Especially with a subject like this, you have to have conversations with people. You are not always picking up a camera. Sometimes it’s just sitting and listening and observing, and sometimes you learn so much more this way. I get a more human perspective on it, because I don’t have a full understanding of it. I am just trying to understand people’s relationship with faith whilst looking at the historical implications of it.

Tell me about how you think photography helps you capture the themes you are trying to explore?

With this project in particular [They Came From The Water While The World Watched], it has given me the ability to visualize something that is hard enough to talk about. When you have a camera you can piece things together bit by bit, and you can make a story. Having a camera allows you to go into people’s lives and that is great because it becomes a two-way conversation. You make the pictures for your work and you can make pictures for other people. You can give them portraits or you can give them landscapes. And I really like that interaction. I am not just dipping in and out. I come back and I give people things and we continue our relationship. I think photography helps you build a relationship, and through the relationship themes are stronger. And they can also change completely. I can go into a project with one idea and come out of it with something completely different. It’s an amazing tool to be able to talk to people.

Elaborate more on your comment that, “This work looks from a new perspective regarding documentary photography and the western gaze.”. How do you think your work deals with this?

I think that the Western gaze and documentary photography are two things that have come hand-in-hand. I have been writing about it recently, non-African photographers photographing sub-Saharan Africa. It’s really easy to exoticize, to stereotype. It is easy to have pre-conceived ideas of what a country on the African continent is like. What you learn in school and what you know historically, depending on where you are from. More often than not it is quite an outdated view of countries on the continent, and the continent as a whole. Documentary photographers still pander to these stereotypes today. So I’m just trying to give a different perspective, you know, being from the West. I just want to make sure that my work isn’t feeding these old stereotypes. I want to show real people – how they are, and how I know them to be. I have been going to South Africa on and off since I was born so it is a country that I know. And I want people to see the South Africa I know.

They Came From The Water While The World Watched will be shown on the 2nd of May at Assemblage in Johannesburg.

To keep up with Giya and her work, check her out on Instagram.

19 April 2017