Like many creatives, Marcia Elizabeth was introduced to her passion when she was a child. Having received a set from her grandparents which included a snapshot camera, she soon became attached to the ability to capture moments through this device. During our conversation she recalled how this camera, and the old family camera she received from her aunt later, opened up her mind to imagining a future as a National Geographic photographer treading through forests clicking away. As she got older her career goal to be a photographer remained the same, but her areas of interest shifted. During university she got into band photography, and later dabbled with fashion. Her new series, ‘Blonde’ encompasses all the elements of the direction she is going with at the moment – that she describes as environmental portraitist work.
Tying in with her recent focus on womxn and the female figure, ‘Blonde’ explores the narrative of trying to mould oneself to the desires of others, whether a lover or society as a whole, and how eventually the choice to embrace one’s true self is freeing. “Women have always been the painted but never the painters of our own stories, and I guess that is why it [portraying womxn] is so important to me, and it is important for me to document this specific time that I think we are in.”
With a lot of her past work being digital, Marcia began experimenting with film photography for the first time since childhood when photographing the Fine Art Masters show of Daniella Dagnin last year. Slowly building up confidence, ‘Blonde’ is a project built completely through the textured softness of film.
The completion of the series took a few months, which unintentionally added a layer to the work. Not only did the breaks between shoots result in her film photography improving, but it allowed her to take time to piece together a clear and concise story based on her initial concept. This also led to more experimentation. Looking at the images one can tell the difference in time between the photographs, and yet the series marries together well. This difference in time almost mimics the narrative of the series; that over time these young womxn will slowly free themselves by embracing themselves, therefore creating and projecting a different image to the world.
In conversation about the narrative for the series, Marcia explained that, “The whole reason why the young womxn who were photographed had dyed hair was because I was trying to speak about this fake illusion of women trying to live up to these beauty standards that are not real…. You know, this idea that we are not good enough as we are.” This is represented by the white ring binder stickers placed on the faces of the models; the stickers are abstract ways of pointing out the scrutinizing gaze that society has on womxn.
There are recurring elements that tie the series together, and are used symbolically. The majority of the images are taken in intimate spaces, such as the bedroom. Marcia explained that these are the rooms of the young womxn photographed, tying into her description of herself as an environmental portraitist. “I generally photograph people in their own spaces. Specifically for this series I wanted it to be very intimate, and I wanted people to show me who they were,” Marcia explained. Adding to the feeling of intimacy are this soft, lacey fabrics worn by the models. Marcia’s presence is included directly through the mirrors that some of the models interact with in her images. The series comes full circle in the last set of photographs where a young womxn is photographed in a garden. Being outside is representative of letting go and choosing to reject the box that she is “supposed” to fit into. One of the most important recurring elements is that of flowers. They are symbolic of feminine energy and feminine power.
This series is an illustration of Marcia’s work as an amalgamation of capturing moods, telling stories from her own perspective, and viewing photographs as surrealist duplications of real life.
Credits:
Photography & Styling: Marcia Elizabeth, Portrait of artist by Jemma Rose
If you’re looking for young womxn who personify the young, creative spirit lingering in Johannesburg, you don’t need to look much further than multidisciplinary artists Jemma Rose and Anne-Marie Kalumbu. They are able to transfer this personification into their work, demonstrating the sense of evolutionary motion that Joburg invokes in creative practitioners.
Anne-Marie is a well-traveled creative born in Zimbabwe and currently calls Johannesburg her home. Her practice has revolved around mysticism and more recently she has become invested in the memory as an integral theme. Her memories of personal experiences take the physical form of negative film that she burns in order to suggest the power time has to alter memories. She expresses that Johannesburg cannot be removed from her practice as all things are holistic.
Jemma grew up in the suburbs of Johannesburg and as a result she was sheltered from the harsher realities of South Africa. She takes photographs in an attempt to understand the world around her and to understand herself. Her work often speaks about queer identity and mental health. She aims to make people question certain realities of living within the city and the world as a whole.
With the streets as a backdrop, we chatted to them about their city, their work and their plans for 2018.
Dolls fire our collective imagination, for better and – too often – for worse. From life-size dolls the same height as the little girls who carry them…to Barbie and her fashionable sisters, dolls do double duty as child’s play and the focus of adult art and adult fear.
– Ellen Datlow
A multi-sensory moment. Inflated. Disproportionate eyes, lips and limbs. Contorted constructions of misrepresented ideals. Dolls have a complex relationship to constructs of womxnhood, femininity and the female body. In an interview with Daniella Dagnin, she explores the relationship of different doll architypes in her work through the exhibition, Blue Lies White Truths.
Photography by Marcia Elizabeth
“It started with a script that I wanted to write, which lead me to a world that was slightly fictional. There were moments peeking through of a real universe.” Her interactive script of text, videos and gifs engages the reader in multiple dimensions. “Words would stop and then there would be a certain sensory element.”
Blue Lies White Truths was a reimagining of this – a “visual context within the boundaries of a gallery.” “Thematically it had a lot to do with the female body, relationships, whiteness and the dimensionalities that exist within families. Those moments were pushing through between reality and fiction.”
Photography by Marcia Elizabeth
The Barbie Barbeque – an assemblage of Barbies trapped in a matrix of a braaing implement “was a kind of play on words. There are so many different elements that use dolls, but each represents a different thing.”The character played by Natasha Brown, “X was a kind of caricature of a womxn, she lacked the dimensionality of a full character. She was used to reiterate the stereotypes of female beauty.” Whereas Morgan Hall as Egg on the other hand, “was on the periphery of being male or female – yet he was totally exposed through his wardrobe. He was wearing this plastic top which showed his bedazzled nipples.
Photography by Marcia Elizabeth
A blow-up doll also featured in the exhibition. “Initially the blow-up dolls were supposed to fill the space. Ironically, they’re super expensive even the cheap disgusting ones. The dolls…had to do with transforming the object. It’s not a complete transformation because you can still identify that it is a doll, but there are still moments where maybe the doll is in the future or part of some other ritual or culture.” In this way, the sex toy transcends its original purpose and becomes symbolic of alternate projections.
Photography by Marcia Elizabeth
Of all the characters, “Micaiah [as Jessica Robinson] had the most dimension, but was also a younger character. The dolls brought her back to this kind of child-like world. A lot of it also had to do with this time element: Jessica Robinson is an adult, not a 14-year-old girl. In terms of casting, it was either a choice of casting someone super young and fitting the characters within each role that they ostensibly should have in terms of age, or switching roles – which is why X is depicted as looking younger to subvert that.” The female characters in this narrative both undermine, but also mirror representations of doll-like-womxn in the media.
Media imagery within the Western paradigm, “has such a skewed concept of womxn within itself…it needs to start representing what is real instead of this façade as a repetitious performance. ”Art has the potential to act as a space to reclaim the doll-image in a way that does not reproduce the same warped notions of femininity. Dolls can be used divisively as “symbols to represent a larger world.” Other works like Jane Alexander’s Stripped (Oh Yes Girl) 1995 and more recently Robyn Perros’ work with [wo]mannequins operate within a similar dynamic.
Photography by Marcia ElizabethPhotography by Alison Martin
The word ‘zine’ is derived from the term fanzine, referring to a publication form that first started circulating in the 1930s. During the 1970s fanzines translated into a more developed type of publishing with the then popular punk fanzines and later the upsurge of queer and feminist driven zines in the late 1980s. This was the result of the fanzine form moving away from fan culture and clearing a space for zinesters who felt misrepresented by mainstream media to have their opinions expressed in print. Zines have been described as “non-commercial, nonprofessional, small-circulation magazines which their creators produce, publish, and distribute by themselves”. With developments in technology, zines have shown growth by incorporating more diverse content such as personal reflections, special interest, literary zines, and fanzines. The unifying elements of zines are their independent production, writing, and design, existing outside of the fringes of mainstream publishing. Zines explore topics that are frequently ignored and overlooked by mainstream media and play a pivotal role in representing the possibilities for counter-hegemonic transformation. Being independent of commercial contemplations and viability, zines address a smaller audience of like-minded individuals and can act as a safe outlet for self-expression (Bold 2017).
We are living in a time where there has been a large-scale resurgence of older forms of content creation and storing. This can be seen when looking at the popularity of film photography in recent times and the ‘coolness’ that is associated with vinyl, tape and the early ’00s aesthetic. We are currently living in the golden age of paper and there is an increasing interest by creative sugar babies to voice themselves through self-publishing. To find out more about this phenomenon I spoke to the creators of two new South-African zines, ‘Still Not Joshy Pascoe’ and ‘This is What Makes Us Girls’.
Image from ‘Still Not Joshy Pascoe’ zine
‘Still Not Joshy Pascoe’ is a zine created by Capetonian creatives Keenan Oliver, Mzonke Maloney and Dumi Mparutsa. This zine uses the act of waiting for someone to arrive, specifically Joshy Pascoe, as its basis. These zinesters are looking at defining image use as a colloquial language combining the images used with news headlines from the day that they were waiting for Joshy’s arrival. This combination of news headlines as image labels is intended to mimic the way that text is added to imagery in meme creation. They explain in our interview that this union is imposed as an emphasis on the disparity of news image reception in contrast with socially constructed images and how they are received.
The idea for the self-published piece was brought to life after Joshua Pascoe saw an image of Keenan on an insta story which led to Joshua’s instant engagement. Evidently liking what he saw, he jumped on the DM train and asked Keenan for an impromptu shoot in which he planned to finish the remainder of the frames left on his roll of film. The images that made it into the zine were captured while the act of waiting on Joshua took place. When asked why they believe the act of waiting for someone’s arrival was significant enough to base an entire zine on they tell me that their self-published content is aimed at challenging the entire concept of significance in relation to the fundamental elements of image creation.
Image from ‘Still Not Joshy Pascoe’ zine
“The democratization of image making as an industry and a practice, has rendered all images equally significant, specifically within the cultural/social space. Our deliberate use of suburban tedium and non-activity looks to further emphasize the fact that there is no longer an accurate barometer, used to gauge the importance or non-importance of an image.” This statement holds a considerable amount of weight as we are living in a time where there is content on nearly every subject imaginable. We are bombarded by content whenever we open our web browsers. From small pop up adds advertising weight loss products, to celebrity scandals, food recipes, people dyeing their hair with Nutella spread and artistic short films of girls smashing their faces into food (yes I’ve actually watched this). The list is never-ending. Curating your content is a rather new idea and the first time I stumbled upon it was in the book by Michael Bhaskar titled ‘Curation – The Power of Selection in a World of Excess’, published in 2016. This book is a rather useful guide to removing actual bullshit content from your cyberspace experience.
The team behind ‘Still Not Joshy Pascoe’ explain that this zine was a way for them to express their views on the consumption of news imagery, and what people’s reactions are to them at present. “The rapid technological development of the various image generating mediums has prompted the reimagining of images, as more than just ‘artifacts of technology’ but rather as what Hans Belting has termed as being ‘the boundary between physical and mental existence’”. The inquiry addressed within this zine attempts to create a discernment between images within mental existence and images that move into a physical space within our current social context. “What becomes urgent and what remains trivial.”
Image from ‘Still Not Joshy Pascoe’ zine
“I could somehow watch the news and instantly disconnect from the images and their implications (these images would not transcend past mental existence), yet Joshy could watch an insta story and respond immediately, bringing the image to the fore of his physical existence.” This zine thus questions the relevance of news imagery and its significance in modern day society. This is done by almost saying that their social media interactions that led to a photo shoot and zine were more significant and impactful than news headlines were. They were more inclined to interact with a social post than they were to read the news of that particular day. And let’s be honest, I don’t engage with the news much, I can, however, tell you what my insta connections were doing this weekend in excruciating detail.
News headlines were used as a form of tagging in this zine which is explained by the team as follows, “In attempting to synthesize those two thoughts; we realized that whilst we were waiting, absorbed by our own daily tedium and taking pictures of mundane suburbia (which is significant to us), much more “significant” events were taking place around the country, and the reconciliation of these two events occurring simultaneously would create the significance of the moment.”
Utilizing screenshots from the DM thread between Joshua and Keenan, a timeline is visually built to create a context for the imagery that rests on the opposing pages. This timeline provides a temporal space in which the events were taking place and aided in establishing the overriding narrative of the zine. This zine is in my opinion, a storage space for a ‘live’ event taking place and is almost a self-published insta story/documentary piece of work addressing a complex question. All the content within the zine questions the idea of significance. The team tells me that these images are significant because of the mere fact that they exist.
Image from ‘Still Not Joshy Pascoe’ zine
Explaining the connections made between social media, the act of image creation, texting and newspapers the creators tell me, “Whether it is the form of a meme, post or photo sharing, social media has made photographing a part of colloquial dialect for our generation. News making (documentary photography) was the most impactful form of image production from the past couple generations, but no longer holds the same weight, due to the rate at which images are being produced. The news now exists in synthesis with this colloquial/new language. The news of the day includes personal images, memes and other forms of social imagery.”
This zine considers itself an anthropological study. It is explained as, “Regardless, the mass production of art means that all of art has dissolved into life or more accurately all of life has dissolved into art and therefore an inquiry into the use of medium must be considered anthropological.”
Image from ‘Still Not Joshy Pascoe’ zine
Following my discussion with the creators of ‘Still Not Joshy Pascoe’ I spoke to the young interracial queer couple behind ‘This is What Makes Us Girls’ zine, Boni Mnisi, and Leal after the launch of their zine on the 30th October in Cape Town. Boni expresses that the zine came about rather unexpectedly, “I wasn’t even entirely sure how to create one when I decided to announce to my Instagram followers that I was going to do it. I wrote and shared a painfully mediocre poem on my Instagram story and quickly explained it away as a sample of writing from a bigger body of work that I was trying to put together. I got DMs from so many people who were interested in getting involved and kinda got trapped into doing what I said I was going to do.”
Cover image for ‘This is What Makes Us Girls’ zine by Gina Hendrickse
The zine’s name was inspired by Lana Del Rey’s 2012 single that shares the same title. Boni regrets this title and explains that at the time she did not consider the exclusion that is linked to the word ‘girl’. “While we do actively recognize that trans and non-binary people who identify with our message may not themselves identify as ‘girls’, the word should have no place in our work from now on. As an intersectional feminist zine, we have an obligation to protect our trans and non-binary family, which includes eliminating the violent language that we have ourselves mistakenly employed. We want to rebrand and come back with something more representative of the community we hope to create. As of 2018, this working title is dead.”
‘This is What Makes Us Girls’ is made up of mostly contributed content from South African creative womxn that is bound together by Leal’s illustrations. This zine which consists of an online and print version made use of social media to promote itself.
Photography by Alessia Dossantos
Speaking about the launch of the first issue Boni tells me that they were overwhelmed by the response they received. Only expecting roughly 50 people, about 250 – 300 attended the event. “We began with an exhibition of our Cape Town based contributors’ work and shortly after began our entirely womxn DJ line-up featuring the insane DJ-duo ‘No Diggity‘. It was an incredibly sweaty night of grinding and vogue-ing. People expressed their gratitude for having a predominately womxn space where they were able to be themselves and feel safe. So we had lots of titties! Lots of girl-on-girl action and not a voyeuristic penis in sight! It was unlike anything I’ve experienced at any party.” Looking at the response that this zine has received as well as the intention of creating a safe and inclusive space for all womxn it can be said that this zine gives a voice to an underrepresented community and a safe space for self-expression.
‘This is What Makes Us Girls’ features content created by Afrah Mayet, Jemma Rose, Alice de Beer, Lianne O’Donnell, Claire & Abi Meekel, Amu Mnisi, Keo Borjeszo, Sandra Wilken, Marcia Elizabeth, Kayo Fay, Jesmin, Sasha de la Rey, Phoenix Falconer +30 more. In order to get their vision going, Boni and Leal raised funds in the months leading up to the launch. “This project was made possible by our generous friends and family whom we are so grateful for.” The zine will be available in Johannesburg soon and a digital free version is in the works.
Photography by Gina Hendrickse
Zines are a powerful tool for self-expression and can relate to literally anything as there are no rules to making a zine and they do not need to be commercially viable. A zine can be an experimental exploration and can be about something that the creators feel are relevant which is the case with ‘Still Not Joshy Pascoe’ or they can address concerns or grant a voice to a community of likeminded often underrepresented individuals as is the case with ‘This is What Makes Us Girls’. The act of zine making has been described as the “mass amateurisation of publishing” (Bold 2017). With the rise of digital folk culture over the decades, zines can be executed in a different way and do not necessarily have to be a physical print. Zines’ audiences are engaging differently today than they would have a number of years ago and zinesters are employing all the tools they have to voice themselves, such as social media. With the internet, there are more options for affordable cultural production with the ability of a global audience (Bold 2017). I believe that today, more so than ever it is easier to create a zine. Amateur creators have a space to explore a different type of cultural production with zines. So to zine or not? – yeah, if mainstream media won’t hear you out then please do zine! However, I do believe that there are many topics that were once considered experimental or non-commercial that have received attention from mainstream media in recent times. I like to think that people today are more connected, and aware of the narratives of some misrepresented and underrepresented communities which I attribute to internet culture. Zines do however still hold a place and creative sugar babies seem to love the heck out of them.
A saturated mustard yellow surface glistens, punctuated by gleaming circles of a similar shade. A jar brimming with nostalgic gelatinous forms lies at a half-tilt, threatening to spill over. Memorabilia from a bygone era. Fuchsia lips and the wide-eyes of a direct gaze are adorned by these scattered semi-transparent shapes. Each one slightly different, exuding an individual character. One acts as a cheeky jawbreaker, caught in the midst of porcelain teeth. Tendrils of long dark hair are tussled around shoulders of a rekindled playful innocence. A collected history of childhood captured in the face of adolescence.
Johannesburg based photographer, Marcia Elizabeth, recounts how the translucent creatures were formative icons of her childhood. Jojo’s initially emerged on the scene in the year 1999. “It was a big competition between all the kids in my school to collect these plastic blobs in either neon or transparent colors. Finding these toys were a game in themselves because they weren’t available everywhere and came in blind bags.” A similar strategy was applied to their distant, slightly more archaic cousins, marbles: “The objective of the game was for one participant to toss out his Jojo and for the other players to hit it when throwing theirs. The player who succeeded would then win the Jojo he or she successfully hit.” These tactics made for hours of competitive fun.
“As a little girl I was a part of an all girl’s scooter gang who would race up and down the streets of Nieuw Muckleneuk always on the hunt for Jojo’s and general mischief. We traded in Jojo’s and had a massive collection. Reflecting on it now, perhaps we had a syndicate running. Jojo’s though playful in nature, gave us a sense of power and credibility among the other kids in the neighborhood. It was what our street cred was measured by.” Marcia draws on this collective and personal iconography – employing visual signifiers of late-90s nostalgia to create points of accessibility in this body of photographic work.
The completion of the series took a few months, which unintentionally added a layer to the work. Not only did the breaks between shoots result in her film photography improving, but it allowed her to take time to piece together a clear and concise story based on her initial concept. This also led to more experimentation. Looking at the images one can tell the difference in time between the photographs, and yet the series marries together well. This difference in time almost mimics the narrative of the series; that over time these young womxn will slowly free themselves by embracing themselves, therefore creating and projecting a different image to the world.
In conversation about the narrative for the series, Marcia explained that, “The whole reason why the young womxn who were photographed had dyed hair was because I was trying to speak about this fake illusion of women trying to live up to these beauty standards that are not real…. You know, this idea that we are not good enough as we are.” This is represented by the white ring binder stickers placed on the faces of the models; the stickers are abstract ways of pointing out the scrutinizing gaze that society has on womxn.
There are recurring elements that tie the series together, and are used symbolically. The majority of the images are taken in intimate spaces, such as the bedroom. Marcia explained that these are the rooms of the young womxn photographed, tying into her description of herself as an environmental portraitist. “I generally photograph people in their own spaces. Specifically for this series I wanted it to be very intimate, and I wanted people to show me who they were,” Marcia explained. Adding to the feeling of intimacy are this soft, lacey fabrics worn by the models. Marcia’s presence is included directly through the mirrors that some of the models interact with in her images. The series comes full circle in the last set of photographs where a young womxn is photographed in a garden. Being outside is representative of letting go and choosing to reject the box that she is “supposed” to fit into. One of the most important recurring elements is that of flowers. They are symbolic of feminine energy and feminine power.
