Established | 2015 |
---|---|
Location | Melville, Johannesburg, South Africa |
Director | John Fleetwood [1] |
Website | http://www.phototool.co.za |
Photo: is a multi-operational photography platform founded in Johannesburg, South Africa by John Fleetwood in 2015. [2] [3]
Photo: promotes photography and the work of emerging and practicing Photographers, with the aim to encourage critical and experimental approaches/responses to the role of photography in our world, today. Central to its vision is the idea that photography can be a delicate tool for social change. The platform wants to encourage dialogue, exchange, critical engagement and participation through commissioning, producing and connecting photography projects and practitioners. Photo: continues to play a notable contributing role in curatorial and educational projects in South Africa, throughout the African continent and beyond.
"Five Photographers. A tribute to David Goldblatt: An exhibition of Alexia Webster, Jabulani Dhlamini, Mauro Vombe and Pierre Crocquet [11] ", shown in Johannesburg (2018), and in 2019 in Maputo, Mozambique; in Maseru, Lesotho; at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda and in Durban (Aug 2019).
“Connected", Kinshasa, DRC, 2019, an exhibition of the work of the participants of the Photography Masterclass at the Academy of Fine Arts (Académie des Beaux-Arts).
“Amongst other things", Mindelo, Cabo Verde, 2019, an exhibition of the work of the 8 photographers who participated in the 2019 Catchupa Factory Residency [12] for PALOP Photographers.
“Of traps and tropes", Tunisia, 2017, as part of the inaugural Kerkennah International Photography Festival with the work of Héla Ammar (Tunisia), Matt Kay (South Africa), Meghna Singh (India, South Africa) and Simon Gush (South Africa).
“Cities and Memory", Denmark, 2016, as part of the National Biennale for Photography in Denmark, Brandts presented collections from more than 20 photographers from the BRICS countries. Under the theme Cities and Memory, Brazilian, Russian, Indian, Chinese and South African photographers work was curated to reflect on some of these transitions. With the work of Lebohang Kganye, Jansen van Staden, Moss Moeng and Siphosihle Mkhwanazi.
David Goldblatt HonFRPS was a South African photographer noted for his portrayal of South Africa during the period of apartheid. After apartheid had ended he concentrated more on the country's landscapes. What differentiates Goldblatt's body of work from those of other anti-apartheid artists is that he photographed issues that went beyond the violent events of apartheid and reflected the conditions that led up to them. His forms of protest have a subtlety that traditional documentary photographs may lack: "[M]y dispassion was an attitude in which I tried to avoid easy judgments. . . . This resulted in a photography that appeared to be disengaged and apolitical, but which was in fact the opposite." He has numerous publications to his name.
Zanele Muholi is a South African artist and visual activist working in photography, video, and installation. Muholi's work focuses on race, gender and sexuality with a body of work that dates back to the early 2000's, documenting and celebrating the lives of South Africa's Black lesbian, gay, transgender, and intersex communities. Muholi is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, explaining that "I'm just human".
LagosPhoto Festival is the first international art festival of photography in Nigeria, launched in October 2010. It is organised by the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF) as part of an ongoing project designed to use art in public spaces, as a medium for increasing societal awareness. The festival includes workshops and classes for professional artists, art fairs and indoor and outdoor exhibitions citywide. LagosPhoto is held annually and features emerging photographers alongside established photographers.
Space for Pan African Research Creation and Knowledge (SPARCK) is a multi-sited, multi-disciplinary project founded in 2008 in collaboration with The Africa Centre. It is structured around a series of residencies for artists from across Africa and the African diaspora working in numerous media and styles, a wide range of exhibitions, installations, performances, screenings, Internet link-ups, publications, round-table discussions and workshops. Its initiatives are directed at a diverse body of the public and actively engaged local communities.
Athi-Patra Ruga is a South African artist who uses performance, photography, video, textiles, and printmaking to explore notions of utopia and dystopia, material and memory. His work explores the body in relation to sensuality, culture, and ideology, often creating cultural hybrids. Themes such as sexuality,Xhosa culture, and the place of queerness within post-apartheid South Africa also permeate his work.
Santu Mofokeng was a South African news and documentary photographer who worked under the alias Mofokengâ. Mofokeng was a member of the Afrapix collective and won a Prince Claus Award.
George Hallett was a South African photographer known for images of South African exiles. His body of work captures much of the country's turbulent history through Apartheid and into the young democracy.
Eric Miller is a professional photographer based in South Africa. Miller was born in Cape Town but spent his childhood in Johannesburg. After studying psychology and working in the corporate world for several years, Miller was driven by the injustices of apartheid to use his hobby, photography, to document opposition to apartheid by becoming a full-time photographer.
Nontsikelelo "Lolo" Veleko is a South African photographer most noted for her depiction of black identity, urbanisation and fashion in post-apartheid South Africa.
Gisèle Wulfsohn was a South African photographer. Wulfsohn was a newspaper, magazine, and freelance photographer specialising on portrait, education, health and gender issues. She was known for documenting various HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns. She died in 2011 from lung cancer.
Photography in South Africa has a lively culture, with many accomplished and world-renowned practitioners. Since photography was first introduced to the Cape Colony through the colonising powers, photography has variously been used as a weapon of colonial control, a legitimating device for the apartheid regime, and, in its latest incarnation, a mechanism for the creation of a new South African identity in the age of democracy, freedom and equality.
Jo Ractliffe is a South African photographer and teacher working in both Cape Town, where she was born, and Johannesburg, South Africa. She is considered among the most influential South African "social photographers."
Ruth Seopedi Motau is a South African photographer currently living and working in Johannesburg, South Africa. Motau was the first black female photographer who was employed by a South African newspaper as photo editor. Her photography focuses on social documentary influenced by photojournalism and the marginalisation of black people and communities.
John Fleetwood is a South African photography curator, educator who was from 2002 to 2015 director of Market Photo Workshop and has since 2016 been director of Photo: in Johannesburg.
Sabelo Mlangeni is a South African photographer living and working in Johannesburg, South Africa. His work is held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Walther Collection.
Ala Kheir is a Sudanese photographer, cinematographer and mechanical engineer. He became known as one of the founders of the Sudanese Photographers Group in Khartoum in 2009 and through international exhibitions of his photographs, as well as for networking and training for photographers in Africa.
Phumzile Khanyile is a South African photographer, living in Johannesburg. Her series Plastic Crowns is about women's lives and sexual politics. The series has been shown in group exhibitions at the Palace of the Dukes of Cadaval in Evora, Portugal; Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town; and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia; and was a winner of the CAP Prize for Contemporary African Photography,
The Market Photo Workshop is a school of photography, a gallery, and a project space in Johannesburg, South Africa, founded in 1989 by David Goldblatt. It offers training in visual literacy for neglected and marginalized parts of South African society. Its courses are short foundation and intermediate, as well as longer advanced, and in photojournalism and documentary.
Robert A. Hamblin is a South African-born visual artist, working mainly in photography and paint on paper. The work deals with tensions on the gender and sexuality spectrums of the contemporary human condition. InterseXion, a multidisciplinary exhibition and seven year collaboration with the Sistaaz Hood, a group of South African transgender sex workers, was staged at Iziko South African National Gallery in 2017. His autobiography was published in June 2021.
Akinbode Akinbiyi is a British photographer, author and curator of Nigerian background, who has been living in Berlin, Germany, since the 1990s. Due to his participation in exhibitions, festivals, publications and networks, he has become known as one of the internationally renowned representatives of photography in Africa.