“Although many art forms offer a view inside the mind of the artist, photography differs substantially because it catches a snapshot of life that has been reimagined and shaped by the circumstances of the person holding the camera,” says Jabulani Dhlamini, a renowned South-African photographer represented by the Goodman Gallery and Project Manager at Of Soul and Joy, a photography programme in Thokoza township in Gauteng. In the run up to Heritage Day, Dhlamini sits down to have a conversation with Sibusiso Bheka, a former student turned Project Assistant at Of Soul and Joy, whose work has received critical acclaim, both locally and internationally.
“Photographs are gifts of the past”, starts Dhlamini. “Although sometimes they’re gifts we didn’t expect or ask for, they’re gifts nonetheless which we can look at ourselves through.” Considering that Heritage Day in our country is an opportunity for people from all walks of life to remember and honour their heritage, photography it would seem is the perfect medium for archiving and visually expressing the lived experiences of the photographer.
Yet Bheka feels that although photography captures fleeting moments in a visual capacity, the artform has the power to change perspectives and redirect the conversation about important issues – past, current and future. He explains further: “Heritage is about more than the past. Yes, it’s about where we came from but it’s also like a compass guiding us. It helps us understandwhere we come from, so we can figure out where we’re heading. Through photography we are archiving for the future, such archives can then be deployed to challenge inherited norms and understandings, to shape a new future and to even correct for the next generation.”
Whether established artists or passionate emerging voices, photographers inform, inspire and shape realities as they take us on a visual journey of the world through their unique perspective. The inherent power of photography lies in capturing expressions and feelings, the memories it can preserve, the timeless stories it brings to life, and the inter-generational dialogue and action it can inspire. For many years photography has been a storytelling outlet for South Africans to visually express their experiences – their thoughts, hopes, dreams – in a world where self-empowerment was often lacking.
As a photographer whose work so heavily documents his environment as testimony to our country’s violent past, Bheka says this retrospective juxtaposes celebrating the intense beauty and hope that can be found in daily township life. “When you live in a certain place, you see this space very differently from someone who doesn’t live there. In most of my work, the history is already there but I’m visually changing the narrative using colour and cinematic-type shots to reveal the beauty of the township. My work speaks to the crime, the violence, but also the hope and potential in a very poetic way.”
Dhlamini says that this is precisely why photography is such a powerful artistic vessel for heritage. “What becomes incredibly hard to describe in any other medium can be captured so perfectly in one composition. So much can be communicated through an image that allows the viewer to locate its place in history. It’s a form of photojournalism that’s evolved into a fine art space.”
What is also a welcome change is how much more accessible photography is becoming, and along with that accessibility, the opportunity to truly archive the past in a way that was historically not available to many South Africans. Bheka elaborates on this insight, adding that the language of photography is changing from the traditionally more photojournalistic, documentary style to being more raw, up close, and personal.
“If I think back to generations before me such as my elders at home, our heritage was shared in stories that each generation grew up listening to. While oral tradition does hold significance in most African cultures, in South Africa, we cannot escape the fact that the social and structural setup of Apartheid limited more advanced methods for archiving our stories such as photography. Now with more and more young people being exposed to photography through social media like Instagram, through initiatives like Of Soul and Joy, and through collectives like Umhlabathi, this access is giving us a whole new way to capture the present, to visually archive it as it becomes our past and to share it to shape a reimagined future.”
Dhlamini agrees that the art form quite literally adds a new perspective to the country’s yesterday, today and tomorrow. “I can’t change how you see me, but I can change how I want you to see me.Photography may not always be about seeing specific physical aspects, but more about the perspective of what has been passed down from generation to generation. For example, the positioning and composition of a picture. This is informed by the photographer’s lived experiences and so in reflecting it they’re understanding and exploring the cultural nuances that shaped them, accepting and reclaiming them through this visual narrative and using them to tell their future stories. The stories they want the world to hear, inspired by their rich heritage.”
“The beauty of our country is that our roots are different; we’re inspired and influenced by different things, and we all have our own traditions,” says Bheka. “We’re a multicultural society, and we’re multi-cultural individuals. Photography gives us a voice that speaks louder than mere words, that is more widely accepted across the global stage. The stories may differ vastly from frame to frame, but what doesn’t differ is the impact we make as we take control of our narrative, change how we want the world to see us and shape our future heritage.”
