November 6, 2006
By Ndaba Dlamini
A COLLAGE of South African female artists working in photography, digital and new media are showing their work at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in an exhibition entitled Women: Photography and New Media.
The exhibition incorporates various media, including photography, sound installation, video projection and sculpture and runs from Thursday, 9 November to 28 February 2007. Some 16 established and emerging artists are featured, all of whom who engage with notions of portraiture, identity, mirroring the self and imaging the body.
Work included in the exhibition is drawn from the gallery's collections and recent work by the artists.
A picture of a tree stump taken by Zanele Muholi
One of the featured artists is Zanele Muholi, a gender and sexual activist and recipient of the Tollman Award and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Arts and Culture Award in 2005. Her images offer a radical break from stereotypical narratives about black female sexuality. Her aim is to offer people a chance to think differently about blackness, female forms, skins, bodies and sexuality.
Born in Umlazi, in Durban, and trained at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Muholi came to national attention in 2004 with her exhibition Visual Sexuality, also at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Muholi co-founded and works for the Forum for the Empowerment of Women, a black lesbian organisation. She has participated in a number of conferences and exhibitions locally and internationally and her photographs have appeared in South African gay and lesbian publications.
Also exhibiting her stunning work is Nontsikelelo "Lolo" Veleko, a highly original photographer and project manager-co-coordinator at the Market Photo Workshop. Over the last couple of years Veleko has received a great deal of attention for her striking work entitled Beauty is in the Eyes of a Beholder. She was a 2003 finalist in the MTN New Contemporary Artists and has since been participating in important local and international exhibitions.
Another featured artist, Bridget Baker, explores participatory performance, crafting intricate objects, producing photographic stills and setting up installation projects. Baker remains concerned with observing public and private methods of surviving the mundanity of adult responsibility, especially hard work.
Also in the exhibition is an artist who works with photo-based media, video and installation, Jo Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe works in the department of fine arts at the University of the Witwatersrand where she teaches studio practice and theory. She has exhibited widely, both in South Africa and abroad, and in 1999 was the recipient of the FNB Vita Art Prize, awarded for the multi-screen video installation, Love, Death, Sacrifice and So Forth.
Frances Goodman was born in Johannesburg in 1975. She studied fine arts at Wits University and went on to complete her masters degree at Goldsmith's College in London. Goodman works predominately with audio, narrative and text. She currently lives and works in Antwerp, in Belgium.
Other artists exhibiting their work are Natasha Christopher, Reshma Chiba, Nadine Hutton, Terry Furgan, Ingrid Masondo, Anthea Moys, Tracey Rose, Vathiswa Ruselo, Usha Seejarim, Penny Siopis and Doreen Southwood.
A panel discussion on the conceptual and critical concerns involving South African women working in photography and new media today will be held at the Johannesburg Art Gallery on Tuesday, 21 November at 6pm.
The gallery is at Klein Street, Joubert Park.
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