Cuny Janssen at João Ferreira
by Maria Baumann
An initial sweep of the Cuny Janssen exhibition, 'There's something in the Air in Prince Albert', impresses one with the timeless stillness of the expansive Karoo landscape; a stillness which seems to be reflected in the young local children, who are Janssen's subjects. There are three different types of images: those spanning the vast arid landscapes, those focusing on unexpected bursts of bright plant life and finally, portraits of white and coloured children, usually in their home setting.
The gallery space forces one to read these images in close relation to each other in several ways. The different subjects are interspersed; a poem by Craig McEwan that runs along the bottom of the room often cuts off mid-sentence under an image, serving to draw it together with the next image under which the sentence is concluded. None of the photographs are individually titled. They are obviously intended to work as a group, to tell a story. However what the storyteller is trying to tell us seems rather confused - what exactly does Janssen feel in the air in Prince Albert?
In response to this very question in an interview with Sean O'Toole, she spoke of the 'sociopolitical history of South Africa' or, more specifically, how it is pointedly never mentioned in Prince Albert despite its obvious effects. Another 'something' she describes is an overwhelming sense of pre-history she experienced in the Karoo, expressing how she could easily imagine dinosaurs moving about her. She highlights this element of the landscape by the juxtaposition of the images with the poem. This describes the original formation of the continents when Gondwanaland broke apart. It also describes the abundant forms of wildlife living in the Karoo so markedly absent from the images. However, the poem is riddled with clichés associated with Africa such as 'succulent pink aloes' and ' mighty herds of antelope', detracting from the atmosphere it helps to provide.
What seems to be in the air then is silence; the silence of a community on the matter of its own past, and the silent presence of all the various life forms that have passed over the changeless landscape over the centuries.
With her photography Janssen has explored the relationship between children and their landscapes, working in Japan, Macedonia and India. She believes that the landscape can act as a portrait of its inhabitants and vice versa. The silence of the landscape is definitely reflected in Janssen's representation of her subjects. On a whole they gaze warily into the camera, frozen in a moment of shy inactivity. But do the children impress on the landscape?
I would argue that the photographs distinguish between the children of the different races. The white children seem far more confident and their homes far more secure, showing small signs of man's harnessing of nature such as potted plants and cages of birds. However, the coloured children, like the dinosaurs and plants, seem to be just one more fleeting life form to exist awhile on this barren space before they too pass away, making way for a new stage in evolution. This impression is given by the significant lack of the protecting presence of grown ups. Also the home environments in which they are contextualised, give a very transitory unrooted impression through elements such as unupholstered chairs and cracked bare cement floors.
The views of the children's homes are usually fragmentary, blurred or cast in shadow. There is almost no representation of urban structure. The process of building has always served as a sign of man's dominion over nature; its absence in this case, seems to imply the reverse. The result is that the children seem to be unprotected and unsheltered from the forbidding environment. The pictures create the image of a landscape which has existed in much the same way since the beginning of the world, unchanged by a millennia of plants, animals and people who exist on it for a time before silently fading away. The children become the quiet victims of their surroundings.
When asked why she chooses children as subjects, Janssen replied that children have a really strong tangible positive energy and that they are 'a promise for the future'. The plant images are instrumental in conveying this message. The bright little plants pushing through the dry ancient looking rock seem such celebrations of life, of the ability to survive and thrive through even the harshest conditions. Through juxtaposition, this is supposed to be reflected in the portraits of the children. This falls quite flat however. The 'positive' energy, or indeed any energy is undetectable, specifically with the coloured children. In contrast to the usually boisterous, hyperactive child, these still, stiff subjects seem all the more forlorn. The implied relationship between the plants and children therefore picks up an unwanted symbolic meaning. The symbolic aspects of karoo plants which are highlighted are their transitory nature and isolated existence. This strengthens and re emphasizes these qualities in the portraits.
Jannsen ends up imposing more than she reflects. She is, perhaps more part of the socio-political silence, and less a distanced observer, than she may realize. The unease the coloured children express may be uncertainty of the aims of a strange European woman wanting to photograph them, instead of some mysterious inner connection to prehistory. She freely admits in an interview that she does not discuss the photographs with the children. Ultimately the images document her own distance from the community, their distrust or 'silence' towards her rather than the society itself.
This is most apparent in her need to arrange the children rather than document them on their own terms. In the example of the boys with the guitar, the subjects have been lined up, as if for a formal portrait. Their expressions and body language express unease. They do not seem to possess the initiative to offer any hope for the future. By arranging them as such she has both removed their agency and exposed their distrust of her presence instead of highlighting their potential.
Indeed the most hopeful and positive image for me is also the most incidental. It shows some children playing on the ground, they have arranged some discarded carton and fallen seeds into a track and train. Despite the child on the right's visible wariness of the photographic process, the children are shown as innovative and in control of their surroundings. This scene was playing out when Janssen happened to notice it and asked them to hold the pose. To me this proves that children are constantly proving themselves to be the hopes for the future that she believes them to be, but by forcing them into stiff portrait-style stances always staring directly into the camera, she masks instead of reveals this.
Janssen is German Dutch and lived in this community for six weeks. Her supposedly unintentional representation of her coloured subjects as helpless victims begs the question: Can an outsider fairly represent the trials and triumphs of a foreign community?
Opens: August 6
Closes: August 30
João Ferreira Gallery
70 Loop Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 423 5403
Fax: (021) 423 2136
Email: info@joaoferreiragallery.com
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