'Beyond the Racial Lens - The Politics of South African Documentary Photography, Past and Present': The Bonani Africa 2010 Festival of Photography exhibition and conference.

If South Africa’s tradition of social documentary photography remains among its best known and most celebrated cultural achievements, it has also been at the centre of the often tumultuous debates regarding art, historical memory, and political engagement post democracy. During apartheid photographers sought to challenge the prevailing visual regime at a number of different levels: recording and exposing the system’s brutalities, celebrating myriad forms of survival and resistance and producing alternative narratives.

A younger generation of photographers has increasingly turned toward experimentation with both aesthetics and the medium itself to forefront questions of identity, sexuality, subjectivity, and persona. Yet the afterlife of apartheid’s social divisions and the persistence of a highly divided society continue to pose the question of photographic representation with intensified force. Who controls the creation and distribution of images, who represents whom and for what audiences, and how can people come to see differently?

Featuring the work of 56 photographers and more than 60 photographic essays, the exhibition covers an array of subjects, from the effects of breast cancer to the display of opulence that is a hallmark of success amongst the country's new elite.

The conference programme runs from 19-21 August 2010 and brings together 'a diverse group of photographers, curators, art critics, and historians to discuss and debate this multi-faceted theme over a four day period,' says Omar Badsha, CEO of South African History Online.

It includes a series of discussions, lectures and seminars held at the TH Barry Lecture Theatre of the South African Museum in Cape Town. A highlight of the conference is a conversation between Omar Badsha and David Goldblatt in 'Photography beyond the Racial Lens,' on Thursday 19 August.

Exhibition opens: Wednesday 18 August, 18h00 for 18h30, Castle of Good Hope.

For a detailed programme, please visit the SA History Online website at http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/saho%20stuff/saho-exhibitions/bonani/program.htm

18 August - 18 September