SITE photography and national trauma in South Africa

Artists: Vincent Bezuidenhout, Francki Burger, Natasha Christopher, Maureen de Jager, Keith Dietrich, David Goldblatt, Matthew Kay, Aliza Levi, Greg Marinovich, Santu Mofokeng, Beatrix Reinhardt, Jon Riordan, Renzske Scholtz,  and Kathryn Smith.
 
This exhibition focuses on a particular usage of the photographic medium; as a tool to indirectly approach past moments of national trauma. Oftentimes, in this manner of employing photography, the focus is on the sites where these events of national trauma took place; Vlakplaas, Marikana, Sharpeville, Anglo-Boer War concentration camps and battlefields, Robben Island.

During a single or series of visits to these places of national trauma, the camera is used to produce views of such sites under different lighting conditions and from various angles. These images are then presented, installed, and incorporated as part of photo essays, books, objects and installations, often in combination with text. The outcome? Perhaps as a means to try and engage, on a personal level, with these moments of national trauma. Perhaps as a tool towards a therapeutic remembering, or a means of re/positioning the psyche in view of a traumatic national past. Whatever the outcome, it is also a particular engagement with the nature of the photographic medium; a means to work against its sensationalist and voyeuristic nature. It engages with the question regarding the effect of sensationalist images of acts of extreme violence and death on the viewer.

07 October - 01 November