Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin Mr Mkhize

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin: Mr Mkhize’s portrait and other stories from the New South Africa

2004

“The struggles in South Africa have usually been photographed and witnessed on a very public, and therefore spectacular, scale, however Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarins' project was a very personal voyage, as they returned to work in their homeland after a long absence. Over a few months they met and photographed a wide range of people and places across the country from Xhoi bushmen, Jewish old-age pensioners, cadets in police-training camps and prison inmates.

Using a large format camera, which takes time to set up, allowed the sitters to talk about their lives, aspirations and fears. Their comments, which appear as text next to the images in the exhibition, become an integral part of the work. We hear from the younger generation in South Africa, who have little memory of life in the Apartheid era just 10 years before. Threaded through these portraits and glimpses of everyday life we gain an understanding of the wider issues facing South Africa today. The need for housing and jobs and the problems of widespread violent crime, the impact of economic migration from neighbouring African countries and, perhaps most significant of all, the widespread effect of the Aids epidemic. Brought together the work explores the complex nature of life in South Africa at such a critical and important time in the country's history.”

Camilla Brown (Nee Jackson)

© Oliver Chanarin, 2004.