A golden cardboard »100« surrounded by a wreath hangs on the door to the editorial office of »Camera Austria«, as if the village priest had administered the last rites to the wrinkled centenarian, just in case. The photo journal, founded in 1980 in Graz, has however chosen to celebrate instead, looking to the future with a marvellous perspective of up-and-coming photography, and is presenting the »Market Photo Workshop« in Johannesburg in the show »I am not afraid«, curated by the journal’s director Christine Frisinghelli and Walter Seidl. 18 years after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, this overview of 6 artistic positions of young photographers and three community projects portrays a dazzling South Africa, viewed from the perspective of younger photographers, who did not experience state-sanctioned apartheid directly. However, the back-story of the photo school is therefore all the more important; founded by white, Jewish photographer David Goldblatt in conjunction with activist Joyce Ozynski under the racist regime in the late 1980s, the school did not draw any distinctions based on skin colour.
The Workshop exhibits concentrate on the »post-apartheid« status quo, whilst the complementary anniversary edition of the journal reconstructs the commitment of the teachers, mostly still shaped by apartheid and from a »struggle photography« background. »We went there as photographers, and came back as cultural workers, guided by the idea that the struggle for freedom called us to do more than just photographing«, to cite Peter McKenzie’s description of his trip to the »Culture and Resistance Festival« held in 1982 in Gaborone, Botswana. Like many of his colleagues, the South African photographer and filmmaker joined the direct struggle against the apartheid regime. They mobilised international support, organised demonstrations around funerals or carried secret messages. »And sometimes they were arrested for their efforts too«. The racist authoritarian state saw the camera as a security risk.
In his bleak letter of thanks to »Camera Austria«», Goldblatt, describing the situation today, writes »There is no longer a clearly identifiable »enemy«, but instead a highly complex social reality«. He goes on to warn of »widespread repression« of the artistic milieu: »We should be careful not to grow too comfortable in the arms of the state «. What does committed photography mean in the post-apartheid era? The laborious process of decolonisation is discussed in detail by the workshop’s teachers in this volume – and put into practice by their younger students in the Graz show. The latter hardly remember the former regime. Once, when writing a poem about trees could be viewed as a crime, an image of the possible, of a new and unknown South Africa, could only be created gradually. With the end of apartheid it suddenly became possible to focus attention on the provinces, ethnic particularities, gender troubles, the lives of the Muslim population or indeed gloomy everyday life. In contrast to the lecturers, most of the students do at least seem to come from black majority society (at least inasmuch as this is suggested by their names). This is reflected in the gaze and perspectives adopted, as well as in the subject-matter and contextualisation of the projects. The students first of all learn their craft, rapidly become responsible organisers and subsequently become trainers themselves.
»Back and Forth«, a photographic investigation spread out across one of the walls offers an unusually rich seam of images. Even just ten years ago, individual trade across the borders was unusual. Project Coordinator Wilson Johwa from Zimbabwe remembers his first digital watch from Botswana. Now informal trade has become a crucial tool in the struggle to survive, particularly for women from Zimbabwe with its horrendous rates of inflation. Of all people it was the IOM (International Organisation for Migration), which has a particularly bad reputation amongst anti-racism initiatives, who contacted the Market Photo Workshop in 2006 to suggest documenting current cross-border trade. As a result six students, four professional photographers brought into the project from each of the four countries involved and an advisory team followed the highly mobile and time-pressured traders. Their project, which lasted for seven months, sought to adopt the perspective of the protagonists. Photos were often shot from a crouching position or through the window of a moving bus. Women forced to spend the night at a taxi rank to avoid incurring customs duties, portrayed carrying enormous bags across the border. The portrait of a money-changer in the border town Musina – where the exhibition, complete with captions, was also shown for the first time out in the street – contrasts with an image of a policeman in a bus conducting body searches to find old notes after the introduction of a new currency. One particularly impressive work portrays the dense crowd of female traders, seen at Durban station discussing their future, as Metro Rail would like to chase them away from this location.
Sabelo Mlangeni encountered street sweepers early in the morning and followed in their footsteps almost every night for eight months. There is a lively description of the process of accompanying and observing them, yet only phantoms appear on the photographs. That is partly due to the natural lighting conditions and the blurred images produced by movement, yet also evokes the street sweepers’ invisibility within society. This reflects the fact that cleaning jobs are accorded scant social recognition, but is also because the inner city is not without its share of dangers. Together however they felt safe.
Jodi Bieber is one of the few photographers in the Graz show to turn her attention to everyday life in a white settlement. In these images David Jakobine, who’s been labelled »anti-social« by the powers-that-be looks like a trailer-park Robbie Williams. The former working class district is now home to »White Trash«; poverty coupled with petty crime is certainly not determined by the colour of your skin in neo-liberal South Africa. Bonile Bam’s images have a different exotic twist, like ethnographic classics of naked black men, their bodies painted with lime, enduring in the midst of the landscape. However, they seem relaxed about contact with the photographer, and we even see a radio placed on a rock alongside them. In his work Bam, who is from the Xhosa ethnic group himself, follows the initiates with great respect as they move from youth to manhood. Both Bieber and Bam explore their knowledge of their roots without betraying these origins. In her photo series of openly queer women from townships, Zanele Muholi is also navigating through familiar terrain.
The basic photographic training offered by the workshop is short but intensive. The course is structured in modules, which means that the 150 to 200 students that enrol every year can put together the various training modules and continue working in their jobs between classes. They »learn to negotiate their approach to a topic, to develop an awareness of the politics of representation and how to cope with time constraints and logistics. Dealing with others with dignity and respect is an inherent component of projects like these«, writes Course Director John Fleetwood.
The workshop is downtown, in West End where »office buildings gradually give way to Indian shops« (Joyce Ozynski). As recently as 1989, at the same time as the Workshop moved into an old post office next to its previous premises, the former regime was indiscriminately beating up black commuters from the townships. In the immediate vicinity there are now major minibus and rail hubs that link the city to its (trans)national hinterland. Workers, traders and the students too breathe new life into West End, which used to be a derelict area. »Geographically the Photo Workshop is located in a fragile space; on the one hand it borders on what was formerly John Vorster Square, which used to be the headquarters for detaining and interrogating political prisoners, yet on the other hand the neighbourhood is permeated by certain structures that developed out of old government buildings, the first really fresh forerunners of the new urban architecture «, as Joyce Ozynski explains in her essay for the volume.
The exceptional photographic training programme in Johannesburg also reflects the history of »Camera Austria«. The project, directed by Christine Frisinghelli in conjunction with Manfred Willmann, with Maren Lübbke-Tidow now on board too, was established in 1980 as a self-taught platform in the provinces and is much more than just a sumptuously designed photo magazine. The tagline to the »Laboratory for Photography and Theory« is »International« und and has always maintained contacts with the art photography scene (which three decades ago was far from well-established) thanks to the legendary »Photography Symposia« followed by excursions around the country, as well as major publications and shows of contemporary work. Against this backdrop, »Camera Austria« supported the critical visual practice of photographers such as Allan Sekula or Pierre Bourdieu at an early stage in their career – and indeed David Goldblatt too.

»I am not afraid – The Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg«, Camera Austria Graz, 30th November 2007 to 2nd March 2008. The catalogue of the show forms the 100th edition of »Camera Austria«. In addition an index of all previous publications

 

Translated by Helen Ferguson

 

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