Panel Discussion: Shadows of Apartheid - Photography in South Africa after 1994

Jodi Bieber, Thembinkosi Hlatshwayo & Jansen van Staden in conversation with Fiona Siegenthaler

Photography in a South African context has a long history and while it was strongly censored during the apartheid era until 1994 it has now become a very powerful tool to reflect on the past and to shape the future of the country. 

The artists on the panel belong to the winners of this year's CAP Prize, the Contemporary African Photography prize. The winners' exhibition will be displayed by IAF Basel – Festival für zeitgenössische Kunst from 15th to 29th September at Voltaplatz, Basel. The BAB will host a window screening of outcomes of an IAF youth comic workshop during the same period in our facilities.

The three photographers on the panel apply the medium very differently to reflect on the past or the current state of their personal or the nation's situation.
While Jodi Bieber reflects on the current state of the nation by conducting a long term project with youth born after 1994 in a social documentary style, Thembinkosi Hlatshwayo, who belongs to the demographic group Bieber focused on, photographically reflects upon his personal life growing up in Johannesburg after 1994. Jansen van Staden, through his photography, tries to understand his late fathers life journey during apartheid. 

Dr. Fiona Siegenthaler is a researcher and lecturer in the interdisciplinary field of contemporary (African) art, performance, and visual culture. She is a Research Associate at the Visual Identities, Art, and Design Research Center (University of Johannesburg) and at the chair for Social Anthropology at the University of Basel, where she was an Assistant Professor from 2012–2018. Following her PhD (2012), she coordinated the research project Art / Articulation: Art and the Formation ofSocial Space in African Cities, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (2015–2019). She was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Columbia University (2018) and has published widely in Critical Interventions, African Arts, Research in African Literatures, Critical Arts, and Social Dynamics, among others.
  For more information about the CAP Prize and the IAF Basel please see the CAP Prize Website.

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