Beyond the frame : a liminal space in contemporary South African photography

Anthropologists and ethnographers documenting the African subject – as soldiers of the colonial enterprise, dominated early practices of photography in Africa. These endeavors manufactured a visual narrative that was uniform in its approach to Africa's landscape, which largely persists in the popular imagination.In the early 1990s with the fall of apartheid and transition towards democracy, South Africa's landscape witnessed a new current in the medium of photography; photographers who had been documenting the 'struggle' were suddenly deprived of the central focus of their work. Creative artistic expression, which had been largely restricted, blossomed. This paper examines four of South Africa's 'new generation' of photographers who have seen unprecedented success both in South Africa and in the West. This paper examines whether these photographers and their images are confronting and challenging the stereotypical stock photographs that have misrepresented South Africa's landscape.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

African Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Hotsko, Jennifer

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Shepherd, Nick
• Godby, Michael

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9231

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/9231