Projects
A selection of projects realized by the DCP.
Place des Anges
This reportage, which documented the closing ceremony of the 2012 French/South Africa series ‘Place des Anges’, brought the DCP students into a working relationship with the magnanimous directors of the Studio de Cirque based in Arles, France.
Thus ‘The return of the Angels’ complements the notion of photography as a transgressing medium with the possibility of intercultural dialogue and reflection. A projection of the series was shown at the prestigious ‘Les Rencontres d'Arles Photographie 2013’ exhibitions in Arles.
Durbanity
This project has seen 10 young photographers embark on an ongoing project to create a ‘visual audit’ of the eThekweni Municipality Region. This entails the photographic documentation of various aspects of the city and its peripheries to better understand the dynamics of contemporary urbanization patterns and emerging urban cultures.
The Durban metropolis has realized significant development in infrastructure, urban mobility, civilian movement, transport nodes and entrepreneurial evolution which are driven by newfound challenges in redressing inhibiting historical realities.
Since it’s inception in 2013, the project has successfully completed two phases that have seen resulting exhibitions shown at Durban’s KZNSA Gallery as well as in Cape Town’s Castle of Good Hope as part of the 2014 Cape Town Month of Photography.
Cato Manor
This exhibition commissioned by the Local History Museum seeks to address this historical anomaly through the commission injunction that the photographers visually interpret and translate ‘the totality of life and how it is lived in Cato Manor and as it reflects or interprets the past’. No mean feat considering that the team of 2 photographers also project trainers and mentors and four trainees from the Durban Centre for Photography had but one month to work.
How does Cato Manor remember in the present? In African belief the ancestors are always present, a presence, inhabiting this space that was a site of trauma and inhumane oppression. What are they thinking in this contemporary presence? What would they look at, how would they look? And what they feel about what they see?
Masibumbane
This project is in response to deep felt concern by the older residents of the Chesterville community in Durban regarding the history of the township. At a workshop with the Umkhonto weSizwe Veterans association and some young people themed ‘Remembering in the Present’ participants expressed the need for the youth in the township to be exposed to local histories.
This ‘Masimbumbane’ public art and civil society driven initiative will see 15 young people from the community undertake field research, conduct and document interviews with community members and initiate generational dialogue.
The project will use archival photographs sourced from photographic albums of the identified heroes and sheroes to explore a narrative of these ‘other’ histories. A chronological narrative from the formation of the township in 1942 to the present.
20! Between Hope and Possibility
On the occasion of UIA 2014 Durban; Tangram Company, The Network of Alliances Françaises in Southern Africa, KZNSA Gallery, with the support of eThekwini Municipality and The French Institute in South Africa present:
20! Between Hopes and Possibilities
A photo-concert by OZMA (FR) and Friends from South Africa in collaboration with the KZNSA Durban Centre for Photography.
To celebrate 20 years of Democracy in South Africa, the KZNSA Gallery and Alliance Française are collabore on a visual and musical project bringing together South African photographers, a French Jazz Quartet and musicians based in South Africa.
The audience is invited to embark upon a photographic journey retracing a route to democracy while a live jazz quartet performs a unique musical soundtrack, inviting South African musicians on stage. The project describes a visual journey from the historical township of Cato Manor, down the Berea, through the bustling Warwick Triangle down West Street to the immigrant neighbourhood of South beach, and ends at the ‘Golden Mile’ promenade on the beach front.
Performances were delivered in Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria.