WHO WE ARE
Most of us live in the townships that surround the city bowl. We have been shooting with donated digital cameras, studying the fundamentals of photography, and meeting once a week to critique our work with professional photographers. We sell our work in the galleries and shops around Cape Town and we license our work for publication. The sales of these images help to support our families and ourselves. Some of us have been photographing for years, others are novices.
FLASH PHOTO WEEKENDS
Several times a year, we descend on a particular neighborhoo and, for 48 hours, we fan out with our digital cameras, documenting daily life there. We scope out a work site before-hand and we return there throughout hte weekend to download and edit our work, and to recharge our batteries and ourselves. On Sunday mornings, we hang selected images in well-trafficked areas of the community. We have strung up photographs in taxi ranks, on street corners, in community centers, on the sides of houses and shipping containers. Word of mouth goes out and the community comes in droves. We also put out the call to the newspapers and friends from Cape Town and we end up with a pretty mixed crowd— something that doesn't happen often in the townships.
A LITTLE SOUTH AFRICAN BACKGROUND
South Africa is one of the most economically disparate countries in the world, and Cape Town is no exception. It is one of the most beautiful, and for some, luxurious cities in the world. It is also where we reside — nearly two million people are living in informal and formal settlements where clean water, electricity and safety are hard to come by. Twelve years after the end of apartheid only a small percentage of White South Africans have ever visited a township. It is rare to see images from the townships. It is even more rare to find images made by the people who live there. We are changing that.
This year we recieved a grant from the Open Society Institute to continue our Flash Photo Weekends and to bring this work to the people. Sign up for our email announcements. We will tell you about our installations at construction sites in the city, on empty billboards, at shopping malls, and as public installations downtown Cape Town.
THANK YOU
Iliso Labantu was founded by photographer Alistair Berg ( U.K. and South Africa) along with Sue Johnson (USA). We send our heartfelt thanks and praise to Czerina Patel, David Goldblatt, Susan Meiselas, Whitney Johnson and the Open Society Institute.
