#researchbasedphotography

From the series “Trousers”, Johannesburg, 2017

Smart-dressed men strut with pride in South Africa: “Pantsula” style is the trademark of a Johannesburg Zulu Man. It is associated with gangsters and street dancers, taken from the 60's and 70's. The fashion you can see in the photograph is an affiliated type of “Pantsula”, known as “Oswenkas”, a Zulu version of the English word "swank." The aural history of this fashion varies, according to who is telling the story. It is widely accepted that the style started 40 or 50 years ago among Zulu men came to Johannesburg to work in the gold mines. – Working in the gold mines, while still dressing elegant was not a contradiction.

SEMIOTICS OF FASHION.

This work documents the practice and process of fashioning the body. How do we tell others about power, positionality? how do power structures work through the embodied practices of fashion and dress? Our fashion choices practices intentionally and unintentionally challenge sustained ideologies and set ideas informing about one’s worldview.

From the series “I am the fight with in Me”, Johannesburg, 2017

People with albinism don’t just face health restrictions like skin cancer, involuntary eye movements or poor eyesight. Many of them also suffer severe discrimination and social stigmatization. 

How do skin color or any other external individuality categorize a person socially and how are these issues of social categorisation still relevant today? – I want to understand the behaviors of both the stigmatized and stigmatizers,  examination both sides with regard to what really matters and what is threatened in life.

INFORMANTS.