The photographic document as subjective register in contemporary South African visual culture
Date
2008-11-25T10:57:23Z
Authors
Christopher, Natasha
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Abstract
This research report examines the notion of the photographic document as subjective
register in contemporary South African visual culture. It provides a critical
framework for considering my own photographic practice, which explores how
photographs can be used to concretize emotion and to register the subjectivity of the
photographer. In exploring this subjectivity, I consider the notion of truth-value in the
photographic document, especially in socio-documentary photography, focusing on
some examples from the South African ‘struggle’ tradition. I then look at the shift
towards a personal approach in photography in South Africa, using the exhibition
Democracy’s Images: Photography and Visual Art after Apartheid as a case study of
these shifts towards the personal in South African photography. The show helps to
locate my own work, which is highly invested in the personal. The notion of affect is
unpacked in considerable detail since my own work focuses primarily on the
evocation of emotional experience.
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Keywords
photographs, visual culture, South Africa