Photo albums are a portal to another time \u2014 in which we might not even have been alive \u2014 and they allow us to find out more about people and spaces. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s how I got to know that my mother was more than just my mother. Before she was the woman who packed my lunch and reminded me to take a jersey, she was a young girl, a student, a dreamer. She had secrets and desires captured in the grain of 35mm film.<\/p>\n
She kept those rolls of film hidden in a cupboard that also held her ID book, her old payslips and an expired passport. It was a sacred place, guarded by dust and silence. <\/p>\n
I would sneak into that drawer like a pilgrim seeking truth, pull out the strips of negatives, and hold them up to the light. <\/p>\n
Through those tiny images, I saw her dancing barefoot at a house party, smiling in oversized sunglasses, standing next to strangers who looked like friends. Those glimpses into her past softened me. I loved her more tenderly, knowing where she came from.<\/p>\n
That memory came rushing back when I stepped into the In Black and White analogue photographic exhibition at the UJ FADA Gallery. I was twenty minutes late \u2014 blame the Joburg traffic \u2014 but as soon as I walked in, time slowed down. <\/p>\n
I was met by Dr Landi Rauben-heimer, senior lecturer in design studies and the exhibition\u2019s co-curator, with Bongani Khoza, lecturer in multimedia. They greeted me warmly as we stood in a space that buzzed with stillness and stories.<\/p>\n
The room was filled with black-and-white images \u2014 arresting, nostalgic, deliberate. <\/p>\n
Works by South African legends like Santu Mofokeng and Ruth Seopedi Motau lined the walls. Their presence was not intimidating, but rather grounding. Their photos stood shoulder to shoulder with pieces by emerging photographers, bridging eras through shared humanity.<\/p>\n
In the middle of the gallery were analogue cameras \u2014 some familiar, most foreign to my eyes. They were solid, heavy and commanding. One looked like it could double as a weapon. I almost knocked it over trying to get a better view of a photo. <\/p>\n
A gentle warning from Rauben-heimer brought me back to earth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis project has been a long time coming,\u201d she told me. \u201cI realised that some students thought that the filters they use on social media were just digital inventions. But really, they mimic the aesthetic of analogue photography.\u201d <\/p>\n
The exhibition, she said, was born out of a desire to bridge that gap \u2014 between perception and reality, between the digital and the tangible.<\/p>\n
Khoza nodded, adding that when the idea was proposed to him, he didn\u2019t hesitate. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was always a disconnect between the theory we teach and the actual doing. This exhibition became a way to merge both worlds. <\/p>\n
Students could see, touch, and feel the concepts they\u2019ve been studying.\u201d<\/p>\n
The theme tying all these images together was portraiture. Not just the literal kind, but the kind that lingers \u2014 where a face becomes a map, a body becomes a story. <\/p>\n
Khoza laughed when he recalled early student submissions that looked more like passport photos than portraits: \u201cWe had to show them there\u2019s more than one way to make a portrait,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Portraits, as Raubenheimer explained, have an arresting quality. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou capture someone in a moment, and that person will never be that age again, in that way again. There\u2019s something deeply nostalgic about that.\u201d <\/p>\n
She believes this is what resonates with students who have grown up on curated timelines and filtered memories. These black and white photos, though old-school, speak the same language \u2014 one of longing and preservation.<\/p>\n
As students wandered through the exhibition, some pausing to eavesdrop on our conversation, I was reminded of my mother\u2019s hidden photo rolls. Just like those negatives, the images at In Black and White held echoes of stories, pieces of lives paused mid-breath. Each frame a whispered reminder we are always more than who we are in the now.<\/p>\n
Raubenheimer and Khoza hope the exhibition grows into a movement, a curriculum, a conversation. <\/p>\n
They see it as an invitation, not just for students, but for all of us to look again. To consider what we archive, how we remember and who gets to be seen.<\/p>\n
And maybe, in looking back, we learn to see each other \u2014 and ourselves \u2014 a little more clearly.<\/p>\n
The exhibition runs until 24 May at the FADA Gallery in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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