Magnum Photos & Visual Arts Network South Africa (VANSA) are seeking proposals from early-career South African photographers to make new work in response to a curation of the Magnum Archive by Mark Sealy (Director, Autograph ABP).

Two photographers will be selected from the open submissions to join a group with two other pre-selected South African photographers from the Of Soul and Joy project. The selected photographers will receive grants of 41,000 South African Rand, as well as access to workshops (with other selected photographers), and mentoring, and will create a new body of work in response to the Magnum archive selection. The resulting work will be will be curated by Candice Jansen (independent curator), exhibited online, and in a physical form that fosters participatory engagement.

The initiative is supported by the British Council #SouthernAfricaArts and Rubis Mécénat, as part of the Of Soul and Joy project.

The aim of this investigation is to explore the work that images do in culture, in relation to race and colonial African histories.

Re-presenting the Archive is a collaboration between Magnum Photos and the Visual Arts Network South Africa (VANSA). Curator Dr Mark Sealy (Autograph) has worked within the historic Magnum Photos archive to curate a body of photographs & unpack various narratives of African culture & diaspora in an attempt to reveal alternative, lesser-known, lesser-seen moments of the African continent’s history. Some have been left out of western epistemes, others suppressed, while some new photo edits offer alternative perspectives on what might have previously been misunderstood, denied or buried.

From its establishment in 1947 to the present day, Magnum photographers have been at the forefront of western photographic documentation. As the world’s photographic and reproduction environment developed and expanded so too did the agency which was formed at a time that was marked by the ravages of WWII and major shifts in global power structures that heralded the beginning of the end of old imperial regimes of power and announced the Cold War as a new political reality.

Here, the Magnum archive is used as a site of critical enquiry concerning the photographic making of Africa through western journalistic tropes. This project functions as an investigation into ‘the who’, ‘the what’, ‘the why’, and ‘the when’ in relation to the photographs produced by Magnum photographers in Africa after WWII and how these images have influenced our understanding of African politics.

This archive curation selects key moments in modern African history for reassessment; these include Senegalese soldiers marching for the Free French troops on the streets of Algiers in 1943, South African elections in 1948 when the Reunited National Party came to power preceding the implementation of apartheid, and examination of the photograph made during the Mau Mau trials of 1954, events surrounding the independence of the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the first Pan African festival in 1968 and its international significance.

Photographic Dialogue

Magnum and VANSA invite early career South African photographers to begin a dialogue with this archive, with the histories presented in this image selection, by submitting short proposals of new work they would like to make in South Africa in response to this selection, or to the thematics or wider issues raised in the selection.

Magnum and VANSA are inviting proposals from photographers/photographic artists for a commission and exhibition that questions the role of the archive in creating histories, and asks for artists to respond to a curation of the Magnum archive by Mark Sealy.

What We They Looking For

Magnum and VANSA are looking for two early career photographers (or photographic artists) to respond to Mark Sealy’s curation of the Magnum Photos archive, by making new photographic work in response to the content or thematics in the selection. Applicants may interpret this in the broadest sense and possible topics could include, but are not limited to:

• Colonialism / Decolonialism
• Politics and political systems
• Public space
• Themes of identity, belonging, community, and home
• Economics and industry
• Themes of culture, music, arts, leisure
• Projects considered for the grant may be continuing an ongoing body of work, or creating a new body of work related to the broader themes of the exhibit. We will consider applications from visual artists working with photographic source material.

Applicants must briefly outline how they will respond to the archive and how they will use the grant.

Successful applicants will be selected by a professional jury.

Successful applicants will be notified by early May, and will be asked to participate in a kick off workshop the week commencing May 17th 2022.

Eligibility

Participants should be based in South Africa and “early career”, by which we define as under 35 years old, and having had no more than one solo show at a gallery or institution.

What they provide

• Selected participants will attend an online kick off workshop in May 2022
• Receive a grant of 41,000 South African Rand in order to create new work.
• Participants will have six months to make a new body of work, under the mentorship of Magnum nominee Lindokuhle Sobekwa and South African curator Candice Jansen.
• Exhibition production is separate to this and will be covered by the project team.
• Networking opportunities and professional practice.
• Have their work shown in a group exhibition online alongside work from the Magnum archive.
• Have their work included in an Exhibition Box which will be distributed across cultural spaces in South Africa.
• Have their work included in a physical form that fosters participatory engagement.

Participation and Requirements

Participants are required to adhere to all production deadlines (see timeline section below) and to attend online workshops, press conferences, related programming and events.

The grant term shall be six months, to start no sooner than May 2022 and end by November 2022.

Timeline

Call for entries open: 21 March 2022
Submission deadline: 24 April 2022
Successful participants notified: 2 May 2022
Kick-off workshop w/c: 17 May 2022
Grant period begins: May 2022
Production of exhibition (October – November): October 2022
Grant period ends: November 2022
Project public launch (December – January): December 2022

More here: contests.picter.com