Seasoned photographer and journalist Jacob Mawela has turned the special moments he captured through his lens into a striking exhibition.
Titled Names in Uphill Letters, the solo exhibition opens tomorrow for three months at Benoni Museum. The travelling exhibition that began in Bloemfontein, Free State, is a culmination of Mawela’s work over 20 years.
Through the exhibition, he zooms into different newsmakers from across fields such as sciences, politics, academia, sports, economics, literature, law and humanities. Mawela, who has been working on the exhibition for years, says the main aim of the exhibition is to promote visual literacy as a driver of social cohesion while educating Millennials about the people who hogged the spotlight for various reasons. The photos that will be on display have never been seen or published before in any newspaper or magazine.
“The motivation for the project has been towards educating young people about some of the important people and their role. Young people do not know about Brenda Fassie and what role she played in the music industry. I have featured such pictures to educate them. Through the privilege that I have interacting with some of these people, I was able to zoom into the persona behind individuals who hogged and continue hogging news media headlines,” he explains.
“This was made possible by what I have built as a journalist. I used to use my spare time to photograph these people. I would ask permission to some of these people, go and photograph them in their comfortable spaces. Some of the people who were forthcoming and allowed me to come and photograph them were Mr [FW] De Klerk and Archbishop [Desmond] Tutu. I am exhibiting pictures that were taken randomly, I planned.”
Mawela, who hails from Pimville in Soweto, makes it clear he is not exhibiting the portraits to glorify the people. But he is just fascinated by the real person behind the character that people see or know in public. Mawela explains that some of the people made headlines because of the wrong reasons, while others broke new ground and made history.
“The way I present these portraits I have tried to strike a balance. I’m not judging them but rather fascinated by human nature. A clear example of that is the man called George “Kortboy” Mpalweni. He was a leader of The Americans, a famous gang from Sophiatown. He is part of work I am exhibiting. I photographed him to understand the character of the man.”
Mawela admits that hosting the exhibition has not been without challenges. Initially, he wanted to exhibit 108 photographs but was forced to scale down to 27 due to lack of resources. The monochromic photographs are presented in black and white format.
The lensman who grew up between Mofolo in Soweto, Randfontein on the West Rand, Jane Furse in Limpopo and Katlehong on the East Rand, has been curious and fascinated by the world around him since he was young. As much as his parents wanted him to be a teacher since he comes from a family of academics, Mawela opted for journalism. His choice of career was not welcomed by his family but later they came around.
The travelling exhibition is set to move to the City of Johannesburg’s Workers Museum on March 27 and the City of Tshwane’s Pretoria Art Museum on May 7.
The photographs on display will include Nelson Mandela, Sandra Laing, Frederick Willem, Amina Cachalia, Helen Suzman, George Bizos, Alf Kumalo, Dolly Rathebe, Margaret Mcingana, and Pieter-Dirk Uys.
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