LENS WORK
Homeboy Katlego Tshuma brings Tembisa into sharp focus for a wider audience with his new book
A slice of Tembisa
Historically we’ve seen the impact that storytelling together with potent imagery has in society. Places such as New York, Soweto and London are viewed the way they are partly because of that combination. And now, Tembisa photographer Katlego Tshuma is telling the story of one of the country’s biggest townships through his lens.
Released last year, Tshuma’s 90page Seeds, A Township Monologue pays homage to the township on its 60th anniversary.
“I wanted to look at the township
. . . past and present . . . with the camera serving as a ‘time-machine’ allowing me to revisit some of my childhood memories both metaphorically and physically,” he says.
BURN THE PAST
If you’ve lived in the township, a photo in the chapter “Home” will evoke dreaded childhood memories of being forced to take part in spring cleaning. It’s a beautiful shot of blankets and duvets sagging on a wall in front of a house. The book takes you through that and many other memorable journeys, through Tshuma’s own experiences.
Born and partly bred in Tembisa, Tshuma moved a lot in his childhood because of his parents’ entrepreneurial interests — he attended eight different schools. “After shooting my first series titled ‘Everyday Street Scenes Tembisa’, I felt responsible for creating a contemporary narrative around the township, especially as a thirdgeneration dweller.”
Tshuma did something akin to what we are sometimes advised to do by our therapists. He burnt all his family photos.
“After the passing of my dad, I felt the images brought a lot of memories, some pleasant and others not so. So burning the images was a way of forcing myself to move on.
“As I was shooting the work, I’d imagine some of these images and imagine how the township used to be when I was six, seven or 17. Without any images to reference from, my memories became my reference material and this is how burning those images influenced my work.”
It took three years to shoot the photos and a further six months to work on the selection and the design process. About 200 images formed the narrative and then he edited those down to the images seen in the book.
UNFAIR OBSCURITY
Another factor that inspired him to tell this story was his feeling that Tembisa’s history was generally overlooked compared to places like Soweto or Sharpeville. “Very little is known about Tembisa or its history, especially when it comes to its participation in the anti-apartheid movements of the 1970s,” he says.
Seeds is mainly driven by Tembisa’s story, but also includes photos from other townships where Tshuma has lived — Vosloorus, Mabopane, Joe
Slovo and Klipgat in the north of Pretoria.
“I feel at the core of it all, townships are all the same. From their inception to the mixture of characters you find.
“With this book, I wanted to look at the township as a passer-by, and that informed a lot of the aesthetics behind the work and how it all looks like a township landscape even when I’m shooting portraits. I wanted to create a body of work that would put the township in context for someone who had never lived there.”
The book has served its purpose in that regard.
“People who aren’t from the township have gone on to say that it is something worth having as part of the post-apartheid narrative as many of us continue to discuss and question our own histories, ideas and identities around culture, and so on.”
While the people of Tembisa have celebrated its existence, he admits that only a smidgen of the township has seen it. “At this point I wanted to create the book and show some of my fellow artists and photographers just how far we could push our work outside of social media.”
Tshuma is planning on shooting a documentary that he describes as an extension of the book. “I feel that will be something that will push the dialogue around the book and the township even further.”
Tshuma’s visual interests shoot beyond the camera as an animator. “I work with various mediums in the visual art space.”
‘Seeds, A Township Monologue’ is available on Blurb for R1 100 for a hard copy. An e-book is available for R50.