JABULANI DHLAMINI

This photographic essay extends on the emerging photographer’s characteristically contemplative approach to documentary photography, looking at the psychological impact of COVID-19 on South Africans living in confined spaces in the photographer’s community, Soweto.

According to a recent article in the British Journal of Photography about this lockdown series, ‘Jabulani Dhlamini is drawn to peripheries. He avoids the epicentre of an event or situation and turns to its fringes: exploring impacts and effects that would otherwise remain unknown.’

For Dhlamini ‘Shooting my surroundings at this time led me to understand that this pandemic is starkly highlighting entrenched social and economic problems. After 25 years, what has changed in South Africa’s townships and rural areas? Not enough.’

In 2018, Dhlamini was selected by the Financial Times to document his life for 24 hours for ‘The millennials’ series, which coincided with Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s funeral. Rather than shoot the national memorial event held at the Orlando stadium, Dhlamini focused on informal street-gatherings surrounding the stadium in Soweto. ‘When everyone is running towards a certain event, we lose some of the meaningful narratives,’ he explains.

Dhlamini’s approach, avoiding the major events and focusing on more subtle displays of human experience and interaction, is reminiscent of that of his predecessor David Goldblatt who mentored Dhlamini. For the young photographer, this was a crucial relationship: ‘getting to know him [David Goldblatt] personally was a turning point in my practice, as the relationship nurtured my understanding of photography like no other’.