Wonke's "The Envisioned Self"

Cotton baryta archival print

Image and paper size: 594 x 841mm (A1)

Edition of 5 + 2AP

"The Envisioned Self" series With this episode the photographer asks everyone a very distinctive and unsophisticated question. “what’s black, who’s black?” Yet, only a few are able to answer this simply because highly sensitive issues are seldom discussed outside the circle of blackness being defined by pigmentation. Being black is not only defined by skin color and outlooks, but also values, beliefs and a mental attitude.

Unlike other episodes this one is expressed in color mainly to emphasize Wonke’s albino skin and also to get across the message that being black has nothing to do with color but every distinction in the ethnic sense as to what culturally and psychologically defines black.

Majority of the images in the series are presented in black and white to reference the vast black and white photography that was produced during the Apartheid regime in South Africa. When I think of black and white imagery in South Africa, I think of a very traumatic visual history, one where we are victims, where we are abused, violated, mistreated and killed such as the ever-famous image by Sam Nzima of a dead Hector Peterson being carried by his sister. My intention with this series is to create a more calm black and white representation of black people, a more beautiful one, where no black person is being violated or abused, instead these images serve to tell meaningful black narratives and show the world that we are not always going through trauma as a people.