Then and Now:
Eight South African Photographers

April 18–September 28, 2008
Porch Gallery and University Gallery

Then and Now: Eight South African Photographers may be the largest exhibit of photographs ever seen at Duke University. The eight photographers whose work is included in the exhibit each contributed twenty prints, ten made under apartheid and ten made during the post-apartheid period. Shot in both black and white and color, the photographers’ subjects range from South African exiles in Europe to life in the townships to the historic first democratic election in 1994. The 160 images that make up the show will be shared among five campus venues.

About one-third of the work will be on display at Perkins Library in the Special Collections Gallery. The Center for Documentary Studies (1317 W. Pettigrew Street) will exhibit another third, and the rest of the images will be divided among the second-floor gallery at the Allen Building, the Divinity Library, and the Graduate Liberal Studies Program (2114 Campus Drive).

Map of Then and Now exhibition venues (356 kb PDF)

Curated by South African photographer Paul Weinberg, whose work is archived at Duke, Then and Now was funded by the Conference, Workshop, and Cultural Initiative Fund, a European Union–South Africa partnership program, and Duke University’s Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, which holds a complete set of the prints. The original exhibit opened September 10, 2007, at the Albany Museum in Grahamstown, South Africa, and is now traveling in South Africa.

Then and Now opens on March 31 at Duke at all venues except the Center for Documentary Studies, where the exhibit will be on view beginning April 18. Check the online exhibit for closing dates and hours: http://library.duke.edu/exhibits/thenandnow/.


OPENING RECEPTION

The opening reception is set for April 2, 5:30–7:30 p.m., at Perkins Library in the Biddle Rare Book Room. Speakers will include Karin Shapiro, visiting associate professor in the Department of History; Kay-Robert Volkwijn, activist and retired minister; Karen Jean Hunt, director of the John Hope Franklin Collection for African and African American Documentation; and South African singer/songwriter Roger Lucey, whose music was banned by the apartheid government.

Directions to the opening reception: http://library.duke.edu/specialcollections/about/directions.html


PHOTO GALLERY

banner image:

Partial view of the Lyndhurst Gallery, one of four exhibition spaces at CDS. Photograph by Christoper Sims.


top