Alice Mann

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0:13hi everyone I'm Alice I'm an artist and photographer from South Africa and tonight I'm going to talk a little bit about my practice particularly the project of Grammys which is an ongoing body of work of mine and I think to date it's been the work that I'm most excited about and the one that I've had the most fun working on.

0:39And so yeah but first I just want to talk a bit about sort of contextualizing my work and my practice my understanding of images has I think being quite particularly shaped by growing up in South Africa and studying there it's quite a complex history in South Africa relating to photography and I have always been very fascinated in the way that images play a role in shaping our understanding of the world I think that you know it's such a significant role that they do play and I've always been really interested in the way that they can be involved in reinforcing stereotypes but also in breaking them down.

1:27So I kind of look at this and also looking at my own relationship to the people that I'm working with and kind of what this means when I am working on portraiture which is kind of you know my primary entry into photographic series all of my work is very people are entitled I just think people are so amazing and I have sort of so much respect for the people that I work with and what I do is so much sort of trying to translate that and kind of trying to express the confidence and dignity of the people that I feel like enough to work with so drama is it's an ongoing body of work as I mentioned focusing on groups of all-female drum majorettes in South Africa and this work originally sort of started in 2017 by the way my kind of slides are not as organized with my talk so I'm gonna try and remember to keep them going as I talk but this school in the first couple of slides is the first school that I worked with a school in Cape Town called dr. Funda Ross so they were the first school that started the project I guess in early 2017 I took some portraits of a team that were kind of quite close to where I lived in Cape Town and I just felt like I hadn't quite done that girl's justice and you know sometimes it happens that you just feel like you haven't you know got it and a lot of the time it's disappointing but I feel like sometimes I have to let things sit or either come back to them or otherwise just unfortunately they never see the light of day but I do feel like for me in terms of the photography that I'm doing and having time to sort of think and reflect on stuff does often help so the way that this really started was in September later that year I off the back of another project.

3:33Actually quite last-minute contacted the school. And I went to go meet them.

3:39And then subsequently started you know working with the girls and the coach and I think what really started this for me was I was very struck by the way that he's very young women were kind of so self-assured and confident and the way that when I met them and worked with them they kind of really asserted that and they were very very sure about what they wanted and very happy to tell me.

4:12And I think that this was quite a turning point for me in terms of my practice but also going forward in this project in the way that I was thinking about the images is that I sort of started trying to work with the girls and the teams to create images that they wanted to see and I think what's so interesting particularly about you know the working with the drummer's is that they are such performers so a little bit of background about the sport because I know some people get slightly confused is it's kind of a mix between cheerleading and sort of like a marching band I sort of got its roots there.

4:58But it's a highly competitive sport and being a drumming is seen as a privilege and an achievement and it's representative of the fact that you're able to work very hard and that you're kind of very dedicated and often it's seen as kind of an indicator of the fact that you'll go on to be quite successful in your life because you sort of have these skills and I think I was also quite inspired by seeing the way that kind of involvement in this sport was visibly embalming and uplifting these girls and just kind of the way that you could like yeah really just see that you know they put the uniforms on in your kind of see body language would change and like very much like they were like the cool girls at the school like kick their boots and like you could see it's kind of like a superhero's costume a little bit.

5:53And I think the sort of act of putting it on and actually feeling visibly different you know added to to all of that. And in terms of working as a photographer I think you know these guys are used to performing in front of large large cars so it was very interesting for me working with people who were so young that we're so used to actually projecting something and having a sense of you know performance which again is what I feel like portraiture actually is and how they kind of you know really showed that.

6:31So yeah these fits now. But these feel were from the first school.

6:36And then I took some time off which is sometimes what I do in between things. And then. I went back.

6:44And then back to South Africa again and sort of expanded it to work with different teams and this is also my work has often created over quite long periods of time relationships are very important to me.

7:00And sort of being able to you know go back show people images have them respond to those and then maybe incorporate something different when we make the next set of portraits so it is quite important to me to kind of have that going over long term I also think that it you know it changes the way that I engage with with people and you know the more time you have sort of to grow and evolve as an artist it's obviously better if you're dealing with you know a long-term body of work. And I think also having relationships that kind of ongoing which is something that happens with all of my work.

7:40But it kind of helps facilitate a space where the girls feel comfortable and kind of able to just really you know it's a safe space and they can sort of just do exactly what they want and this this picture is one of my favorite I mean the back story is maybe not so exciting but basically over the week that I was working with in school these two girls wykisha and Riley kind of adopted themselves as my assistants and they wouldn't let me you know pick up anything on my own I wasn't allowed to unwrap my own film.

8:18So I had to show them how to do it and and we were going to photograph the rest of the team and they did decide they didn't want to be in it we were gonna you know go up and photograph together.

8:29And then sort of as well going up they told me that you know we're gonna do portraits so it was kind of like a stolen moment we weren't me we weren't really meant to be because the rest of the team was waiting and it was like unfair because you know.

8:40But I I think for me this kind of kappa that attitude that they have and confidence and also you know they like did this in like you know two seconds they were just like okay I'm sorry I think that that kind of this is one of my favorite pictures and the whole process was I think a very fun and playful process it was like I mean I I love working with children I was you know had younger family members and stuff and I think it's it's a space where I kind of you know I I think you have to capture children's attention in order to get engagement and don't know if anyone has ever photographed children but it's not always so easy to keep them excited and you can quite quickly see you and they lose interest so every time I would go on a shoot or would sort of be me like trying really hard to like make it the best time ever and make them super excited and I think consequently it became this way of us you know working together in that it was fun and and they sort of were quite involved in terms of like directing each other like standing behind the camera telling the one in front what to do you know sometimes taking the pictures everyone just wanted to push the the shutter because it makes such loud noise I'm shooting on a medium format camera so I should have mentioned this probably before.

10:02But the whole kind of process of the film is like always a way that I use to kind of break the ice I guess with the children and I just get everybody involved and each time I take my camera back to be processed in London I always get asked like why is it so dirty why is they like dust in like like everywhere because it's been sitting out you know on the side of a field but so yeah it's kind of I think as I said been a really kind of fun way for me to work and yeah.

10:37So I'm just going through a couple sorry as I said my slides are not very organized and this was kind of a project for me previously I had focused primarily on portraiture as I mentioned before I'm quite very to working with people and previously just straights quite formal portraiture was the way that I did that but with this project I kind of started to experiment a little bit with combining portraiture and documentary because I kind of wanted to expand the narrative slightly more so it was sort of a mix of these a lot of the situations also quite constructed as I'm not sure if you can see but you know some of the portraits it's a very clear interaction but some of them its a mix between construction and maybe a bit what was there. And I also quite like that I think I sort of purposely combined you know portraiture documentary references fashion references I kind of quite like that all of these things can maybe come into one and the resulting image might you know you're not quite sure what it might actually be it's real life but maybe it's a bit too perfect and I think that's quite a big thing for me also in in photography in the way that images are often much more constructed than we think so that's a kind of way that I unpacked that a little bit.

12:11And sort of try to make people question so as you can see I'm sort of just not very organized going through so yeah it's it's really just quite a mix and I mean the colors obviously I'm I'm quite obsessed with colors so I do spend quite a while I suppose I want everything to look natural but again on the side of like slightly painterly which is immature term I like when people applied to photography but I sort of like that quite rich color and obviously the uniforms lend themselves that and here these last year. Actually from a more recent time.

12:57So the project has gone on I think I've how many times have I been back quite a few but I sort of I'm in and out of Cape Town obviously it's where I'm from some spen time there quite a lot.

13:10And I've recently expanded into Joburg as I looking at this project and the way that the sport has kind of positively influenced young women and girls across the country in the way that kind of it's sort of physically empowering them as a photographer I do feel like it's quite important to kind of create images that are maybe challenging the dominant stereotypes that we see I kind of wanted very much to show these young women I was very strong I was very dignified powerful and confident which is if you'd meet them for two seconds it would be quite obvious that.

13:56That's what they are so I think I just rarely worked in terms of the process to make sure that that is what kind of came across and also in the sort of selection to kind of you know choose ones that were quite strong and where everybody looks really perfect and it is quite important to me also in terms of my process that all of the images that I make everybody in them always gets one and everybody in them is happy it's sort of quite a thing that I work towards I guess that you know the people in the images need to feel like they have they're happy with them.

14:32And it's it's the image of themselves that they want to see so think yeah. So I'm going on to the last person. But yeah.

14:43So this is kind of it's been ongoing it is still ongoing as I mentioned I sort of go in and out of projects a bit and they said this has sort of been something that I've been focused on quite long term and I'm excited to continue hoping eventually to make a book.

15:01I think that I would love to be able to go back to the various teams that I've worked with and sort of have something you know aside from all the images to have something. Actually like physical that I can show from everything but you had sort of been just something that I feel incredibly lucky to have you know have worked on and to have been able to make these relationships with the people many of whom I sort of continued on to to other things and you know I'm still often getting requests like people need a new team photo like could I do this or like somebody's update the instagrams and I could I do that.

15:40And I I think very much for me. That's his face that I feel like I've achieved really what I want is that people feel comfortable to come and ask me that. But also like I can kind of actually be generating images for the people that I'm taking pictures of I feel like that's kind of a success for me and always if I go back to somebody's house or a space and recently I think the picture of the two girls and the green stairs got published in like the community newspaper her.

16:08So I always feel like that's kind of a you know it's a bit cheesy but like that's always like the biggest thing really. So yeah.

16:15I think about going on to the next person slide again that's that's that's for me. And if anyone has any questions after she's feel free thank you [Applause]