Common Ground series, photographs, 2008
Sugar Cane Workers series, photographs, 2003

Since apartheid’s fall, South African photography has exploded from the grip of censorship onto the world stage. A key figure in this movement is Zwelethu Mthethwa, whose portraits powerfully frame black South Africans as dignified and defiant individuals, even under the duress of social and economic hardship. Photographing in both urban and rural industrial landscapes, Mthethwa documents a range of aspects in South Africa and its neighboring countries: from domestic life and the environment to landscape and labor issues. His works address the cultural disorientation of migrants in their search for survival as they create new homes for themselves, recycling materials such as wood, corrugated iron, plastic sheeting and cardboard for shelter. Mthethwa’s work challenges the conventions of both Western documentary work and African commercial studio photography, marking a departure from Africa and Africans as the visually exotic and diseased. Mthethwa employs a fresh approach distinguished by his use of scale, color, composition and his collaboration with his subjects, capturing their dignity and pride. Rather than concealing poverty with a romantic narrative, his intense color, with its dramatic vividness, adds a dimension of celebration, while bearing witness to the ghetto anxiety.
Drawing from the history of portraiture and photojournalism, Mthethwa’s works often comment on gender roles and raise consciousness to issues related to post-apartheid South African society and globalization.