Exhibition: AMATSHA NTLIZIYO.(The Nevergiveups) by ERIC MILLER, of the GAPA (Grannies Against Poverty and Aids) women. Text Jo-Anne Smetherham. At the District Six Museum, Homecoming Centre until August 30. LUCINDA JOLLY reviews
AT A time in their lives when elderly women should be sitting on the stoep in a rocking chair being supported by their children, the women of Grannies Against Poverty and Aids have been put into the role of sole supporter of families of up to 10 members.
Considering that halfway through 2010, about 1.2 million children had lost a mother to Aids, many elderly South African women find themselves in this supportive position.
When photographer, Eric Miller, visited the grandmothers for the first time, he found them handing out condoms to young men on the street, an action that goes deeply against the cultural grain and yet reflects the conditions of the times which demand such action for the survival of a people.
Miller, a freelance photographer, who has covered subjects from the Rwandan genocide and famine in Sudan, to human interest features such as women’s boxing, got drawn into the lives of the Gapa women when he found he couldn’t say no to the vivid way award winning journalist Jo-Anne Smetherham packaged her request to him to take the photographs which would accompany her news piece on a Gapa event. This later led to a piece on Mrs Alicia Mdaka.
GAPA, which has been running for 10 years, began as a self help project in Khayelitsha to assist grandmothers 50 years or older who have been affected by HIV/Aids in some way. Workshops around HIV Aids are held and practical skills such as gardening and drawing up a will are taught. It now has about 50 members and works as far afield as Swaziland and Tanzania.
GAPA is not just an organisation where a bunch of women sing and dance. The power of GAPA is that many women are saved from depression or suicide by the organisation. Mrs Mdaka writes how she “was planning to lay her head on the railway tracks… now my sisters at GAPA are my counsel and comfort. If it wasn’t for them, I would be dead by now”
From the very first visit with Smetherham it was clear to Miller “that there was something much bigger and deeper happening”. After spending 18 hours like flies on the wall in one of the grandmother’s houses documenting a day in the life of a GAPA woman “this extraordinary experience of being allowed inside that slice of somebody’s life” led to Millers decision to do a photographic portrait project.
Miller explains that he was very careful not to make assumptions from his white middle class perspective regarding the Khayelitsha grandmothers. To this end he scheduled a one hour meeting which developed into a four and a half hour group therapy session where women spoke of their childhoods, their adult expectations and their dreams .
Miller was blown away when at the end of the meeting all the women present wanted to be involved. They understood that it would put them into the public eye both visually, in the form of a portrait, and verbally in the form of a written testimonial which accompanies each portrait. These handwritten quotes, apart from one who was badly afflicted with arthritis and another who cannot write, underline the fact that these are real people, each with their own particular voice rather than being spoken for.
Funded out of his own pocket, Miller took the portrait photographs in a studio he set up in Khayalitsha using a large 6X6 format. These were later digitised to include the written testimonials below.
The second part of the exhibition revolves around the families. During the portraits many sitters talked about their families and Miller realised that he needed to create a balance between the individual portraits and the quotes to create a “tangible link”. The families were shot digitally with 35mm film in a landscape format using available light.
Although the images are linked by the common thread of elderly women as sole breadwinners, range is very important to Miller. He “didn’t want to show a bunch of miserable women”, or focus on “people living in poverty”.
He understood that although the women may live in difficult circumstances they have created a life for themselves. This and a deep sense of respectful compassion for these women is clearly manifest in these images.
Miller was very conscious of what he “included and excluded” in the images, understanding that the women all live in different circumstances, some in brick houses, others in shacks.
One of the most moving portraits in the exhibition is that of Rita Hoza. She is crying, but her face is not contorted and there is nothing apologetic in her stance. With the camera all set up Miller was reading back her narrative when she began to cry. He asked if she minded if he took her photograph while she was crying, she replied that she didn’t .
Later Miller was confronted by one of the grandchildren regarding his inclusion of this portrait. The grandchild “found it a bit rough”. Previously Miller had checked with Rita about including the portrait. Rita explained the following. She said that she had looked at all the photographs that she had of herself and that they were smiling photographs, ordinary photographs but she said that here was a big part of her life that is sad and that this photograph is the only photograph that shows this and she wanted the portrait included in the exhibition.
Miller is very clear that the quotes and the particulars of what he shot are about “a range of experience and feeling.” It also reflects his reason for becoming a photographer. He felt that if he exhibited them, no one could later deny what had happened.
Other interesting aspects are the family photographs which include a young man carrying a baby on his back getting involved in the washing up. In all the family portraits only one includes a husband and a dog called Tony.
The importance of this exhibition being shown at the District Six Museum is twofold. Some of the portraits are of women who were forcibly removed from District Six and secondly the museum has dedicated the whole of August to Women’s day issues.
Be sure to catch this before it leaves for the US to be exhibited on the campuses of Old Dominion University and The American University in Washington. And look out for the book that Miller and Smetherham are working on which will be an depth look into what the exhibition touches on.
l Call 021 466 7200.