Two fascinating exhibitions focusing on Durban, Indian culture and the media of the 1950s are coming to the Iziko Museum in Cape Town this May.
Through the lens of Durban’s veteran photographer – an exhibition that zooms in on well-known Durban photographer Ranjith Kally – opens on 11 May.
Many Durbanites would recognise Ranjith Kally’s work from the social pages of local newspapers, but this 85-year-old photographer received scant national recognition before his first solo exhibition, which opened in Johannesburg in 2004.
Born in 1925 in Isipingo, Durban, Kally started taking photographs while working at a shoe factory in Durban. In 1952, he won third prize in an international competition in Japan, beating 150,000 other entries.
His strength in portraiture has enabled him to portray some of the most important and glamorous figures in South African history, including Nelson Mandela, Chief Albert Luthuli, Miriam Makeba and Sonny Pillay.
The exhibition is an acknowledgement of Kally’s work since 1945, but also reveals the privilege of reflecting on our fascinating past through the lens of Durban’s veteran photographer.
The Indian in DRUM magazine
The second exhibition, called ‘The Indian in DRUM magazine in the 1950s’, also opens on 11 May.
This exhibition focuses on the representation of the South African Indian community, who arrived as indentured labourers between 1860-1917 to work on the sugarcane fields soon after the abolition of slavery.
While the State used photography as a powerful propaganda tool in their publications on the one hand, this show reveals other identities that have been suppressed in official and popular presentations of this community via the DRUM magazine archives from the 1950s.
These photos, mainly from Durban, give glimpses of an ‘Indian’ underworld, shantytowns, bohemian jazz clubs and movie houses, cosmopolitan political activists, masculine identities and notions of modern ‘Indian’ women.
More information: www.iziko.org.za, info@iziko.org.za
