Feelings of solitary, loneliness, fear, anxiety and boredom are some of the words that can describe one’s feelings during this lockdown period.
With the current COVID -19 crisis, the Durban University of Technology’s (DUT’s) Photography Programme which includes both students and staff, were requested to participate and showcase their photographic expertise and practice in a compulsory photography programme project brief – 21 DAYS ISOLATION.
The project began on 27 March 2020, has over 90 visual storytellers (students and staff) participating, who have a responsibly and duty to respond meaningfully to this rare and unfamiliar situation that they are faced with, since the entire country is impacted severely. The main aspect is for all storytellers to make one strong image per day which simply represents isolation in one’s personal space that one is bound, for the next weeks or more.
One of the storytellers, second-year Photography student Wonderboy Maluleka, spoke of his journey of documentation through COVID-19. “The fact that this is something that we are not used to made it interesting for me. I think it is important that we document a rare moment or situation in our lives. My main focus is around recording how people react to this pandemic, how they go on a daily basis trying to get used to the situation. It’s also about me as a photography student, how do I react as a visual artist when I am limited in terms of creating photographs,” he said.
He further added that it is important to capture the mood and emotions because this is like a documentary. “We will always go back to this and just see how everyone was about the situation. Also, the next generation would also know what happened in 2020,” he stressed.
For second-year Photography student Scelo Dlamini, most of his work does reflect that he comes from the rural backgrounds of Ladysmith. “I’m an authentic storyteller, and hence I am studying photography to gain skills in visual storytelling. The COVID-19 epidemic has been a life-changing challenge for all of us and across all spheres in societies we live in. With the modern 21st technology we are enabled to share images across the world with a wider platform. It is also important to capture events as they happen as images can also serve as a reference and awareness,” he said.
Dlamini added that momentarily he mostly captures images on isolation using a variety of props that relate to the Covid-19 epidemic. “The biggest challenge in producing my series of works is having to ensure proper social distancing and regularly sanitising of my hands. Traveling for locations has also been an issue and hence these works are done in and around my village,” he stressed.
All storytellers (students) have to assemble a collection of images at the end of lockdown which will yield promising results as everyone has a story to tell, and everyone’s story is important. Every student has to submit 21 images, and if the lockdown continued beyond 21 days, everyone had to carry on making images until lockdown ended.
DUT’s Angela Buckland, Programme Co-ordinator: Photography said, “Despite the enormous challenges we face during the Covid-19, this is a critical time for our students to respond photographically to a global pandemic and be a part of history.”
Pictured: An image captured by storyteller Nhlakanipho Nkomo during the current lockdown period.
Waheeda Peters
