Series of portraits coupled with one-on-one interviews of South Africa’s emerging and established professionals. All the artists in the series were photographed in locations specifically chosen to complement their unique identities.

Designer Hendrik Vermeulen

Director Tshepo Moche

Musician Guy Buttery

Poet Bulelwa Basse

Designer Maloti Mothobi

hiphop MCEavesdrop

Illustrator Lauren Fowler

Musician Donovan Copley

musicians Miss Texas 1977

‘Starting your own company or moving countries in these times can either be smartest or the stupidest thing you can do. I did both and it brought me to South Africa – inspiring, sometimes frustrating, but always beautiful South Africa. This is a country where nothing is what it seems and where, for the first time in my life, I have felt ashamed of being Dutch. Apartheid ended in 1994 but race and race relations are very complicated still. In a search to find my way through a new country, I found fellow artists, who were willing to share their experiences with me, guide me through the city and help me find my feet in a new life. In keeping with the spirit of finding projects that are ‘close to you’, I decided to make my journey the starting point.

Due to its diverse and complex cultural landscape, South Africa’s unique creativity has an edge on the rest of the world. There is something about this country which allows for the creative to really come up with work of originality. But while Cape Town for example has a booming film industry, the other arts are still struggling. Artists are battling to be seen, to get published or to be exhibited and are struggling simply to make a living from their art. As did I.

For you see, the first couple of months after I moved were tough. I struggled to make friends, to find work; I was constantly putting myself out there and getting nothing back. I ran into copyright issues when I had one of my photos ‘stolen’. But after about 6 months, something changed. I started meeting people – people who do really cool things; people I like, and people whose work I admire. And things started to fall into place.

In a series of portraits coupled with one-on-one interviews, I spoke to emerging and established DJs, musicians, filmmakers, authors and illustrators about how they got started, perennial challenges within the creative industry, experiences in marketing themselves, and thorny issues like file sharing and copyright – all in an attempt to discover what drives them, and the difficulties they face in the current digital age. All the artists in the series were photographed in locations specifically chosen to complement their unique identities, cumulatively sketching my own interpretation of the South African landscape.

Their openness and willingness have been amazing and a true gift. I thought I was the only one having trouble making their mark on the cultural landscape but while talking to them it was such a relief to learn that they’ve faced similar problems along their own journeys; that it wasn’t just me, and that there are different ways of going about or looking at things. They taught me that swimming upstream is actually a good thing, since that’s how you learn and become stronger. And profiling them was the best way to show that.

I selected artist based on a few loose guidelines: I had to be a fan of their work they had to be freelancers, no older than 40 (they could have day jobs though), come from different cultural and artistic backgrounds. And since I wanted to talk about copyright issues, the internet must play a role in their day to day business dealings.’

Artists taking part in this project are: Toby Atwell, Lauren Beukes, Donovan Copley, Guy Buttery, Lauren Fowler, Twanji Kalula, Akio Kawahito, Miss Texas 1977, Tshepo Moche, Maloti Mothobi, S.A. Partridge, Verity Price, Monishia Schoeman, Neil John Smith, Hendrik Vermeulen, Tristan Waterkeyn and Sam Wilson.

Interview extracts:
Lauren Beukes (author): ‘When people ask me for advice I only have two things to say: deliver on time and according to specs. That is how you make your reputation. It’s all editors want. Deliver on time and as promised. The number of people who don’t is obscene.’

Neil John Smith (photographer): ‘I was very strategic about what I was doing, where I was hanging out. I was studying photography but worked in a bar and I made sure it was in a cool place in town where the right people came. You have to surround yourself with the right environment, meet people and get inspired. A challenge is to get yourself known, gathering ties, selling yourself but you have to have the portfolio to back it up. I’ll sell pussy to a lesbian if I have to.’

Sam Wilson (author, in relation to artist’s copyright and government protection): ‘I think some sort of reform is necessary, but I don’t think that stamping out the Internet’s ability to exchange information freely is the answer. That has all sorts of nasty implications for freedom of speech, which I think is more fundamental.’

Toby Attwell (graphic designer) ‘I think you just need to realise that the Internet is just getting bigger and bigger and it gets easier and easier to steal or copy someone’s work. It is just the way it is, you need to adapt and move with it’.

Maloti Mothobi (fashion designer) ‘The problem with going the consignment route is not just the financial side of it but you also have no feeling with your customers. You do not know who is buying your clothes. You have no say in how your work is displayed. One rents rail space and who is to say where that rail is? Shops will send the unsold items back to you at the end of the season but then what? The season is over and you are left with the surplus.’

Tristan Waterkeyn (musician) ‘If you want to make it you have to learn. Go to shops, look at the marketing and advertising in magazines, look at photography and type fonts, at the lay-out, if you have a question, learn to Google it. There is so much information out there, use it.’

PHOTOGRAPHER: Kathalijne Van Zutphen, Netherlands & Cape Town. DATE: 2011. No part of this web site may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of Morfae and the copyright owner.