Araminta de Clermont
02 Sep - 03 Oct 2009
© Araminta de Clermont
Randy, Bishop Lavis, 2008
Lambda print and diasec at Grieger, Dusseldorf, Germany
75 X 50 cm
Randy, Bishop Lavis, 2008
Lambda print and diasec at Grieger, Dusseldorf, Germany
75 X 50 cm
ARAMINTA DE CLERMONT
"Before Life"
2 September - 3 October 2009
Opening reception: Wednesday, 2 September at 6pm
This series of portraits was undertaken during the matric dance season of 2008 and began as a documentation of South Africas youngsters at a seminal moment in their lives. For most matriculants and their families, the matric dance has huge significance on many levels:
For some it may be an opportunity to celebrate the reaching of an important academic level, which the previous generations may not have had the chance to reach. For others it may be a night marking the leaving behind of childhood, and a moving into adulthood.
And for yet more, especially in the cases of more impoverished families, it may primarily be a night of fantasy escapism, a chance to live out their dreams through costume and styling. It may even be seen as being the night of these youngsters lives, their first and possibly their last real opportunity to dress up no holds-barred, be the centre of attention, shine in a world where not much is certain.
At the dance itself, tellingly, more time is spent on photos than on anything else, (including dancing), as the girls cluster round endlessly snapping one another in all their glory on their cell phones.
Such an incredible amount of thought goes into the whole ensemble that one could say that each outfit is in a way a work of art on the girls part. Many families will deny their children nothing for this outfit; costs will be budgeted into household expenses up to a year in advance.
An infinity of magazines are flicked thru, music videos watched and re-watched, the imagination excavated, cultural backgrounds revisited, and family members consulted. The resultant look, I believe, speaks volumes: about the hopes, dreams, aspirations and influences of young South Africans today.
I initially shot matrics in all walks of life, but it was the youngsters from the notorious Cape Flats to whom I ended up being repeatedly drawn. They are the ones who again and again shone out for me, in their attitude, bearing, sense of self, the outfits chosen but also because of my preceding series life after, a documentation of cape towns tattooed number gangsters, in which many of the men I had shot, (perhaps understandably) blamed their environments and the often grinding poverty from which they came, for the route they took in life.
I became fascinated by the youngsters I met from these same areas, (but born a decade or more later), who are hoping to go a different way. They seem to know they deserve more, and are, in many cases, fighting to get it, hoping to ultimately soar up out of their surroundings and the attendant problems of a formerly forcibly displaced and fragmented society. And so the relationship between the youngsters and the environments from which they hail became paramount to this body of work.
At the same time I was drawn to looking at the way the matric queen presents herself, when she and her dreams are exposed to the neighbourhood, and to a degree, the greater world (through the lens of an outsider).
This is the new generation of South Africa, before any disappointments, before their dreams are crushed. May they shine on.
- Araminta de Clermont
"Before Life"
2 September - 3 October 2009
Opening reception: Wednesday, 2 September at 6pm
This series of portraits was undertaken during the matric dance season of 2008 and began as a documentation of South Africas youngsters at a seminal moment in their lives. For most matriculants and their families, the matric dance has huge significance on many levels:
For some it may be an opportunity to celebrate the reaching of an important academic level, which the previous generations may not have had the chance to reach. For others it may be a night marking the leaving behind of childhood, and a moving into adulthood.
And for yet more, especially in the cases of more impoverished families, it may primarily be a night of fantasy escapism, a chance to live out their dreams through costume and styling. It may even be seen as being the night of these youngsters lives, their first and possibly their last real opportunity to dress up no holds-barred, be the centre of attention, shine in a world where not much is certain.
At the dance itself, tellingly, more time is spent on photos than on anything else, (including dancing), as the girls cluster round endlessly snapping one another in all their glory on their cell phones.
Such an incredible amount of thought goes into the whole ensemble that one could say that each outfit is in a way a work of art on the girls part. Many families will deny their children nothing for this outfit; costs will be budgeted into household expenses up to a year in advance.
An infinity of magazines are flicked thru, music videos watched and re-watched, the imagination excavated, cultural backgrounds revisited, and family members consulted. The resultant look, I believe, speaks volumes: about the hopes, dreams, aspirations and influences of young South Africans today.
I initially shot matrics in all walks of life, but it was the youngsters from the notorious Cape Flats to whom I ended up being repeatedly drawn. They are the ones who again and again shone out for me, in their attitude, bearing, sense of self, the outfits chosen but also because of my preceding series life after, a documentation of cape towns tattooed number gangsters, in which many of the men I had shot, (perhaps understandably) blamed their environments and the often grinding poverty from which they came, for the route they took in life.
I became fascinated by the youngsters I met from these same areas, (but born a decade or more later), who are hoping to go a different way. They seem to know they deserve more, and are, in many cases, fighting to get it, hoping to ultimately soar up out of their surroundings and the attendant problems of a formerly forcibly displaced and fragmented society. And so the relationship between the youngsters and the environments from which they hail became paramount to this body of work.
At the same time I was drawn to looking at the way the matric queen presents herself, when she and her dreams are exposed to the neighbourhood, and to a degree, the greater world (through the lens of an outsider).
This is the new generation of South Africa, before any disappointments, before their dreams are crushed. May they shine on.
- Araminta de Clermont