Photographing Spaces

Dahlia Maubane is Photographer in Residence at this year’s Summer Academy. This afternoon in Hallein she introduced us to her work, including her involvement with the Market Photo Workshop, and the project she is undertaking in Salzburg.

Maubane lives and works in Johannesburg. Her Resettlement-Passing Housing project is a photographic comparative study, considering the ways in which students in the city’s suburb of Brixton shaped and organised their living spaces. How they form space through the arrangement of objects revealed the socio-economic factors and patterns which define the lives of many young people in contemporary South Africa.

She then turned to her current project. This draws upon her work in Johannesburg, applying the ideas to students currently studying at the Summer Academy. She also extended the study to the students’ work spaces, thus reflecting the Academy’s theme of the Studio. Such a comparative approach raises questions as to how students from very different backgrounds think and express their use of space, and whether the way they do this varies between living and working spaces. Moreover, its also makes us consider whether there are elements which tie the two spaces together. It is clear that while some students personalise their spaces, others deliberately avoid doing so, and as in South Africa, social and economic factors play a definitive role.

Maubane’s projects combine the art of photography and the principles of sociological study, presenting us with a refreshing view of both fields, and the possibilities of interaction between them.