B.

Bruce Connew a New Zealand freelance photographer was on a Listener assignment in South Africa on July 21st 1985 when the Emergency was declared. Such circumstances are obviously central to this exhibition and to the politics inevitably expressed within its images.

The photographs were taken during Connew's "five weeks of exhaustive effort" during which they documented what they saw in Johannesburg and Soweto. They visited a single men's hotel, were present to witness the violence and anger at two funerals for black victims of the unrest and drove 400km to interview personalities like Tutu, Paton, Stofile and Winnie Mandela. Now, following the Listener articles published in August-October 1985, the Naitonal Art Gallery is touring this exhibition of topical documentary photographs.

Don Slater in the 1983 issue of Camerawork suggests that the viewer's discomfort and shock at such images arises principally from a realisation that images of suffering and oppression have become merely entertainment. John Berger however argues that the documented scenes are wrenched out of their content and thus carry an inherent sense of discontinuity. He believes it is this unrealness which affects our response. In the light of recent happenings in South Africa it will be interesting to test these theories for ourselves.

('Photographs by Bruce Connew: South Africa', Bulletin, No.53, September/October 1987, p.1)