Poster for the festival

Catalogue of the festival

We at the Centre for Photography thought this first photographic festival would be a modest event that might kindle sufficient interest for a full blown festival in 2001. We were wrong. As you make your way around the more than 100 exhibitions, live events, virtual exhibitions, films and workshops, you will find there is clearly no need to stimulate interest There already exists a huge demand for an event which can only begin to showcase the wealth of talent in contemporary South African photography.

From the outset, we were inundated with requests from South African and foreign photographers wishing to participate, and an initial twenty proposals grew to thirty, then to fifty and in no time we had crossed the mythical one hundred mark. We have gone way beyond our limited capacity to handle an event such as this This event was a partnership between the the University, the Centre for photography, participating photographers. the business and arts community and the people of Cape Town. Read the foreword by Prof Wilmot James as printed in the festival catalogue.

Our band of dedicated curatorial team included Berni Searle (curator and education co-ordinator) Lien Botha (curator and education officer), Jenny Altschuler (special events curator and workshop co-ordinator), Elena Barbisio (research assistant and catalogue design),Dale Yudelman (virtual exhibitions curator, poster, logo and website design), Torgny Hylen (website and information achitecture designer), Mark Coetzee (art night co-ordinator), Robyn Rorke (research assistant), Gabriella Kaplan (proof reading and editing), Freddy Scotchman (catalogue distribution and exhibition mounting co-ordinator), and many others who worked day and night to bring you what we hope is the finest collection of photographic exhibitions yet in South Africa.

Along the way we have received generous assistance from many organisations and individuals. including Robin Olivier of Coza Digital who looked after our Mac computers. Stuttafords Van Lines, the Scanshop, the Smith Group, Supreme Larson Jhule, and too many restaurants, museums, gallery's etc. to list here. Waterfront Charters hosted an exhibition on a ship, the Labia Cinema staged a small film festival and the National Gallery contributed with the inclusion of the 'Lines of Sight'exhibition. The Old Mutual, Creative Colour Laboratory, the National Arts Council, the City of Cape Town and the Arts and Culture Trust of the President all lent their financial support to the festival. The Durban Centre for Photography and the Nordic Council of Ministers, made it possible for us to host the Shuttle '99 X-scape exhibition and the British Council brought our invited artist, Roy Mehta to Cape Town from Britain. Thank you all for giving South African photographers this unique opportunity.

100xc festival committee

Geoffrey Grundlingh
Festival Concept and Strategic Planning
Fund Raising andFinancial Administration
Artistic Director

Berni Searle
Chief Curator
Education Co-ordinator

Lien Botha
Co-curator
Education Officer

Jenny Altschuler
Special Projects Curator
Events Co-ordinator

Dale Yudelman
Virtual Exhibitions Curator
Festival Logo and Poster design
Centre for Photography Logo design
Website Concept and Design

Elena Barbisio
Research Assistant
Assistant Curator

Torgny Hylen
Website Concept and Design

Mark Coetzee
Planning and Co-ordinator: Art Night

Catalogue

Publisher: South African Centre for Photography at UCT & UCT Press
Concept: Geoffrey Grundlingh
Catalogue design: Elena Barbisio and Geoffrey Grundlingh
Cover photograph. Fire by Peter Mckenzie
Editor: Gabriella Kaplan
Catalogue information co-ordination: Lien Botha assisted by Berni Searle
Repro : Scanshop

Foreword (as printed in the festival catalogue)

The Cape Town Month of Photography, starting on Heritage Day, 24 September 1999, is an ambitious and innovative programme put together under the direction of Geoffrey Grundlingh, Director of the South African Centre for Photography located in UCT's Michaelis School of Fine Art. I am very pleased and honoured to endorse and recommend to all Capetonians the feast of photographs open to view in various spaces and places throughout the city. The project is a tangible demonstration of the way the university can service the community.

The South African Centre for Photography promotes a broader understanding of the medium of photography in all its various forms. The Centre hosts vocational programmes that create jobs for photographers in studios or on the street; it works in co-operation with the Western Cape Education Department in the development of pinhole photography programmes; and it promotes the practice of photography amongst Capetonians through workshops. It also has plans to host a permanent photographic gallery and to encourage the sale of photographs through the 'Print of the Month club' and the 'Print Cabinet' projects. All-in-all it is a very exciting development that UCT is proud to call its own.

A photograph is a way of appropriating a subject. It expresses a relationship of power and it is a specific form of knowledge about the world. Unlike paintings and drawings, photographs do not appear so much interpretations of that world as part of it. On the one hand, photographs are now an art form and on the other the most common form through which families and individuals create identities for themselves. Photographs give us, in Susan Sontag's words, 'an imaginary sense of possession of a past that is unreal, and they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure'. Photographs document an absence; they also celebrate the vibrance of the present. They are worth, as I know only too well and has often been said, a thousand words. Single images have the power to remain in the memory and, like the photograph of the first victim (Hector Peterson) of the Soweto Uprising in 1976, to define a historical epoch.

So I warmly recommend to you the curated, virtual, solo, and group exhibitions to which this catalogue is a guide. There is something here for everyone. It is a first for the city and the university.

Professor Wilmot James
Dean of Humanities
University of Cape Town