Zeitz Mocaa's Ballen photography centre to demystify the new nature of photography

[The Ga[M]er.]

With the arrival of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, 2017 will go down in history as one of the most important years in the development and growth of African art.

The 9 000m2, R500 million development, designed by starchitect Thomas Heatherwick, will be the biggest museum to open on the continent in the past 100 years.

This week, the museum announced a multimillion-rand partnership with photographer Roger Ballen. It involves a significant financial donation, which will go towards the creation of the Roger Ballen Foundation Centre for Photography, and a complete collection of every photograph Ballen has taken.

Ballen, who broke into the mainstream during his collaborative period with pop rappers Die Antwoord, spoke to #Trending this week.

“The planning of the museum has been going on for a long time and I was quite impressed with what they were doing. I don’t think the public actually comprehends the scale of what’s going on there. It’s a world-class museum, built by world-class architects and the best artists. I wanted to be involved with something that is about to have a big effect on someone’s understanding of art. To have a museum with the infrastructure, combined with my expertise, could help achieve their goals and my goals about the various aspects of art photography on the continent.

“The endowment is set up so that the museum can better promote aesthetic photography in South Africa – people who have a conception of what photography can do as an art form, not merely as a documentary. There are millions of pictures taken on the planet, so how do you decide what’s contemporary, historic or documentary? We want to educate the public about the new nature of photography.