Join the photographer Mavis Mtandeki, pastor Angela Kemm and curator Marie Meyerding for an online conversation about the recently published photobook Sights of Struggle: The History of the Tambo Village Women.

In spring 2023, the book Sights of Struggle: The History of the Tambo Village Women with Mavis Mtandeki’s photographs and Marie Meyerding’s texts was published by Lecturis.

Mavis Mtandeki is one of the first black South African women photographers. She captured not only the political transformation of the country and the transition of the women’s organisations but also the difficult and dangerous relocation of numerous women from KTC to Tambo Village. As the premier settlement financed by the new government after the first free elections in 1994, Tambo Village stands as a testimony of the women’s defiance and their political claim on land and houses. This book tells the history of these courageous women captured through the lens of Mavis Mtandeki.

 
Marie Meyerding is a PhD candidate at the Department of African Art at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research explores the representation of women in the history of photography in apartheid South Africa. Meyerding’s research has appeared in African Arts, Third Text, Critical Arts, Safundi, sehepunkte and the book Sights of Struggle (2023).

Mavis Mtandeki is a photographer based in Gugulethu, Cape Town. Having completed a year-long media course at the Community Arts Centre in 1990 and obtained a diploma in photography from the Cape Town Press Centre in 1993, Mtandeki’s photographs were exhibited widely, including at the National Gallery of Art in Cape Town and the Photographers’ Gallery in London.

Angela Kemm is married with three daughters and eight grandchildren. Born in South Africa, she fought against Apartheid while helping the oppressed in whichever way they needed. Part of the result was the houses in Tambo Village. She is now in Cambridge, UK for a season.