"It is well" : an ode to Karabo

I'm a photographer, image retoucher & visual artist. I identify as a feminist & that directly informs the themes I incorporate within my work. I address the complexities of existing within an overtly violent society that only assigns value to women within the confines of race,class,religion etc

Project Description:

This body of work is a self-portrait photographic series that aims to document various stories of South African women across economic backgrounds, ethnicities & races who have fallen victim to the scourge of Femicide in South Africa. The works are guided by various representations of a Black Virgin Mary who leads the viewer through each tragedy but remains immovable in solidifying each woman's impenetrable divinity. Each title of each portrait in the series is the name of the deceased woman, & the description has each woman’s age as well as the events that led to each their demise.

Artist’s statement:

This body of work is inspired by Karabo Mokoena, a 22 year old God fearing young woman who was the victim of abuse at the hands of her partner and who was brutally murdered, and her body burned beyond recognition in a shallow grave. She, like many women in South Africa have been failed by a society and a justice system that does not prioritize the violence women face in the hands of abusive men on a daily basis. The South African justice system does not prioritise the protection of women when it is necessary, but only when it is beneficiary to it. Patriarchy is the puppeteer and women are its puppets.

South Africa has failed us.

South African men have failed us.

Despite the overwhelming violence we face, women are not defined by the violence that cloaks us. We are not defined by the failures of the South African justice system. We are not the cloth that men wipe their mistakes onto and discard. We will not be defined by a society that fuels its engines with our blood and props itself up with our bones.

We are the sum of the power and potential that society tries so hard to beat out of us.

We might bend but we will never break.

We will overcome.