Recontextualizing the South African Epicentre of Anticolonial Resistance Movements

Carla Liesching's work reflects on the dual history of Cape of Good Hope. By combining found imagery and original texts, she exposes visual references related to White supremacism in the present, as proof of violent histories and harsh contemporary realities.

Currently, Good Hope comprises a full-length book of found imagery and original text, and an ongoing series of photo-sculptural installations that reference the contentious ‘falling’ architecture of the site. Through visual, sculptural, and text-based gestures, Good Hope addresses the ways visual culture is implicated in the production and perpetuation of violent histories and painful contemporary realities. 

Words and Pictures by Carla Liesching

Carla Liesching is an interdisciplinary artist working across photography, writing, collage, sculpture, and design. Grounded in experiences growing up in apartheid South Africa, her work addresses the loaded relations of representation and power, knowledge and documentation—with a focus on colonial histories and constructions of race and geography. A central concern in her practice is photography’s role in building social, political, and ideological systems, and she uses archives as sites of investigation and intervention. Carla is based in New York, where she works as faculty for the International Center of Photography and coordinates the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University. Follow her on Instagram and PhMuseum 

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This feature is part of Story of the Week, a selection of relevant projects from our community handpicked by the PhMuseum curators.

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