An exhibition focussing on Soweto’s famous match box houses is currently on at Market Photo Workshop
By CityLife Arts Writer
Hoek Swaratlhe an alumnus of the Advanced Photography Programme at the
Market Photo Workshop is currently having an exhibition at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown titled 4Dladla. The exhibition is a an archival journey that focuses on the apartheid built houses in Soweto o\colloquially called Match Boxes due to their limiting sizes and notorious for the similar architectural designs for each one of them. These houses are slowly disappearing, being replaced by new modern designs that have since sprung up in post-apartheid South Africa in the world famous township.
Swaratlhe, is a recipient of the 2022 Media and Advocacy Photography Mentorship at the Market Photo Workshop.
This exhibition is supported by a grant from the Open Society Foundation for South Africa.
4Dladla is a photographic archive of the disappearing houses and architecture of Soweto, often called “Match-box houses”, “Coaches”, “Doubles” and “Train”. These architectural structures, built from around the year 1905, are iconic functional homes for communities of working-class black people in pre-apartheid till present day South Africa. 4Dladla highlights the notion of “home” as the inhabitants did not have ownership but the State owned the houses – the people living in these houses were renters due to their status as indentured labour. 4Dladla investigates how the inhabitants were shaped by their environment and looks at how the past informs the present with the inhabitants now owning the Match-box houses that continue to be a home and shape their lives, and map the unknown future of potential physical redevelopment and its perceived multi-faceted problems.
About Hoek Swaratlhe
Hoek Swaratlhe is an alumnus of the Advanced Photography Programme at the
Market Photo Workshop. Hoek has assisted renowned photographers including Johann Barnard, Neo Ntsoma and Francois Booyens. He was Head of Photographers at the Basement in the Arts. Hoek has extensive experience in street and studio photography. He has worked with Netflix, Lampost, Basement in the Arts. In 2016, Hoek participated in a two-year residency programme at the Kopanang Arts Studio, Pretoria Arts Museum. His work addresses copmplex social issues and urban street culture, which he executes through his documentary and studio work.
Hoek participated in the sixth edition of the Photo Incubator programme. The photography enterprise and entrepreneurship programme enhances and elevates photographers’ business ventures and artistic practice.
About the Media and Advocacy Photography Mentorship at the Market Photo Workshop
The Market Photo Workshop established the Media and Advocacy Photography Mentorship, which is a 10-month mentorship aimed at the development of photographers with an interest in documenting societal issues that might often go unacknowledged in the mainstream media. The mentorship programme will afford photographers from Southern Africa a grant and mentor’s guidance to produce a body of work, aiming at initiating long-term development of photographers who can report on the challenges facing diverse communities with professionalism. This will give these groups a voice they might otherwise lack thus promoting their engagement with the wider society on issues that affect them. The mentorship also provides a platform to maintain and promote a diversity of voices within the media of South Africa, the region and beyond, while providing recipients with field experience from various host organisations that the Market Photo Workshop will join forces with. The mentorship further offers an advocacy directed opportunity in media, affording the recipients skills and credentials that facilitates independent thought, ensuring high levels of competence, commitment and reliability.