DM TERBLANCHE
HOLYDAY
“We lift our foot from the solid ground of all our life lived thus far, and take that perilous step out into the empty air. Not because we can claim any particular courage, but because there is no other way.” ― Han Kang, 흰
Holyday is a reckoning with pain. At twenty-three I felt a part of me slip away, pale and brief through the cracks of terror. As a shard, a fragment, a group of moments, I picked up my grandfather’s camera. I had arrived upon my life as a foreigner.
Photographed over nineteen months, Holyday is a documentary project that narrates post-traumatic stress disorder. I spent these months following my family members, rearranging their body language to match the pictures inside my head, so often surreal and storied. If I was a butterfly, you would see me as a half-winged creature, suspended in the air. In perpetuity.
https://dmterblanche.com/
Being a part of the Through the Lens Collective mentorship program has given me the structure and support to reach new heights in my career, such as winning the Emergentes 2023 - International Photography Award Encontros da Imagem and being selected as one of GUP’s FRESH EYES 2024 talents. Michelle’s guidance throughout this process has been immensely meaningful and has allowed me to develop my work and creative practice in a way that allowed it to take its proper form. The sense of community I have with the other members of the collective has also inspired me. I was used to doing most things on my own, as a self-taught artist, and cannot understate the difference being part of the mentorship program has made in my life as a photographer.
