KHANYA ZIBAYA
MY FATHER WAS RICH AND WHITE
“What the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do it to yourself.”
James Baldwin
'My Father was White and Rich' considers the distorted construction of global histories in an
African context and the delicate facade created to both reveal and conceal “truths”.
Like posters stuck on the wall for a political campaign, they lose their layers and
a new sinister meaning is revealed.
By merging my self portraits into images of different world leaders, I ask how I am represented in these colonial histories and how we are all the same but different.
What would I have done if given the same opportunities?
African histories have been warped by imperialism for hundreds of years. My intention is to cause a disturbance in our consumption of their archives and construct reimagined possibilities, scratching away at the very authors of history.
Is it possible to see from another's perspective? Who would these new leaders be?
As a self taught photographer and late bloomer artist, creating for the sake of creating or having
ability to... is not enough, my work had to grow the reason being joining Through The Lens
Collective mentorship program, here the work was challenged, learning things such as putting
the things in your image has to say something and how to tell a story using an image. Being
exposed as an artist is important so that you can start arriving at the moment of truth.
