Afrapix influenced by apartheid
Afrapix was a collective agency of amateur and professional photographers who opposed Apartheid in South Africa and documented South Africa in the 1980s. The group was established in 1982 and dissolved itself in 1991.About Afrapix
Afrapix was independently funded by its members, who were both black and white. The group received both national and international feedback, as their photographs were used across the world. Oxfam used photographs by a number of Afrapix members to illustrate their 1990 publication 'We Cry for our Land: Farmworkers in South Africa', and some Afrapix pictures were also used in Oxfam's 'Front Line Africa: The Right to a Future' (1990). Afrapix members photographed their own projects and also conducted workshops in black communities that focused on photography and literacy through artwork. Afrapix members shared their technical knowledge while mentoring individuals in these areas.
As the period was known as the "struggle years," the photographs and projects produced through Afrapix were labelled as "struggle photography." Many of the photographers considered themselves political activists or had a political agenda, and worked to raise awareness about the evils of apartheid. The various artists of Afrapix agreed that they were a team working against apartheid, but that their inspirations came from different places.
Many of the images were of rallies or protests, instances of authority brutality, and impoverished areas. Kylie Thomas suggests that the history of social documentary photography in the Afrapix period is probably more complex and heterogenous than often suggested, especially when analysing the work of women photographers such as Gille De Vlieg and Gisèle Wulfsohn.A detailed timeline of Afrapix is accessible at the SA History Online website.