DINEO MTETWA

Dineo Mtetwa IS BOLDLY RECOGNISED FOR DOCUMENTING THE TALES OF OTHERS THAT NEED TO BE TOLD AND REPRESENTED IN ITS RICHEST AND RAWEST SETTING. Her upbringing in Soweto carries sentiments in her work that speak loud to a community and the authentic stories that shape her. “Sometimes we forget about the reality happening around us. So for me it’s keeping that story. I always imagine South African townships evolving and in 50 years time it won’t look like that. Photographers like me get to capture how it looks right now. It’s about keeping the archive alive.” Dineo’s work is a celebration of holding onto the surroundings that have grown you, tested you and that make you.

WHERE ARE YOU FROM, HOW DID PHOTOGRAPHY FALL INTO YOUR PATH?

I’m from Soweto and that has informed a lot of how I look at the world because I went to primary school, high school, crèche- everything in Soweto. When I went to varsity I had to get to know myself and a huge part of that was because I was from Soweto. Getting into Anthropology, in my first year where I had no idea what it was. They’d teach us about race, gender and all these things I wasn’t aware of. Then there was a photography lecture where we had to analyse pictures and I really enjoyed playing with archives. At the same time I wanted to be a curator more than anything. I feel like just telling a story has always been a thing for me, and capturing the narrative. I came across a photographer from Soweto and I approached him and asked him “could I curate an exhibition of yours one day?” and he told me I was an amateur. I was like okay cool if I’m an amateur I need to do my own thing and that’s when I started taking pictures with my phone. I took a picture of iKota which is something really basic but people thought it was really cool. So, I started documenting where I’m from and the people I see everyday. With everything I see is how I started photography. I just started taking photo-walks around my community and interacted with people. That’s when I saw my community also vibes with having their pictures and stories taken. I thought okay cool, I’m going to keep doing this.

GROWING UP IN SOWETO PLAYS A BIG ROLE IN WHAT YOU DO. TELL US HOW A CULTURAL BACKGROUND AND UPBRINGING HAS SHAPED YOU AND LED YOUR PATH?

More than anything, I think it’s through the people and how we grow up that you see what you want to keep. For instance the things that you’d see at your grandmother’s house, those pink and white cats or the blompot or the room dividers - those are all things that we can’t get anymore. So, I think more than anything it’s wanting to keep that. Soweto is so multicultural and you get to interact with so many people. You get to know them through their culture and you go to school with so many people being Venda, Tsonga, and Sotho. This one time on my first day in high-school, because my name is Dineo (and it being a Xhosa name) I went to this zulu class and the teacher was like “Please get out of my class! There’s absolutely no way you’re supposed to be here right now”. I had to sit in a Setswana class for a week and I got to learn some Setswana. You get to interact with so many people and you want to keep that. When you go through the internet you see these pictures of people doing it big and for me it was not a reality. I’d wanna document the real stuff, like it’s my everyday life and where I come from.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE NARRATIVE THAT COMES THROUGH YOUR WORK?

I always call my body of work a ‘Room Divider’ because when you see a room divider it’s an archive. No one uses it unless it’s the best guest who comes to visit. I want my work to be received that way. It’s not perfect because some of the glasses in there are broken but because they mean so much to gogo you still treat them with so much care. It’s an archive. I feel like I don’t see enough black stories in museums, even though we know about Santu Mofokeng and other struggle photographers but where is their work. We don’t learn about them in high school. So, I wanted to put it out there with our faces to it. Sometimes we forget about the reality happening around us. So for me it’s keeping that story. I always imagine South African townships evolving and in 50 years time it won’t look like that. Photographers like me get to capture how it looks right now. It’s about keeping the archive alive.

WOULD YOU SAY YOU SHARE YOUR LIFE EXPERIENCES THROUGH YOUR WORK?

Not entirely. I wish I was a photographer back in high school cause I feel like that’s where I got to know myself. That time has passed. Right now I get to capture the things that worry me, that make me happy and how I see my family or how I interact with them, and I get to interact with people by visiting them and going through photo albums.

YOUR MOST EXCITING PROJECT YOU’VE WORKED ON

It’s always a picture of taxis. There’s this one specific picture where I was the last passenger in the taxi. It was how I honestly saw the taxi industry. I then started doing research about taxis. Also, taking pictures during lock down. I wasn’t sure what I was doing. It was risky. It was the second day of lock down and I wanted to go buy some bread. People were socially distant and it was so intense. I’ve never seen the hood so empty so I wanted to take a walk and take pictures. So, definitely the COVID seriously that I did and the man inside the taxi.