‘PHOTOGRAPHING TAVERNS’: THE Q & A THEMBINKOSI HLATSWAYO & RUTH MOTAU[spacer height=”40px”]
Thembinkosi Hlatswayo (b.1993) and Ruth Motau (b.1968) pose questions to one another about their respective experiences as photographers who developed work within ‘tavern’ or ‘shebeen’ contexts. Motau is a veteran South African photojournalist, who as a woman during the 1990s, ventured into Dobsonville Hostel, open to see where her camera would take her, only to discover a shebeen. Hlatswayo is of a younger generation and approached shebeens from a personal perspective having grown up with his father’s tavern business and wanting to reflect on its impact on his psyche. Slaghuis II by Hlatswayo and Shebeens by Motau revisits an important social space for pleasure, politics, and photography in the cultural lives of South Africans.
HLATSWAYO: Ruth, thanks for this written conversation opportunity. I feel very privileged! How did you place yourself in the space that you photographed? Did you become one of the patrons as a way of synchronizing yourself with the space?
MOTAU: I ventured into Dobsonville Hostel with curiosity to tell a story of the lives of ordinary people living in and around the hostel. I entered the shebeen as a curious observer and only participated with my camera. There is a responsibility as a photographer to tell stories that you wish cannot be told; stories that you may wish can vanish or disappear. For me, they have been stories of human suffering, poverty and tragedy. I understood the shebeen as a place of brokenness and I thought it important to record such events as it also is part of our history.
HLATSWAYO: You say in your artist statement that the shebeen you were photographing was mostly frequented by unemployed people and pensioners. What did this mean to you?
MOTAU: The unemployed and pensioners frequenting the shebeen are patrons that have more free time and also there were no activities in the community for them. I noticed in the hostel where I photographed that most of these patrons left the shebeen intoxicated and a sight for sore eyes. I would feel sad to see them leave in that state to go home to their families and most probably sleep.
Thembinkosi, you mentioned in an audio recording that people who come to the tavern where you photographed, ‘leave themselves there’… Can you explain further and elaborate on your words: “They mark the space and the space marks me. That’s what drove the process of marking the images, which became a way of putting my emotions on the tactile image“.
HLATSWAYO: The tavern is also a place of concentrated emotional exchanges, which is a way the patrons imprint their energies on the space (or leave themselves in the space). This is how they mark the space, and these markings are the aftermaths of some of the emotional trading that takes place within the space. Now the place takes on a whole new identity from these encounters, which is bound to affect the people who live with or in this space. This is how the space marks me. And getting ‘emotionally physical’ with the image has been quite cathartic but also continues the chain of aftermath.
MOTAU: The word, ‘Slaghuis’ references a butchery … how do you identify your ‘tavern’ with a butchery, except for a dead body that your family found the next day, which you disclosed in your piece in the Mail and Guardian (The Portfolio : Thembinkosi Hlatswayo – Mail & Guardian)
HLATSWAYO: I’ve come to learn that ‘slaghuis’ is a vernacular expression for a place of violence, and a tavern can also be a place of extreme violence. I’m not sure that I’ve personally identified this space as a literal butchery/’slaghuis’. It’s just too extreme. Also the tavern is my home and so it’s too personal a place to identify it with such a literal context. This nickname for the tavern (‘slaghuis’) is part of what I’m confronting in the work, and what I am attempting to free myself and the place from. How one can identify a tavern with a slaughterhouse without the exceptions of violence (death), instances of inhumanness, or perhaps a sound of deep wailing–silent and loud?
Ruth, could you describe the sounds of Shebeens, what kind of music would be playing there? What did the ‘nice and tipsy’ sound like?
MOTAU: The sound and mood in the shebeen was chaotic. Patrons spoke loudly and happily came to spend some money and drink their troubles away. There were the sounds of children running in and out of the shebeen, screaming and laughing. I don’t remember that there was music playing but patrons did start to sing hymns when they got tipsy!