The Market Photo Workshop, with support from OXFAM South Africa, is conducting a project with 10 South African creatives and storytellers in the storytelling, transformation and empowerment Oxfam Participatory Project. The project uses hands-on job experience, combined with technical and theoretical support to draw attention to the role photography, audio, video, sound and text plays in setting social justice agendas in Africa, particularly in the SADC region. During these unprecedented times of the global health challenge of COVID-19, the project seeks to promote new storytelling works around social responsibility, activism and ethical investigation by African storytellers.
Oxfam South Africa is a social justice organisation working at the intersection of poverty and inequality. Oxfam South Africa works at multiple levels including at the grassroots and with policy-makers, engaging directly with communities as well as decision makers to ensure that people living in poverty can improve their lives and livelihoods and have a say in decisions that affect them. Combining long-term development programming with catalytic, responsive and timeous interventions, capitalising on key moments and opportunities in the socio-political spectrum, Oxfam South Africa employs a one programme approach understanding that social, economic and political issues do not exist in isolation and that failures in governance manifest in social injustices and poverty.
The Market Photo Workshop is a Johannesburg-based school of photography, gallery and resource centre for practicing photographers. Since its establishment in 1989, the school has played an integral role in the training and growth of photographers from South Africa and further afield, while promoting photography through exhibitions, public debates and collaborative projects, especially within marginalized communities. The Market Photo Workshop is a division of The Market Theatre Foundation. Market Photo Workshop is the recipient of The Principal Prince Claus Award 2018