Snapshots of freedom: Street photography in Cape Town from the 1930s to the 1980s

Abstract

In this article, I look at the “ordinary” (or “everyday”) archive of the racially oppressed, viewing it as an entry point into apartheid afterlives, while arguing for a rethinking of humanness and freedom after racial oppression. I consider the photographs produced by “Movie Snaps” – a street photographic studio of Cape Town, South Africa, that operated between the 1930s and the 1980s – and suggest that looking to previously marginalised narratives can offer insight into larger questions of self-representation, belonging and freedom. The contents of this article are based on a larger research project on forced removals in Cape Town, out of which several exhibitions and two documentary films have been produced to date.