"SEEDTIMES" BY OMAR BADSHA, HARDCOVER, 2017 FIRST EDITION, 320 PAGES, NO NAMES OR INSCRIPTIONS, IN NEW UNREAD CONDITION.
Seedtimes the title of Omar Badshas photographic retrospective is drawn from a poem by Mafika Gwala written in the wake of the Soweto Uprising of 1976, a period when the cultural and political movement against apartheid really began to develop momentum in the townships of South Africa. Seedtimes is an impressive retrospective exhibition of works by South African artist, photographer and former political activist, Omar Badsha, spanning a period of 50 years.
Central to the exhibition are Badshas celebrated photographic essays, which provide an opportunity to reflect on the ideas and social concerns of one of the countrys most celebrated social documentary photographers. Badsha, a member of the post-Sharpeville generation of activist artists who, together with his close friend Dumile Feni, wrestled with the challenges that black artists and academics faced in a period of intensive repression during apartheid. Between 1965 and 1972, Badsha exhibited extensively and was the recipient of a number of awards. His artistic career was suspended for a time when he became involved in the revival of the Natal Indian Congress, and the re-emergence of the non-racial trade union movement in the wake of the 1973 Durban workers strike.
Badshas work attempts to document the social culture of daily life in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, and explores the idea of seeing and being seen, producing photographs that capture the intimacy, ritual, spaces and multi-layered narratives of the lives of the marginalized. They are people immersed in their everyday lives; people with agency who are portrayed with empathy.During the 1990s, Badsha obtained a passport to travel abroad and was able to complete a number of photographic essays in India, Denmark and Ethiopia. The essays were inspired by his work A Letter to Farzanah, first published in 1979 and banned by the apartheid regime. His work as a community activist in the Inanda squatter community outside Durban was published in the book Imijondolo.
In 2001, Badshas The Imperial Ghetto was published, which features essays on the Grey street area of Durban. He also coordinated the photographic project of the Second Carnegie Inquiry into Poverty, and is the author of the seminal book South Africa: The Cordoned Heart.
