Peter Magubane // Soweto Uprising // 40th Anniversary

We feel extremely fortunate and honoured, to announce today on Reconciliation Day, that FotoZA, the first gallery in South Africa dedicated to photographic fine art, will be re-opening after a 12 year absence on Monday, January 30th in Rosebank, JHB.

The Gallery’s opening exhibition will showcase Peter Magubane’s definitive work about the June 16th, 1976 Soweto uprising.

The uprising, that is seen by most historians as the event that set the country on course to the inevitability of democratic rule in 1994, is having its 40th anniversary and it is hoped that the exhibition could have a cathartic effect on  the healing process that’s necessary after the trouble experienced on SA campuses during 2016.

About Peter Magubane:

• He is a first tier struggle icon in his eighties, who was incarcerated in solitary confinement for a record number 586 days, as well as getting banned for 5 years by the apartheid regime.
• President Mandela’s personally appointed photographer which together with nine honorary doctorates, the Cornel Cappa Life time achievement award from the ICP in New York, the SA order of Meritorious Service Silver Class from President Mandela, as well as the the coveted Robert Cappa award, makes him one of the most celebrated photojournalists in the world.
• He has published no less than 23 books including the recent release of one commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the June 16th uprising.
• His recent exhibition in Poland  on Mandela was opened by legendary former President Lech Walesa.
• A man of both moral and physical courage, he famously convinced students that confronted him on the first day of the Soweto uprising, that ‘a struggle without documentation is no struggle’.

‘We encourage the public and scholars to make the effort to view this historically very important exhibition before its closing on February 28th, 2017.’

Dates:  Jan 30th – Feb 28th, 2017.
Venue: FotoZA Gallery, Rosebank Mall, Johannesburg.