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AFRICA: Bearing Witness and Celebrating the Everyday

Kristin Palitza

CAPE TOWN, Aug 18 2010 (IPS) - “I had a lump in my breast for a few years that I ignored [mainly because] it didn’t hurt. It’s so easy to try to deny illness,” says Tracey Derrick. When she finally went to see a doctor for a biopsy, she got a big shock. The result came back positive: breast cancer.

Tracey Derrick: 'My images aim to offer a balance to the images of women we see in the media. I bring in reality and take away blame and judgement.' Credit:  Tracey Derrick

Tracey Derrick: 'My images aim to offer a balance to the images of women we see in the media. I bring in reality and take away blame and judgement.' Credit: Tracey Derrick

The 49-year-old mother of two from Malmesbury, a small town in South Africa’s Western Cape province, had to have the tumour – and her right breast – surgically removed and undergo chemotherapy. But she was also lucky: the cancer had not yet spread through her body.

In South Africa, one in nine women suffer from breast cancer, according to the World Health Organisation. In many cases, tumours are diagnosed late due to the fact that most South Africans rely on the services of an overburdened public health care system that does not offer breast cancer check-ups, including mammograms, as part of routine prevention services.

Since she did not have medical aid, Derrick soon found herself trying to navigate an inefficient health care system and decipher the medical jargon related to breast cancer.

But the documentary photographer soon realised she had a special tool to help her to cope with her condition. She turned her camera onto herself and began documenting every step of her illness and healing process.

The result is a stark but beautiful series of photographs that show Derrick’s body pre and post-operation. It illustrates the trauma of losing her hair due to chemotherapy, the choices she had to make between breast prostheses and implants and how she dealt with her children during her illness.


“Social issues are at the heart of my photography,” says Derrick, who has in the past taken photographs of women prisoners, sex workers and farm workers.

Derrick’s photographs are exhibited as part of the Bonani Africa 2010 Festival of Photography: “Beyond the Racial Lens – The Politics of South African Documentary Photography, Past and Present”, which opens Aug. 18 at the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town.

Derrick’s images will be shown together with the work of 53 other documentary photographers from South Africa, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Namibia. The images focus on numerous social issues, including poverty, unemployment, land rights, education, xenophobia, HIV, and violence.

Derrick says she did not document her life with breast cancer solely for her own benefit. She also wants to raise awareness among and educate other women – and men – about breast cancer and what it means for women’s sexuality, womanhood and identity.

Because of media images of the ‘perfect woman’ that consumers are bombarded with on a daily basis, losing their breasts and their hair is usually extremely damaging to a woman’s self image, notes Derrick.

“Advertising tells us that a woman without hair or with only one breast cannot be perceived as being beautiful. Women feel that cancer takes their femininity away from them.”

Through her courageous and unflinching photography of her own body scarred by cancer, Derrick hopes viewers will realise that the disease is part of our reality and that cancer patients are ‘normal’ people’.

“My images aim to offer a balance to the images of women we see in the media. I bring in reality and take away blame and judgement,” she explains.

With her exhibition, she also wants to gain the attention of policy makers and government officials in the hope that they might prioritise breast cancer prevention and make more resources available for prevention and treatment.

“Through the photos, I want to create public debate, which will hopefully result in more support for women,” says Derrick. “We need much more education, not only about breast cancer itself, but also about easy prevention methods, such as self-examination.”

Breast cancer is often deadly because most people believe it happens only ‘to others’. “Early detection is so important. I didn’t go for regular check-ups, and I know that most women don’t. Breast cancer remains a taboo topic in our society. It’s never spoken about,” explains Derrick. Her photography aims to break this taboo.

“Documentary photography has an important role to play in society. Not only does it bear witness to what is happening in a country, it is also mobilising for change,” notes Omar Badsha, Bonani festival director and founder of South African History Online, a non-partisan people’s history project, which organised the exhibition.

Badsha says all contributions to the Bonani exhibition, which is followed by a three-day photography conference, tackle issues central to a democracy and challenge its status quo. “The photographs we selected make sharp social commentary, enrich understanding of social issues and encourage viewers to reflect,” he explains.

Like Derrick, he firmly believes documentary photography has the potential to contribute to social change: “We are hoping to create a platform for dialogue and generate an ongoing debate in the country that will motivate ordinary citizens to lobby for change in policies or state actions.”

Badsha also promised that after the exhibition at the Castle of Good Hope, the photographs will be made available to schools, civil society organisations and government departments for educational and advocacy work.

Says Badsha: “Visualising a social issue can have a huge impact. Images can overcome social and language barriers.”

 
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