Umzi Watsha Collection (A1 Prints)

1. IMIZAMO YAM

Our mothers carrying the world on their shoulders will do just about anything to put food on their children’s tables and clothes on their backs. What is waste to us, is her job. Below the hardhat lies a doek; a reminder that all work is gendered, in ways that open possibilities while presenting unspeakable challenges in a world dominated by patriarchy

2. SO NEAR YET SO FAR 

South African society, is built on fences (seen and unseen) that present small openings of opportunity to a world some take for granted. A world where many fight for a small opening to survive A juxtaposed urban existence where the ‘have-nots’ are so near yet so far, as many migrants negotiate space, movement and access to the City of Gold. 

3. I’BHUDDA

We have one in our family and one or more in the community. The street smart elderly man with a youthful, township edge who always spews wise gems in the form of street metaphors and anecdotes, all said unintentionally and in unassuming jest. He wears life’s experiences on his back and lives in constant nostalgia. A conversation with him always reveals unconventional views of the world…

4. SIZOFUNDA’NGENKANI  

We’ve lost so much in the fire. Our innocence, naivety and optimism about a future we may not be assured of. This is a sentiment held by many who have sacrificed their careers, freedom and sanity, for the cause of an education promised. This is an ode to all who have lost parts of themselves in a struggle for free education, your sacrifices are written in blood, in song and inscribed in future victories

5. FIRE IN THE BELLY, ICE IN THE HEART 

Cutting a figure of calm, while fires burn in the background, is an art many have mastered. We build lives while the inferno that is our communities, burns on. We find, make and maintain love, in environments where all that was expected is hate. We find ways to connect with the mundane and ordinary, in a world of dysfunction and abnormality

6.KRUGER IS THE RAND(LORD)

Statues memorialize people and their character. Placed in different times and contexts they present contradictions best captured in visual form. Here we are reminded that the places we congregate and build solidarity and politics around bear hallmarks of this ‘memory’, where the Randlords of the past hover over our lives, even when our attempts are to undo the legacy they have left us with. 

7. OH’ YHINI SESGODUKA 

South African cities continue to be sites of spatial injustice. Those on the margins of our society are forever in movement in flux; between home and work . Public transport is an integral part of how millions of the working class travel between home and work each day. Here, the story of space and movement in fleeting time is told.

8. IMFAMA ZIYABONA

The harsh boundaries of the city where we are all trying to create the lives we have imagined for ourselves can blur our vision and shake our foundations. Sometimes we make our way through it not knowing what to expect and sometimes slip in the abyss of despondency because the dream does not seem clear enough, but hope keeps whispering: ‘where we are going, even the blind can see’.