The International Center of Photography (ICP) has been awarded a $250,000 grant by the Ford Foundation to support its traveling exhibition Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life at Museum Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Originally presented at ICP in 2012, the landmark exhibition is an unprecedented examination of the 50-year civil rights struggle, from how apartheid defined and marked South Africa’s identity from 1948 to 1994, to the rise of Nelson Mandela, and finally its lasting impact on society.
The grant from the Ford Foundation will support all stages of the exhibition presentation.
“ICP’s commitment to bringing Rise and Fall of Apartheid to South Africa directly reflects its mission to be the world’s leading institution dedicated to the global practice and understanding of photography,” said Mark Lubell, Executive Director of ICP. “We are grateful for the Ford Foundation’s support, which will enable ICP to offer this groundbreaking scholarly perspective on the era of apartheid, told through the lens of South African photographers.
“The Ford Foundation is deeply proud to help bring this landmark exhibition to South Africa,” said Achmat Dangor, the foundation’s representative in Southern Africa. “At this important moment for the nation, these images offer a powerful opportunity for reflection, both about how far we’ve come and what must still be done to ensure that the great promise of freedom and democracy is fulfilled for everyone who lives here.”
On view from February 13 to June 29, 2014, ICP’s presentation at Museum Africa will coincide with the 20th anniversary of the first democratic election in South Africa, the overthrow of apartheid, and the inauguration of President Nelson Mandela.
Curated by Okwui Enwezor, Rise and Fall of Apartheid comprehensively explores for the first time the legacy of the apartheid system and how it defined and marked South Africa’s identity from 1948 to 1994, penetrating even the most mundane aspects of social existence—from housing, public amenities, and transportation, to education, tourism, religion, and business. Departing from the conventional documentary records and images often associated with the struggle against apartheid, the exhibition investigates the domain of the banal, the unremarkable, and the unremarked upon as a way of understanding, through images, this era’s enduring legacy.