In this conversation with photographer and teacher, Vanessa Cowling, we discuss how the origins of photography have impacted her approach to camera-less photography. Vanessa discusses how various artistic exchanges have forged new approaches in her art practice that is centred upon connection and community building. Considering her place in the world has led to the development of a sustainable photographic garden on a disused piece of land outside the University of Cape Town’s photography building.
From this project, students are taught sustainable darkroom techniques that see photographic processes derived from the garden and returned to the earth for composting and regrowth. This cycle of creation, decay and rebirth has become an enduring metaphor in Vanessa’s photographic story-telling. Since her most recent artist residency in the Tankwa, Vanessa has begun working on with the importance of darkness to both insect biodiversity and the human condition.
I chatted to Vanessa at the Latitude recording studio in Seapoint in December 2024.
Biennale de la photographie de Mulhouse, Thann, describes itself as a cross-border festival whose aim is to disseminate contemporary photography through powerful and unifying events.
Vanessa’s three main camera-less processes are: lumen prints, phytograms and anthotypes.
The Stellenbosch group show was titled Merging Matter. It was hosted at the Oude Leeskamer from March to May in 2024.
Shoreline was an exhibition hosted at the Barnard Gallery in July and August 2018.
William Henry Fox Talbot was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 19th and 20th centuries
Sir John Herschel, a British astronomer and scientist, arrived in Cape Town in January 1834 to conduct astronomical observations in the Southern Hemisphere. He established an observatory at Feldhausen, near Table Mountain, and his work contributed significantly to our understanding of the southern skies. He also made important contributions to photography and was a pioneer in the study of cyanotypes.
In photography, sodium thiosulfate, often called "hypo," is a fixer used to remove unexposed silver halide from photographic films and paper. It functions by dissolving these silver salts, leaving behind the silver image and stabilizing the picture.
Fixing the Shadows was Vanessa’s Masters Degree and exhibition at the University of Cape Town in 2023.
Members of the Photography department at the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art are listed on the University’s website: https://humanities.uct.ac.za/michaelis/people/academic-staff
Gabeba Baderoon is a South African poet and academic.
The Tankwa Artscape Residency is hosted at Stonehenge Private Reserve in the Karoo. https://tankwaartscape.co.za/
AfrikaBurn is a community of participants. The main annual AfrikaBurn event takes place in the Tankwa Karoo, located between the Northern Cape and Western Cape Provinces of South Africa, usually at the end of April every year. https://www.afrikaburn.org/
The Darkness Manifesto was written by Johan Eklöf, PhD, a Swedish bat scientist and writer, most known for his work on microbat vision and more recently, light pollution.
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