Upcoming Exhibition
BACK 'O THE MOON
at Journey to Jazz Festival
Prince Albert, 1-4 May 2025

Back o’ the Moon is a photographic exhibition that draws its title from the legendary Sophiatown shebeen where South African jazz greats—such as Dolly Rathebe—mingled with pioneering photographers like Bob Gosani. This project seeks to foreground the powerful synergy between musicians and photographers during a defining period in South Africa’s cultural and political history, presenting a compelling visual narrative of resistance, dignity, and creativity under apartheid.

The exhibition aims to illuminate a seminal era in the development of Black identity and cultural expression in South Africa, through the lens of those who lived and documented it. Photographers such as Alf Kumalo, Ernest Cole, Peter Magubane, Bob Gosani, G.R. Naidoo, Gopal Naransamy, Jürgen Schadeberg, and later Paul Weinberg, were not merely observers, but active participants in capturing the vibrancy of township jazz culture and the broader struggle for freedom. Their work offers a visual archive of moments shaped by joy, defiance, and a deep assertion of human dignity.

In a dance hall, a jazz combo is creating music; music taken from American Negro jazz and hammered out on the anvil of South African experience: slum living, thuggery, police raids, job-hunting, shifting ghettos… They play in order to escape from the pain of rejection and assert their human dignity.
–Es’kia Mphahlele, writing for Drum magazine

These words resonate equally with the photographers, whose images captured not only the sound of resistance but the spirit behind it.

Despite the cultural significance of this era, it remains under-documented and under-recognised, with few publications and no major exhibitions dedicated to these historic intersections of music, photography, and activism. Back o’ the Moon seeks to redress this gap by presenting a curated selection of iconic and previously unseen photographs, accompanied by contextual research and interpretive material. The exhibition will introduce broader audiences—both within and beyond South Africa—to the richness of artistic production that emerged under conditions of extreme repression.

Back 'o the Moon | Journey to Jazz Festival

1-4 May 2025
57 Church Street, Prince Albert, Karoo