Born in the US, Roger Ballen, the internationally renowned photographer, has lived in South Africa since the 1970s.
He gained a cult following for his grotesque, surreal images of white poverty, captured on the rural fringes during apartheid. His work exposed not only the exploitation and marginalisation of his subjects but also the reality of apartheid’s failure to uplift even its privileged white minority.
Over time, Ballen’s practice has expanded beyond photography into a hybrid realm of exhibition, installation and performance. His new Johannesburg space, the Inside Out Centre for the Arts, serves as a theatre for this experimentation.
