| Description | In 1996, a series of parties were held in five different cities across South Africa: Cape Town, Mabato, Port Elizabeth, Durban, and Pretoria, hosted by President Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress in honour of veterans of the Anti Apartheid struggle, also commemorating the 78th Birthday of Mandela, affectionately nicknamed in South Africa as 'Madiba'. The parties were attended by veterans, as well as the sons, daughters, and wives of absent or passed veterans. Burke, on his second trip to the country, attended all five of the events and took the photographs that result here, and in the 1997 publication of 'Council of Elders: A Tribute to the Veterans of the South African Liberation Struggle' which features a foreword by Nelson Mandela. Later, as one half of the Exchange Project with George Hallett (a South African photographer exhibiting his photography of Handsworth in the 1970s at Soho House Museum in Handsworth, Birmingham). Burke also exhibited these photographs at the Museum of Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa from December 2002 until February 2003. The exhibition was named 'The Council of Elders: Portraits of the Veterans of the South African Liberation Struggle'.
This series is divided into two subsections, one containing the work prints of the project. Many, but not all, were included in the book and the exhibition. Please see the book, available in Birmingham Central Library, for some details on the relevant images, and for details on some of the prominent figures photographed in the series. The second subsection contains some non photographic material connected with, and giving wider dimension to the projects and events that have been captured with these images.
The photographs were taken in 1996, the book published in 1997. Exhibitions then took place until 2002. |