Selfportrait, Roger Ballen
Story
Selfportrait is a documentary film about the controversial photographer Roger Ballen. Born and bred in New York, he has lived in South Africa for nearly thirty years. The film sketches his development as photographer and, as a side-theme, the development of South Africa. ‘Selfportrait’ was filmed a few months after Ballen released his book ‘Outland’. Outland is the culmination of almost twenty years work for the artist-photographer and amounts to one of the most extraordinary photographic documents of the late twentieth century.
Social Interest
In this documentary film Roger Ballen portrays the poor whites living in villages in the Johannesburg area. The African poor whites are a class that remained hidden and was assumed not to exist. Ballen has taken disturbing photos of individuals living on the fringe of society. Their faces are marked with fear, insanity, disappointment and helplessness. The photographs mercilessly reveal the personal tragedy of these people. The documentary gives these people a voice where the photos remain silent.
Historic Interest
Ballen began his career documenting the small ‘dorps’ or villages of rural South Africa. Ballen’s photography moved on in the late 1980s and early 1990s to their Inhabitants: isolated rural whites, scarred by history, in the process of losing the privileges of apartheid which had provided them livelihoods and sustained their identity for a generation. The results were shocking, both powerful social statements and disturbing psychological studies. Through the late 1990s and into 2000 Ballen’s work progressed again. Where previously his pictures, however troubling, fell firmly into the category of documentary photography, his new work moves into the realms of fiction. Continuing to portray whites on the fringe of South African society, his subjects start to act, providing images which are exciting and disturbing in equal measure. One is forced to wonder, whether they are exploited victims, colluding directly in their own ridicule, or newly empowered and active participants within the drama of their representation.
Awards
During his career Roger Ballen has received numerous awards. His work is being exhibited in musea all around the world, including ‘The Modern Art Museum’ in New York, ‘The Stedelijk Museum’ in Amsterdam, ‘Centre Pompidou’ in Paris and ‘The Johannesburg art Museum’.
Buy the DVD
You can buy the DVD or order the film for broadcast or theatrical release by sending an email to the director Saskia Vredeveld – sam@peacefield.demon.nl
Scenes
- Exposition ‘Outland’ by photographer Roger Ballen
- Opening of the exposition ‘Outland’ by photographer Roger Ballen. Ballen feels like his photographs are his own selfportraits.
- Photography, childhood and early work of photographer Roger Ballen
- Photographer Roger Ballen tells about his youth and his passion for photography. Thanks to his mother’s job he got to know famous photographers on a young age. He also talks about his years in college, the development of his character and his first photography book called ‘Boyhood’.
- Photographer Roger Ballen working in South Africa and making the book ‘Dorps’
- The decision to move to South Africa has been important for the photography work Roger Ballen was making. There, he was influenced by Walker Evans and his own environment like the small villages in South Africa. This is how his book called ‘Dorps’ was made.
- Photographer Roger Ballen , his book ‘Dorps’ and South African society
- Roger Ballen explains that his book ‘Dorps’ symbolically shows the end of the kolonialism in South Africa, and the falling apart of the small villages.
- The photography book Platteland by Roger Ballen
- In contrary to his former work, Roger Ballen has a different way of connecting and interacting with the people he photographed for his book ‘ Platteland’. According to him, this work consists of different types of photography. Furthermore, Ballen explains how the difficult times in South Africa (1986-1994) influenced his book Platteland.
- The link between photography and geology according to photographer Roger Ballen
- The photographs Roger Ballen makes all have something mysterious, hidden layers of meaning. Therefore, Ballen connects his work as a photographer with his work as a geologist as the earth consists of many layers as well.
- Difference between the books ‘Platteland’ and ‘Outland’ by photographer Roger Ballen
- After his book ‘Platteland’ photographer Roger Ballen produced the book ‘Outland’. Because the negative comments and threaths he got from South African people before, he started creating images without South African traits.
- The people portraying in photographs of Roger Ballen
- Roger Ballen the photographer explains the position the people he photographs are in. They are the poor white people living in South Africa.
- Universal fear shown in Roger Ballen’s photographs
- In this clip, photographer Roger Ballen explains the important role fear plays in his work. All human beings are afraid of death, and Ballen’s photographs show this fear.
- Exposition of photographs Roger Ballen and the essence of art
- During the clip where we see an exposition of photographs of Roger Ballen, he explains his view of the essence of the history of art; the pieces of art having an own life, separated from the artist.
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