First Published in
A veritable camera flash of brightness in the local photographic scene, South African Dave Southwood is a self-taught lens-man whose work has featured in, and on the cover of, many foreign publications like Colors, Icon, Blueprint and Adbusters.
He describes his photographs as "socially aware", and his arresting images have also featured on the pages of SA's top magazines.
He has staged three solo exhibitions in South Africa to date and his work has appeared in galleries in Belgium, Berlin, Madrid and Stockholm. He recently nabbed Berlin's hotly contested international Bauhaus Award for his collaborative work on an interdisciplinary project, which investigated urban change in the informal settlements around Cape Town.
Dave's cover image for Design Indaba magazine was taken in DPM Photo Studio in Nyanga and forms part of a series that is currently owned by the South African National Gallery. The series was made at a time when he was running a teaching project for 'street-photographers' at the University of Cape Town.
In 2006 he will spend three months in Basel, Switzerland, on an artist's residency sponsored by the Swiss Cultural Foundation Pro Helvetia. To view more of his work, visit www.photo.play-ground.net.
