Tshepiso Seleke
Tshepiso Seleke, better known as The DarkRoom Artist, is a visual artist who has had his images exhibited at various galleries and spaces such as Fotoza, Newtown, Rand Club and Museum Afrika.
"I am from Orlando East, Soweto and this significantly informs the narrative of my work – growing up in a dominantly black neighborhood that has a rich history and also having first-hand experience with many of the struggles and triumphs of black people made me passionate about thinking critically about black people and their representation because there is a great amount of stories that have been left out about us in history. The easily noticeable motif in my work is everyday life which rebels against all the photographic practices that reinscribe colonial ways of looking and capturing the images of the black people. The camera in my hands is a means of a decolonization and reclamation, reaffirmation and construction of radical identities, images of black people that transcend the limits of the colonizing eye. It is a powerful tool for constructing an oppositional black aesthetic and further recognize the power of representation. Black history has been for a long time hidden, denied and erased and through staging an imaginative space in some of my work it allows me to bring out those hidden identities of black people, the richness of our culture, spirituality, and the richness of our skin and language– this is a means to empower the self through representation after being oppressed for so long. Through documentation of the social and economic positionality of black lives which I’m so immensely invested in, I feel gives a platform to the marginalized people whose voices are silenced – I want their voices to be heard."
CV
As a visual artist he has had his images exhibited at various galleries and spaces such as Fotoza, Newtown, Rand Club & Museum Afrika.
Having been in the media industry for just over 11 years as a freelancer for production companies such as Homebrew films as a Director for Tec Report. As a camera operator for Dzuguda Production, Safari-live - National Geographic's USA BIG Cat Week Prime Time and Endemol shine Africa. Not only has his profession made him extremely skillful with a camera but it also forged an incredibly creative mind, with a fresh eye for creative conceptual content. This is evidenced in his portfolio of work
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