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| Miss Texas 1977 |
Photographer Kathalijne van Zutphen has captured the visages and insights of young Cape Town creatives in her recent project, Swimming Upstream.
In an attempt to discover what drives these creatives, as well as the difficulties they face in our advanced technological era, van Zutphen captured a series of portraits and individually interviewed emerging DJs and musicians, filmmakers and actors, authors and illustrators. Interviews uncovered how each creative started their career, their perennial challenges within their respective creative industries, their experiences in marketing themselves, as well as ‘touchy’ issues such as copyright and file sharing.
Each artist was photographed in a location specifically chosen to complement their unique identities; yet collectively, the series sketches van Zutphen’s own interpretation of the Cape Town landscape.
All works were produced in 2010, except ‘Hot Water’ (late 2009).
There is a making-of video available here: http://www.vimeo.com/16861674
The list of artists taking part in Swimming Upstream includes:
Toby Atwell, Lauren Beukes, Donovan Copley, Guy Buttery, Lauren Fowler, Twanji Kalula, Akio Kawahito, Miss Texas 1977, Tshepo Moche, Maloti Mothobi, S.A. Partridge, Verity Price, Monishia Schoeman, Neil John Smith, Hendrik Vermeulen, Tristan Waterkeyn and Sam Wilson.
Each artist was photographed in a location specifically chosen to complement their unique identities; yet collectively, the series sketches van Zutphen’s own interpretation of the Cape Town landscape.
All works were produced in 2010, except ‘Hot Water’ (late 2009).
There is a making-of video available here: http://www.vimeo.com/16861674
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| Hot Water |
The list of artists taking part in Swimming Upstream includes:
Toby Atwell, Lauren Beukes, Donovan Copley, Guy Buttery, Lauren Fowler, Twanji Kalula, Akio Kawahito, Miss Texas 1977, Tshepo Moche, Maloti Mothobi, S.A. Partridge, Verity Price, Monishia Schoeman, Neil John Smith, Hendrik Vermeulen, Tristan Waterkeyn and Sam Wilson.
Kathalijne van Zutphen
Van Zutphen was born in The Netherlands and given her first camera at the age of eleven. She became seriously interested in music photography once she started studying at the University of Utrecht. She soon landed a position at a local music magazine. van Zutphen worked as a project manager at a graphic design company for seven years after graduating with an MA in American Studies. At the same time, she took courses in Copywriting at the School of Journalism and Copyright Law.
Her interest in photography was reborn when she discovered digital photography and photo sharing websites, such as Flickr.
Van Zutphen started her own company in May 2009. She then left the design company in July 2009 and came to Cape Town in August 2009, where she still resides.
Artist’s statement
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| DJ Akio |
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| Tristan Waterkeyn |
"Starting your own company and moving countries in these times can either be smartest or the stupidest thing you can do. And the first couple of months were tough. I struggled to make friends, to find work; I was constantly putting myself out there and getting nothing back. I ran into copyright issues when I had one of my photos ‘stolen’. But after being here for about 6 months, something changed. I started meeting people – people who do really cool things; people I like, and people whose work I admire. While talking to them it was such a relief to learn that they've faced similar problems along their own journeys; that it wasn't just me, and that there are different ways of going about or looking at things. Swimming Upstream is actually a good thing, since that’s how you grow and become stronger. I learned a lot from talking to them, and profiling them is the best way to show that."
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