The students taking these photos throughout Election Day are between the ages of 16 and 24.
Sometimes, it may be difficult to understand the gravity of an event in your current situation.
But looking at photos from the past gives people a chance to reflect on the importance of a day like an election in the country's history.
May 29th is election day, when South Africans will vote to decide which political party will decide the fate of their country.
This is said to be the most contested vote and will also be historic as it marks the 30th year of electoral democracy.
Also read: What you need to know about taking photos while voting
30 Years Later
With this in mind, Of Soul and Joy (OSJ), a Thokoza-based community photography program, is embarking on a special project where students will capture the environment and surroundings on election day.
The aim of this project is to present this landmark event from the perspective of perhaps South Africa’s most important, yet least visible, stakeholders in this election: young people.
OSJ programme manager Jabulani Dlamini said the idea to embark on the project came about in reflection on South Africa's 30th anniversary of electoral democracy.
“I wasn’t a photographer at the time, so I couldn’t take pictures, but I was thinking about what archives and conversations were being archived at the time. [in 1994]” Dlamini said. Citizen.
He was 11 years old when South Africa held its first democratic vote in 1994.
“Photography has mainly been done by journalists and older people, and in a way the voices of young people have been ignored. We are allowing young people to archive and to engage and revisit their origins,” Dlamini asserted.
The students who will be taking the photographs throughout Election Day are aged between 16 and 24. “We will be shooting from Thokoza where most of them are based,” Dlamini said.
In the early 1990s, Thokoza found itself at the centre of unrest between supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the African National Congress (ANC).
Dlamini said that in conjunction with the current Election Day project, SOJ was also undertaking an exercise in reflecting on life in the township over the more than 30 years since the violent period leading up to the 1994 elections.
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