FARREN VAN WYK
Mixedness is my Mythology

Being born in South Africa and growing up in the Netherlands has created an awareness of having a double gaze that is just as much South African as it’s Western. The dutch participation in colonialism, the slave trade and apartheid in South Africa is my heritage that I try to grapple with through photography. Mixedness is my Mythology started because of the love between my white father and coloured mother. On the typical Dutch agricultural farm my three brothers and I call home, the genes of our South African mother meet those of our Dutch father with love. I describe the forming, shifting and shaping of my and my brother's identities are dancing in the grey. The conscious choice of analogue black and white photography is because it erases all the colour in the world on film. The body cannot be denied, it must be confronted as it states its existence and positions itself in the world. This grey area has no limits, referring to the endless possibilities of one's identity.

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