User:Nelisiwe Nkosee/sandbox

Ingrid Masondo
Ingrid Masondo (born-) is a South African photographer. Masondo works as a curator at IZIKO Sang. She curated the group exhibition of the Market Photo Workshop Alumni entitled Not the Usual Suspects exhibition at the IZIKO Sang Cape Town.

Career
Ingrid Masondo started studying at the Market Photo Workshop (MPW) at the end of 2001. While completing some photography courses, she was involved in the activities and programmes of the Workshop and for several years went on to work as a project manager, curriculum manager and co-curator. Her work has appeared in several exhibitions, with the most recent including Juggling the Familiar II (September - December 2010), a group show curated by Siona O' Connell at the Centre for African Studies Gallery, University of Cape Town and the group exhibition Innovative Women, curated by Bongi Bengu (together with Dineo Bopabe, Zanele Muholi, Nandipha Mntambo, Ernestine White, Nontobeko Ntombela, Usha Seejarim, Senzeni Marasela, Lerato Shadi). Ingrid Masondo started studying at the end of 2001 at the Market Photo Workshop (MPW) in Johannesburg. While completing some photography courses, she was involved in the activities and programmes of the Workshop and for several years went on to work as a project manager, curriculum manager and co-curator. Ingrid Masondo has produced works such as Split Ends and Compared to What which are on-going photographic projects, parts of which have been exhibited in a variety of contexts including the Johannesburg Art Gallery, the Women’s Jail (Constitutional Hill), Photoana (Madagascar) and Photo Festa (Mozambique.

Curatorial Work
Asked about the significance of visual art and curating today for young photographers, Masondo explains: "I think photography’s power, especially given rapid technological developments, is partly in its potential to disrupt power dynamics within the photography complex. Photography gives us the ability to produce, present and circulate our own images the way we want. […] However, there’s a lot of visual noise. Part of it has to do with countering the uses of photography in the colonial project up to the present, where particular people were represented in negative ways - as objects, stuck in time, savage, exotic, etc. Presenting ourselves as beautiful, hip, stylish, cosmopolitan and dignified is necessary, but I fear that we’re sometimes also conditioning ourselves not to see the rest. Visual literacy is critical for these noisy, cluttered times."