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      • May 9, 2019
      • 3 min read

    The Brave Ones

    The Brave Ones


    This week’s theme is titled “Female Guidelines”.

    Through visual stories, our curators research the question “In what ways are female guidelines being challenged?”



    Over the course of 2018, South-African photographer Brent Stirton photographed Akashinga rangers during their conservation work in Phundundu, Zimbabwe and created the series Akashinga - The Brave Ones. Akashinga are an all-female conservation ranger force, working with local communities to protect wildlife in Zimbabwe. Akashinga, meaning ‘the brave ones’ in the Shona Bantu language, empowers women from the local population to manage a network of wildlife areas.


    Members of Akashinga undergo training in the bush near their hometown.

    One of the few selected women who undergo sniper training.


    Many western-conceived conservation models have faced difficulties in getting a foothold across the African continent. In 2017, the International Anti-Poaching Foundation (I.A.P.F.), led by former Australian Special Forces soldier Damien Mander, decided to reform their prior conservation models and organized an all-female conservation team in Zimbabwe. Wildlife protection agencies are predominantly male-led and often held up by nepotism, corruption, aggression towards local communities, alcoholism and a sense of entitlement. While traditional conservation models highlight the boundaries between humans and nature by dominating wildlife grounds, the all-female conservation model works with an innovative approach towards nature that moves away from the militarized paradigm of ‘fortress conservation’. Akashinga adapt a community-driven interpersonal focus to create long-term benefits for nature as well as the local population.




    Two rangers on patrol.



    The members of an Akashinga unit having dinner. All female rangers have taken on a vegan diet to demonstrate their commitment to living nature.


    The women participating in the conservation work of Akashinga are mainly from disadvantaged communities and often have histories in involuntary prostitution, poverty or other adverse situations. For many of these women, the ranger force creates an opportunity to work on an alternative future. The programme offers counselling and training to the rangers, to help them rehabilitate and prepare for their tasks inside the force. Akashinga are viewed as role-models by many young girls in the communities that they work in. Units often visit local schools to educate students on the importance of conservation work and share their experiences.


    Members of an Akashinga Unit visit a truckers café. Some of them used to come here when working in prostitution.


    Sergeant Vimbai visits her daughters in her time off. Through her conservation work, she distanced herself from an abusive marriage and can now pay for her children’s school fees.



    An Akashinga unit visiting a local school.

    Akashinga represent a new approach towards conservation work that creates a space for women to be protectors and leaders. In the past, conservation models have been male-dominated forces that often proved inefficient due to the aforementioned context dependent social issues (ongoing corruption, aggression and so on). The all-female conservation model uses alternative approaches that can solve these issues and stresses the need of wildlife protection among local communities.


    Members of the Akashinga arrest a wildlife poacher after discovering leopard skins and other animal parts in his home.

    Members of the all-female conservation force discover skins in the basement of a notorious poacher.



    However effective this initiative has been, the fact that the programme was set up by a western organization is something we should question. Is the implementation of conservation programmes by western institutes something that should be encouraged? Implementing western programmes could be seen as a form of cultural imperialism, in which western countries create local dependency on western institutes. However, the local communities that are subject to this conservation programme are often cut off from places of worship and burial, access to food, water and traditional medicine and have little opportunity for employment and tourism benefits. Therefore it is no wonder that wildlife protection is not always a priority. With these types of community-focused conservation models, conservation and poverty are battled against simultaneously, by creating opportunities and representing female rangers as role-models.



    Members of Akashinga undergo house penetration training for operations against organized environmental crime.


    We should also question the fact that these women were photographed by a white, male photographer. The way they are portrayed is framed by his personal perspective. What impact does the male gaze have on the way these women are presented? Is it appropriate for a foreign photographer, especially a white foreigner, to visualize their story? These are things that need to be considered when contemplating a visual story.



    Akashinga member Petronella Chigumbura in the middle of a stealth and concealment training. Winning photo in the World Press Photo of the year 2019 category environment.


    About the artist: Brent Stirton is a South-African photographer with an impactful career in documentary photography. He has worked for major institutions such as WWF, CNN, Human Rights Watch and has contributed to organisations such as National Geographic, The New York Times and Le Figaro amongst others. The photo of Petronella Chigumbura (30) participating in a concealment training, part of the photo series ‘Akashinga - The Brave Ones’, won the World Press Photo of the Year 2019 in the category Environment.


    Check out Brent Stirton's full body of work at www.brentstirton.com or on Instagram @brentstirton.


    Let us know what you think in the comments! Our weekly themes always include three photo series by different photographers. Are you interested and do you want to stay posted? Make sure to follow us on Instagram @wearecurators.


    Written by Myrthe Peek

    • Female Guidelines
      • May 6, 2019
      • 2 min read

    An Expression of Identity, Not the Identity itself.

    An Expression of Identity, Not the Identity itself.





    This week’s theme is titled “Female Guidelines”.
    Through visual stories, our curators research the question “In what ways are female guidelines being challenged?”

    When thinking of ‘female guidelines’, phenomena such as beauty standards come to mind, or internalised behaviour as an outcome of gender socialisation and gender role expectations. The project Shenasnameh (2016) by Amak Mahmoodian reflects written guidelines set up by the Iranian government, that influence different parts of the life of Iranian women.


    Shenasnameh is the name of the official Iranian birth certificate, which also serves as an ID. It is the main identity document issued to everyone at birth and subsequently used to record a marriage, divorce, the status of children, and ultimately the death of a person. It contains basic personal details, a photograph of the person it identifies and a fingerprint. A shenasnameh is valid for life, but the photograph is added at the age of 15 and must be renewed by 30. According to the official standards, if a woman’s appearance is not ‘correct’, then the photograph will not be accepted.


    For a woman in Iran, the making of this photograph is a personally charged affair. Strict standards control the creation of this image. All women must wear headscarves (showing no hair), their faces must be without makeup and unsmiling. Any deviations from these guidelines will be summarily rejected. When it was time for Mahmoodian to be photographed for her own shenasnameh, she realised that all Iranian women ’were being made to look the same’. The various headshot photographs and fingerprints that Mahmoodian collected seem to be the same from a distance, all women veiled in a black headscarf. The strict presentation rules stripping the sitters of their personal features and identities. But soon, despite the outward similarity of the images, the differences start to appear: a glance, a frown, a glimpse of a smile.


    The Shenasnameh project is about identity and the image of Iranian women. ’I’ is a feeling, an expression of identity, but not an identity itself. Contradictory identities exist within everyone. Yet, before there is the possibility to define our own identities, an identity has been decided on and defined by others. It is others who accept or reject the identity we have created. However, with this project, Amak aims to show the world that these women are still more than plain faces with a headscarf and tackle feelings of pity towards Persian women. These women are silent but they are not voiceless. They always find a way to represent and to show very slight parts of their identity to differentiate themselves, even with the strict guidelines in place for women to take such photographs.




    Despite the outward similarity of the women and images, the fingerprints are all different and unique.




    Check out Amak Mahmoodian’s full body of work at https://www.amakmahmoodian.co.uk or on Instagram @amak_mahmoodian.


    Let us know what you think in the comments!

    Our weekly themes always include three photo series by different photographers. Are you interested and do you want to stay posted?

    Make sure to follow us on Instagram @wearecurators.


    Written by Noura Oul Fakir



    • Female Guidelines
      • May 3, 2019
      • 2 min read

    Are we what we do?

    Updated: Jul 13, 2019

    Are We What We Do?


    This week’s theme is titled “Female Guidelines”.
    Through visual stories our curators research the question “In what ways are female guidelines being challenged?” 

    Csilla Klenyánszki’s ongoing project The Reminiscence of Being a Woman (2017) is a photo series and personal research project about gender roles, specifically the role of a woman in a traditional society.

    Gender roles and stereotypes are socially constructed behaviors and functions which are often attributed to a certain gender according to what society considers suitable. Gender theorist Judith Butler elaborates on this and states that gender “is in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceed; rather, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time – an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. That is, gender is nothing more than a performance and in traditional society we are made to believe that we must perform according to the established guidelines.

    Conventionally, women have been seen as responsible for childcare and housework. With her playful mix of portraiture, sculpture and still life photography Klenyánszki explores and visualizes the evolution of female objectification by making use of domestic chores. The women in the photographs blend into objects (to the point of losing their identity) that are representative of different types of housework. From a table wearing high heels to the fusion of a woman with a plant: the woman transforms into the performance and vice-versa.

    In this series female guidelines are being challenged by, somewhat sarcastically, dehumanizing the female body by turning it into nothing but a functional object. With this work, Klenyánszki questions where one’s identity ends and the body becomes nothing but a (functional) object (and vice versa).


    About the artist: Csilla Klenyánszki (1986) is a Hungarian photographer from Budapest, currently working in Amsterdam. In 2012 she finished her BA in Photography at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, NL.

    Klenyánszki says of her own work that it is “a search for balance with a problem solving attitude” through which she aims to “carefully examine and deconstruct personal, but universally known challenges such as parenthood, gender, and the malleability of self identity through the passage of time”. She states that even though her approach is analytic, the nature of her work is extremely playful and experimental – she dances on the verge of nonsense in order to provide new perspectives.

    She is also the founder of the initiative Mothers in Arts (www.mothersinarts.com) , which is a residency aiming to support women artists who are also mothers: it offers a studio space combined with a communal daycare and it is free of charge. Mothers in Arts believes that women have to remain part of the art community after they’ve become mothers.


    Check out Csilla Klenyánszki’s full body of work at www.klenyanszki.com or on Instagram @csillaklenyanszki


    Further Reading: Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory by Judith Butler (published in Theatre Journal, vol. 40, no. 4, 1988, pp. 519–531)


    Let us know what you think in the comments!

    Our weekly themes always include three photo series by different photographers.

    Are you interested and do you want to stay posted?

    Make sure to follow us on Instagram @wearecurators.


    Written by Rita Boliero







    • Female Guidelines

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