Farren van Wyk

In her first solo museum exhibition, South African-Dutch photographer Farren van Wyk explores South Africa’s and the Netherlands’ complex historical relationship of migration, ethnicity, colonialism and apartheid. Born in the last year of apartheid to a black South African mother and a white Dutch father, Van Wyk was classified as ‘coloured’. From the age of six she grew up in the Netherlands, surrounded by diverse cultures. These influences are clearly visible in her work. 
 

Van Wyk consciously chooses to work with the traditional visual language of black-and-white photography. In this ‘colourlessness’ she can redefine what it means to be a person of colour, and work towards an acceptance of her own and her family’s mixed identity. By creating her own iconography, she creates her own mythology and an ode to being coloured.