Svea Josephy is currently a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art (photography) at the

Michaelis School of Fine Art The Michaelis School of Fine Art was founded in 1925, and is the Fine Arts department of the University of Cape Town. The school's current director is Associate Professor Kurt Campbell. There are three research institutions associated with the sch ...

at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

. She is best known for her work with "twin towns," where she draws parallels between settlements and suburbs surrounding South African cities to other places around the world. Josephy's work has been displayed in numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally.

Background

Born in 1969, Svea Josephy was raised in

Cape Town, South Africa Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislature, legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the sec ...

and currently resides in Rondebosh, a primarily residential southern suburb of Cape Town. Josephy first became interested in photography when she was a child. She had a darkroom in her home when her stepfather went through an amateur photography phase, which prompted her interest in photography. Her first camera was an old Olympus Trip 35. Today however, she mostly uses a Hasselbald camera.

Studies

Josephy completed her

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

(in Fine Art) at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the

, in the late 1980s to early 1990s. Josephy then in 2001, completed her Master of Fine Arts cum laude at the

University of Stellenbosch Stellenbosch University ( af, Universiteit Stellenbosch) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant ...

Work

Josephy's primary focus in her photographic work has been the study of how identity and landscape are constructed. Specifically, she is most well known for drawing parallels between "twin towns" in South Africa and in other parts of the world. Her project of "twin towns" examines the peculiar names of South Africa's settlements and suburbs. Examples include: Sun City, Lost City, Lapland, Beverley Hills, Egoli, Cuba, Kosovo, Lusaka, Malibu, Hyde Park, Green Park, Lavender Hill, Athlone, Harare, Waterfront, Potsdam, Bosnia, Beirut, Iraq and Hanover Park. These names evoke certain images that can be connected and related to various parks, streets, cities and countries located all over the globe. In 2016 Josephy exhibited ''Satellite Cities: Naming Worlds'' at the Wits Art Museum.

Awards and scholarships

Josephy has received the following awards and scholarships: Prix du Ministre de la Culture DAKART 2010 9th biennial of Contemporary African Art, IFAM, Dakar, Senegal, the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) Project Award (2009), National Arts Council Award (2008), the A.W. Mellon Emerging Scholars Award (2008), Malan Trust Curatorship Award (2007), Harry Crossley Scholarship (2000), Maggie Laubscher Scholarship (1999), Simon Gerson Prize (1993) and the Irma Stern Scholarship (1992).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Josephy, Svea 1969 births Living people 20th-century women photographers 21st-century women photographers 20th-century South African women artists 21st-century South African women artists