New publication explores relationship between photography and land

The publication explores the relationship between photography and land in South Africa through the work of leading photographers from South Africa and France. The photographers have examined landscapes that are especially resonant in terms of South Africa's history, or which lie at the heart of contemporary debates on environmental sustainability and social justice.

The launch will include a panel discussion about the ways in which images define how South Africans position themselves concerning land - this with reference to events that are currently shaping discourse about land in South Africa.

Panel leaders

Patricia Hayes, Professor of History at the University of the Western Cape, will moderate the discussion. Her teaching deals with visual history, notably modern documentary photography in Southern Africa.

• Andile Mngxitama is editor-in-chief of the New Frank Talk journal, a co-founder of the Landless People's Movement and a member of the Central Command Team of the Economic Freedom Fighters. He writes and speaks from a Black Consciousness perspective, and is most recently the author (with Aryan Kaganof) of 'From a Place of Blackness'.

• Elmien du Plessis is a senior lecturer in the faculty of law at the University of Johannesburg where she teaches customary and property law. Her research focuses on how customary law concepts of ownership can be protected in a paradigm that favours individual ownership, especially in the context of indigenous knowledge and views on land.
• Simmi Dullay is a lecturer in art history and visual arts at the University of South Africa. She investigates issues of exile using interdisciplinary methods that draw on Black Consciousness, auto-ethnography and memory work.