Guy TILLIM (b. 1962)
Mai Mai Militia 2003, Near Beni, Eastern Drc: Portrait Vi
archival pigment ink on 300g coated cotton paper
edition 1/3
85.5 x 59 cm
This piercing portrait was photographed in 2002 near Benin in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire). It documents a boy in the process of being conscripted into war, raising consciousness of children’s involvement as both victims and armed protagonists in intensely violent conflicts between governments, societies and paramilitary groups like mercenaries, insurgents and militias.
Mai Mai Militia forms part of a series of eight portraits of child soldiers in training photographed outdoors by Tillim in 2002 during his travels in the eastern Congo, by which time he had spent more than a decade photographing in the DRC. At the time that Tillim photographed the boys, they were not being deployed as a traditional defence militia but were being drafted into one of the rebel factions in the battle for the mineral riches of east Congo.
This series was included in Tillim’s exhibition and book with author Adam Hochschild, Leopold and Mobutu (Filigranes, 2004), a poignant reflection on the similarities between colonial powers and the African dictators empowered by them. Hochschild is the author of King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Houghton Mifflin, 1999), a history of the conquest of the Congo by King Leopold II of Belgium, and of the atrocities that were committed under his rule. ‘Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber…Continue Reading
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Johannesburg, Guy Tillim is one of South Africa’s foremost photographers, known for his work focusing on troubled regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. He graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1983, and he also spent time at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg.
He started photographing professionally in 1986, working with the Afrapix collective, a group of South African documentary photographers, alongside other prominent figures, including David Goldblatt, Steve Hilton-Barber, and Omar Badsha. His work as a freelance photographer for the local and foreign media included positions with Reuters between 1986 and 1988, and Agence France Presse in 1993 and 1994.
After the Afrapix collective dissolved in 1991 and apartheid was politically resolved in 1994, Tillim’s work shifted to document the lasting effects of South Africa’s almost 50 year-long war on its black citizens. He is known for his series set in Johannesburg and the inner-city suburb of Hillbrow in particular, his focus on village life in Malawi, child soldiers in the Congo, and refugees in Angola.
Tillim’s photographs and projects have been exhibited internationally and form the basis of several books of his work.
He has received many awards, including the the HCB Award in 2017; the Quai Branly Photography Residency in 2015; the first Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography from the Peabody Museum at Harvard University in 2006; the Leica Oskar Barnack Award in 2005; and the 2004 DaimlerChrysler Award for South African photography.
He has had solo exhibitions at the Centre Photographique d’Île-de-France, Paris; Huis Marseille Museum of Photography, Amsterdam; Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris; Museu Serralves, Porto; The Peabody Museum, Harvard, Cambridge; FOAM Fotografiemusuem, Amsterdam; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, amongst others.
His work was included in Documenta12 in 2007, the São Paulo Biennale in 2006 and the touring exhibition Africa Remix(2004 – 2007).