Johannesburg, South Africa
$450 - $1500 / Day
Ilan Godfrey was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. At nineteen he moved to England to pursue his photographic profession. During this time he gained a BA (Hons) degree in Photography from the University of Westminster in London and was awarded the David Faddy Scholarship to continue his studies, receiving an MA degree in Photojournalism. He spent eleven years working between Johannesburg and London before returning to settle in South Africa in 2011 to focus on several long-term projects. One of which would evolve over two and a half years into the Legacy of the Mine. This resulted in Ilan receiving the prestigious Ernest Cole Award in 2012 to support the completion of this in-depth body of work. Legacy of the Mine was published as his first book in 2013 and was launched in conjunction with solo exhibitions across South Africa at the UCT Erma Stern Museum, Cape Town, KZNSA Gallery (KwaZulu Natal Society of Arts), Durban and the WAM Gallery (Wits Art Museum), Johannesburg. Ilan Godfrey’s current and ongoing personal photographic practice focuses on extensive issues that reflect South Africa’s constantly changing landscape, documenting the country with an in-depth, intimate and personal conscience. By conveying through long-term projects a process of exploratory narration with photography, he reveals varied aspects of societal change across the country. He works with various institutions and organisations worldwide and has been recognised locally and internationally by various photography awards, including most recently the POPCAP ’14 Prize Africa (winner, 2014) resulting in his work will be exhibited at seven major photographic festivals around the world, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award (finalist, 2014), the OPEN Photo Award in conjunction with the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (winner, 2012), the International Photography Award (honorable mention, 2009) and the Magenta Flash Forward Award (selected winner 2007 and 2008) among others. He has participated in the Toscana Photographic Masterclass in Italy (2008) and was a recipient of the Ivan Kyncl Memorial Photography Placement in London (2007). Ilan’s photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, including the National Portrait Gallery in London, Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town, Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg and Musée du quai Branly in Paris. His photographs have been featured in a broad range of leading international publications
With support from the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, I developed a project concerned with transparency and accountability in South Africa’s extractive sector. The photographic narrative constitutes an in-depth investigation into the human, social, environmental, economic and health costs of platinum mining, documenting the communities that straddle the “Platinum Belt”.
I worked with Le Monde.fr to produce a series of images that set out to document an ongoing dispute dividing the community of Pondoland in Xolobeni on the Wild Coast of South Africa. The pristine, agriculturally rich rural homeland of the Mpondo people could be destroyed if the titanium-rich coastal sand dunes are mined by an Australian company called Mineral Commodities Ltd.
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