Selection of images that are part of a larger body of work, Making Neighbourhood that will be exhibited in October at The Market Photo Workshop as part of the Gisele Wulfsohn Mentorship Grant I received.

Born in 1987, Sydelle Willow Smith is a photographer/filmmaker based in Cape Town who studied Anthropology (Honors). She works for a variety of clients and organisations including Redbull, Virgin Active, The African Centre for Cities, Greenpop and has been published in The Guardian, Jeau Afrique, Mail and Guardian, Le Monde, and Rolling Stone South Africa. Her influences include Alec Soth, Susan Meirelles, Alex Webb, Malik Sidebe, Jim Goldberg and the films of Fernando Meirelles, Jim Jarmusch,and the writings of Jonathan Fraezer and Ben Okri. Smith is the 2012 recipient of the Gisele Wulfsohn Mentorship at The Market Photo Workshop and winner of a residency award from The Africa Centre to attend Jiwar Creation and Society in Barcelona in November.

“Sydelle Willow Smith is a storyteller first and foremost and her sensitivity to her subject belies a visual instinct that is unstinting in its direct, confrontational edge. Her photographs are for the most part deceptive, an engaging, sexy look at the world that hides, layers and competes with a more puissant, didactic telling of her environment. Her soft yet confident approach allows an assertiveness that is at once free of any pretense, yet imposes a undeniable sense of awe - a respect for vision in both its endless complexity and confounding simplicity”. VANSA curator, Lester Adams.