Cooking, Mkushi, Zambia

Such control was no more acute than during the states of emergency in South Africa between 1985 and 1990; yet, despite oppressive behaviour towards photographers by the South African government, there were opportunities for many photographers. One of those was Gideon Mendel, a South African photojournalist who now works from London documenting social issues, particularly in Africa, and who won the Eugene Smith Award for Humanistic Photography in 1996; Eugene Smith himself was a noted documentary photographer. In comparison with South Africa, Zambia has never had the stark subject matter that deep oppression incurs, but it has a need to record social change for posterity, which is a continuum that remains largely undocumented in the country’s museums. ~ Peter Langmead in Postcards from Zambia