Dewald Botha
I’ve been back in Brno, Czech Republic, for just over a year now, enjoying exploring this part of Europe again. I previously moved here after four years in the UK, two of which were in Oxford. Eight years in China fit between my times in Brno. I was born in South Africa, and left around 2002.
It is a sense of not really belonging anywhere which drives my explorations in the places I visit, and the environment I find myself. I’m not fond of attaching a specific title to myself or my work, so for now I’m just going with photographic artist.
What if I hadn’t left?
Experiencing and photographing is, in large, the act of comparing.
Comparing places, smells, people and sounds, to those already known, or those I had experienced since the last time in that particular place. Also, consciously comparing to where I’m living at present.
Revisiting Oxford 10 years since I’d left was not only a sensory becoming aware again of place, but also an emotional awareness of the act of comparing – the city, yes, but also myself as a person who has changed so much through the years.
It is a sense of not really belonging anywhere which drives my explorations in the places I visit, and the environment I find myself. I’m not fond of attaching a specific title to myself or my work, so for now I’m just going with photographic artist.
What if I hadn’t left?
Experiencing and photographing is, in large, the act of comparing.
Comparing places, smells, people and sounds, to those already known, or those I had experienced since the last time in that particular place. Also, consciously comparing to where I’m living at present.
Revisiting Oxford 10 years since I’d left was not only a sensory becoming aware again of place, but also an emotional awareness of the act of comparing – the city, yes, but also myself as a person who has changed so much through the years.