Photography and the Future in Jansje Wissema's Images of District Six

This paper focuses on photographs taken in District Six during the time of forced removals by South African photographer Jansje Wissema. It explores both the history of their making and how these images can be deployed as tools for thinking the post-apartheid condition. The paper engages with Ariella Azoulay's argument in the Civil Contract of Photography (2008) about the connections between photographic practices and citizenship in order to think about how photographs taken under apartheid can be understood as addressed to the future. In conclusion, the paper reflects on the work of visual artist Haroon Gunn-Salie and considers how contemporary art practices intervene in the ongoing scripting of the history and making of the future of District Six.