AN EAST London student’s fascination with what people collect resulted in a photographic exhibition of collections of skulls, tarantulas and motorbikes.
The exhibition, Photographing Other Selves: Collecting, Collections and the Collaborative that opened in Port Elizabeth last week is part of Hannah Minkley’s Masters dissertation at NMMU’s applied design department and features 13 Eastern Cape collectors.
Minkley, 25, who matriculated from Hudson Park High in 2008, said her father Gary’s record and book collections and her sister Emma’s vintage trinket collection, triggered an interest in why people amass certain objects and how they choose to display them.
“I met a whole range of characters and some very lovely people.
“Some were eccentric, others more shy,” said Minkley, who placed newspaper and online ads and visited second-hand shops to find interesting collectors.
“I visited Jeff Sansom in Thomas River, who has multiple collections, with separate areas dedicated to each one including a fossil museum, a library devoted to learning and typewriters, a wagon museum, a wall devoted to royalty and vintage cars.”
Another die-hard collector was former finance MEC Billy Nel, whose Kei Mouth farm has entire warehouses devoted to his collections, which include 500 vintage motorbikes such as ambulance bikes, post office delivery bikes, as well as Vespas, Triumphs and the sought-after Royal Enfield.
“His collections were quite overwhelming, but pretty incredible.”
Minkley also photographed father and son collectors Mike and Matthew Engelbrecht, of Vincent Heights, who collect pigeons and tarantulas respectively.
“Matthew had about 130 tarantulas in containers on a shelf in his bedroom and his dad keeps 1000 pigeons at his work in Wilsonia.”
In Port Elizabeth, 76-year-old Dorothy Hart, festooned her lounge and dining room with the medals, T-shirts and newspaper clippings of the races she has completed since she started running at the age of 60, while Shirley Armstrong showed Minkley her collection of animal skulls, which is stored in alphabetic order and includes bats, baboons and a dolphin skull she found on the beach.
The young photographer also captured African masks from the Congo and Mali – including a “passport mask” worn on the waist when travelling between tribes.
Dinky cars, sword and hubcap collections were also photographed.
“Part of my interest was to make the photographic process collaborative and to hear how they wanted their collection to be represented.
“I also wanted to understand the personal stories that collectors have associated with their objects. “The collectors wrote accounts of how their collections began and grew and I mounted their handwritten texts next to the images I took.”
Minkley’s exhibition is at the ARTec gallery in Bird Street, Port Elizabeth until November 13.
Exhibition takes peek at collectors
The exhibition, Photographing Other Selves: Collecting, Collections and the Collaborative that opened in Port Elizabeth last week is part of Hannah Minkley’s Masters dissertation at NMMU’s applied design department and features 13 Eastern Cape collectors.
Minkley, 25, who matriculated from Hudson Park High in 2008, said her father Gary’s record and book collections and her sister Emma’s vintage trinket collection, triggered an interest in why people amass certain objects and how they choose to display them.
“I met a whole range of characters and some very lovely people.
“Some were eccentric, others more shy,” said Minkley, who placed newspaper and online ads and visited second-hand shops to find interesting collectors.
“I visited Jeff Sansom in Thomas River, who has multiple collections, with separate areas dedicated to each one including a fossil museum, a library devoted to learning and typewriters, a wagon museum, a wall devoted to royalty and vintage cars.”
Another die-hard collector was former finance MEC Billy Nel, whose Kei Mouth farm has entire warehouses devoted to his collections, which include 500 vintage motorbikes such as ambulance bikes, post office delivery bikes, as well as Vespas, Triumphs and the sought-after Royal Enfield.
“His collections were quite overwhelming, but pretty incredible.”
Minkley also photographed father and son collectors Mike and Matthew Engelbrecht, of Vincent Heights, who collect pigeons and tarantulas respectively.
“Matthew had about 130 tarantulas in containers on a shelf in his bedroom and his dad keeps 1000 pigeons at his work in Wilsonia.”
In Port Elizabeth, 76-year-old Dorothy Hart, festooned her lounge and dining room with the medals, T-shirts and newspaper clippings of the races she has completed since she started running at the age of 60, while Shirley Armstrong showed Minkley her collection of animal skulls, which is stored in alphabetic order and includes bats, baboons and a dolphin skull she found on the beach.
The young photographer also captured African masks from the Congo and Mali – including a “passport mask” worn on the waist when travelling between tribes.
Dinky cars, sword and hubcap collections were also photographed.
“Part of my interest was to make the photographic process collaborative and to hear how they wanted their collection to be represented.
“I also wanted to understand the personal stories that collectors have associated with their objects. “The collectors wrote accounts of how their collections began and grew and I mounted their handwritten texts next to the images I took.”
Minkley’s exhibition is at the ARTec gallery in Bird Street, Port Elizabeth until November 13.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Register (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Trending Now
Latest Videos