Jo’burg art pick: April 1 2011

Two arresting photography exhibitions are on show.

• Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) / Doctors Without Borders South Africa launches a thought-provoking exhibition, Solidarity for Survival, on World Health Day (April 7) to focus attention on the plight of thousands of people who survive displacement and migration and come to South Africa, where they often face discrimination and xenophobia. Solidarity for Survival is informed by what MSF has witnessed while providing emergency medical care. The exhibit seeks to provoke debate and to inspire solidarity with vulnerable people who struggle to access medical care and who face a denial of dignity. The focus is on five countries where MSF operates in sub-Saharan Africa: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

  Rampart Rooms, Constitution Hill, 1 Kotze Street, Braamfontein, from April 7 to 14. Visit www.solidarity4survival.org for more

• The Market Photo Workshop presents Tierney Fellow Thabiso Sekgala’s debut solo exhibition, Homeland, from Wednesday at the Photo Workshop Gallery. Homeland is situated within the liminal space where history meets present reality. A document of space and its imagined identities, it considers how people and place construct themselves in a time of political change. On the surface, Homeland is a series about rural areas in South Africa. It takes a documentary approach, depicting, almost cataloguing, the houses and landscapes of rural areas in North West province and Mpumalanga. In particular, these photographs were taken in the ex-homelands of Bophuthatswana and KwaNdebele, a reference that gives the series its name.
  
  Market Photo Workshop, 2 President Street, Newtown. Attend the opening on April 6 at 6pm. Walkabout with Thabiso Sekgala on April 13 at 1pm and a panel discussion on ‘belonging”, chaired by Leora Faber, on April 20 at 6pm.