Afrapix was founded in South Africa in 1982 (and disbanded in 1991), a collective of photographers who documented and opposed Apartheid. According to Paul Weinberg, a cofounder, initially, there were two objectives: to found a cooperative not unlike Magnum Photos but also - or primarily - to stimulate social documentary photography and social change.
(...) the Afrapix photographers’ mandate was to be participants in action, aligned with the politics and principles of the anti-apartheid movement. Their work was grounded in the belief that exposure and visibility were not the end goal; rather, the objective was ‘preconditions for an empathetic and humanistic reaction that would prompt international political action.’ (via)
The more influential Afrapix became, the more challenges the photographers had to face. Apartheid security forces harrassed the photographers, their office was raided, then the building (which also housed other anti-apartheid groups) was bombed. There were police surveillance, spies, and direct threats. Laws became more restrictive, designed to fight "the public relations nightmare the apartheid government was experiencing overseas, namely, images of white police officers brutalising unarmed black civilians". The mainstream press avoided running stories that seemed to be opposing the government policy and censored itself to survive since their revenue came from the white readership that was already complaining about boring and annoying headlines "about the experiences of Black South Africans". These experiences were not appealing to advertisers, either (via).
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photograph (COSATU Cultural Day 1987, (c) Anna Zieminski) via
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