“The Travelling Man is my favourite image from the exhibition,” gushes Anelisa Mangcu. “It’s of this man in KwaLanga who was returning home from initiation.
“I love it because he is a boy at one moment and at the next he is a man. So when I took that picture, he was turned and walking away from my direction, just taking a moment to himself. i thought that was extremely beautiful and conveyed the essence of what this exhibition is about.”
Mangcu clearly has a way with words, but if such a thing exists, it seems the Capetonian has a poetic eye, too. The photographer’s debut solo exhibition, The Moments Amidst the Chaos, began at Rococo Studio Gallery last week and she has not been the same since.
Like the man in her favourite image – which is also the one she blew up the biggest and used as the poster for her exhibition – Mangcu underwent a transformation of sorts, but it doesn’t look like the 19-year-old has taken any time for herself yet.
“My voice is gone,” she sort of croaks, “I tend to overwork myself.” But, by all accounts, it’s been worth it.
“Finally showing my own work has been – and I hate using this word, but it’s so fitting – surreal. But it’s not over yet, I still have many plans for it.”
Aside from hoping to work on a new project that is intertwined with this one, Mangcu is excited “people were actually engaging with my work”.
“The best advice I got from an artist was to never expect anything,” she says.
But then the opening night came and “if I did have any expectations then they were far exceeded that day. Two pieces were bought on the same night”.
The Vega school student who is studying copywriting was happy about the turnout at the event but more so about the fact that she was laying a foundation for her photography, which she describes as “leaning more towards the fine art side”.
Contributing to this, no doubt, must have been her foresight to prepare.
After many rejections by various galleries, Mangcu decided Rococo would be the final space shewould try. And on that very day, April 23, she got the green light and went home to start 131 Days, a blog that would chronicle every single day leading up to the exhibition’s opening.
Following the theme of her exhibition and “giving the insignificant significance again”, Mangcu started blogging the countdown to D-Day because “I wanted to document every aspect of the process and it forced me to work on the project daily”.
It also, similar to The Travelling Man, brought about the transition from amateur to professional photographer. Something tells us young mangcu is going to be around for a long time.
lThe Moments Amidst The Chaos is at Rococo Studio Gallery, 38 Buitenkant St, until October 1. Information: http:// anelisamangcu. blogspot.com