In our new interview with award-winning photographer Roger Ballen, the New York-born, Johannesburg-based artist has revealed details of a new collaboration with confrontational South African art-hop outfit Die Antwoord.”I’m busy working on a new collaboration with them,” Ballen discloses.
“For the first time in my long career, I have been taking colour photographs of them. Both Ninja and Yo-Landi were portrayed in different rooms dominated by my Ballenesque aesthetic, consisting of drawings, sculptures, and other objects. That’s all I can say for now.” Roger Ballen has worked with Die Antwoord previously, collaborating on the video and book project, I Fink U Freeky. “Ninja and Yo-Landi approached me in 2005 or 2006,” explains the photographer. “At the time they said that they gave up everything for a year or so when they saw my work they reinvented themselves as Die Antwoord. We got talking and eventually started collaborating. The collaboration worked well because they have a deep understanding of what I do and respect it. We’re on the same wavelength so I did a lot of the art sets and they linked it to their music. It was a very harmonious process.”
The new colour photographs of Die Antwoord were taken in January 2018 in a building in Johannesburg. Both Ninja and Yo-Landi were portrayed in different rooms dominated by the Ballenesque aesthetic, consisting of drawings, sculptures, and other objects. These images occurred at a time when Roger Ballen has begun shooting colour photography for the first time in his long career.
Confrontation, 2018
