Durban Moments: Omar Badsha’s Afro-Asian Aesthetic and the Aura of the Ordinary

This essay reviews a series of photographs by South African photographer Omar Badsha exhibited as part of Sharjah Biennial 15 (SB15). Collectively entitled Once We Were Warriors: Women and Resistance in the South African Liberation Struggle (1981–1999), the thirty-one images selected for SB15 highlight the role of women as political activists during the 1980s and 1990s across South Africa. The essay discusses Badsha’s biography and approach to photography, in addition to appraising the images themselves.