Juan Orrantia


Artist in residence

Juan Orrantia makes photographic works concerned with questions of representation, perception and history. Embracing photography’s uncertainty and contingency, he works through the destabilizing possibilities of colour, archival images, and the photobook. Ongoing work considers colour and histories of othering. He is also developing a photobook on anticolonial legacies and the disruption of archival structures, silences and forms of concealment.

Last year, he published Like Stains of Red Dirt (Dalpine) after having been awarded the Fiebre Dummy Award. His VerdeRojo will be published this year as a result of the 2019 Centro de Fotografia de Montevideo Latin American Photobook Award. Other self-published books are in collections of the Smithsonian Museum of African Art Library, Biblioteca de Arte Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, and The Tierney Foundation. Reviews of his work have appeared in Aperture, Nearest Truth, British Journal of Photography, and Africa is a Country, among others.

Juan was born in Colombia and lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, and has lectured at universities and photo institutions. He holds an MFA in Photography from Hartford Art School and a doctorate in visual anthropology.

Recent reviews/interviews:

Related news


Everything that was made was not destroyed…

CHR Artist in Residence Juan Orrantia will present his ongoing artistic work “Everything that was made was not destroyed, but also does not exist” at the South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminar on 14 September 2021.

Apr 19, 2021

Juan Orrantia

Artist in residence
Apr 19, 2021

Buhle Ngaba

Artist in residence
May 12, 2020

The Humanities in Session with Kitso Lelliott

The CHR's A.W.Mellon Artist in Residence in Image and postdoctoral fellow, Kitso Lelliott was invited by the Kunstverein Braunschweig , Germany to create a work of video installations for the exhibition, THE FACULTY OF SENSING – Thinking With, Through, and by Anton Wilhelm Amo.
Apr 20, 2020

Kitso Lynn Lelliott

Artist in Residence
Apr 20, 2020

Khalid Shamis

Artist in Residence
Mar 19, 2020

The CHR congratulates, Artist in Residence, Kitso Lynn Lelliott on the opening of her Mancoba exhibition in Sweden.

Kitso Lelliot is an Andrew W. Mellon Artist in Residence at the Centre for Humanities Research. The show is at The Södertälje Konsthall and will run from the 7th March until the 10th of May.
Jul 9, 2019

CHR’s Khalid Shamis at the CHAM Conference 2019

PRODUCING IN THE PRESENT, PRESSURING THE PAST, FOR AN IMMEDIATE FUTURE. The key to the future lies in the past. The archive of the past is our immediate future. The question is not that we merely take and place the archive. We are not merely inheritors of a culture but its inherent makers.
Jan 11, 2019

Tony Bonani Miyambo

Artist in Residence, Theatre
Jan 11, 2019

Chumisa Fihla

Artist in Residence, Art
Oct 24, 2018

Blake Steenkamp

Film
May 10, 2018

Dark Things

A collaborative project featuring CHR Artist in Residence Reza Khota
Apr 16, 2018

Luis Gimenez Amoros

Artist in residence, Postdoctoral

The CHR fellowship programme will continue in 2022 through online platforms and, where permitted, limited live events hosted in compliance with COVID-19 protocols. Please follow our events page for updates about events.

For queries, please email us at

centreforhumanitiesresearch@uwc.ac.za

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