00:00This woman wants to decolonize African history and all with just one click
00:06Most
00:08Indigenous African tribes have always been interpreted by the Western mindset for instance
00:16They'll definitely speak about naked people in Africa
00:20Spepele Sibanyoni is an award-winning freelance photographer based in Mbabani, Eswatini
00:25Let's find out why her passion for photography led her to travel the African continent
00:30Look how beautiful this is, but the story behind this it's a story of hope
00:36It's somebody who's been waiting for like 16 hours
00:40He left the village trying to make a living in order to remove this hairstyle
00:46because this hairstyle is actually a
00:49Traditional hairstyle, you cannot just cut it. In order for him to be man enough to cut off this hairstyle
00:55He needs to prove that he's got enough cattle
00:57But how he's gonna have cattle and we're suffering from all this global warming, climate change, modernization, digitalization and all affluences
01:08With my interpretations, to me it's heritage, it's treasure
01:14You hunt for treasure. You can't just find it anywhere
01:17So I feel like I'm I keep so much treasure in me with all that I've achieved and acquired
01:23Through all the travels and experiences and expeditions because they are solo, it happens when I'm alone
01:29Traveling across the African continent to get unseen sights and told stories is a bold move for a woman on her own
01:37Spepele insists that she has only just started
01:40What challenges has she faced on some of her trips?
01:43And why is it necessary to immerse into the unknown to make it visible to the global audience?
01:49Yes, there will be barrier, language barrier, communication barrier because it's a foreign language and
01:57The resources are usually
01:59not properly, you know
02:02Available because I'm self-funded in everything that I do. I've been funding myself for the longest time and
02:09It's been a personal journey
02:10I never wanted to include anybody else into it because I wanted to find out where can I go further with this?
02:18That's the will and the zeal and the perseverance of doing it
02:22I was like if I did it the first time I can always do it
02:26I
02:36Want to be a part of them, I want to be part of the community
02:40I don't do tour buses or tour guides or sleeping in exclusive or explicit
02:46Exclusive hotels and stuff. I am a part of the people because I spent like two months in the Maniata never been there
02:54Language barrier was obviously there but I had I had an opportunity to get somebody who was fluent in interpreting to me
03:01So I learned all the cultures
03:03I learned all the practices all the oral traditions and everything but yet some of them were hidden but I
03:11Learned a lot
03:12the good stories and the sad stories were there because I spent so much time and I became
03:16They became warm to me and I became one of them because I couldn't just get there with a camera and shoot shoot shoot
03:22That's assumption. Is this why the Swazi visual storyteller is challenging the African narrative?
03:29What made her seek her own uniquely African approach?
03:34Poverty
03:35hunger
03:36having none exposure to any form of
03:39Western way of living and lifestyle
03:43Yet they made money off them and through them
03:48lovely
03:49Specula Sibanyoni worked as a marketer in the UK and South Africa
03:53While she studied photography and developed her creative eye in photography and as a creative director
03:59How did this help her find her own African style of storytelling?
04:02we've got our own colors that we embrace in summer winter autumn and spring without any limitations, but
04:09when I was in Europe
04:11color meant
04:14Certain celebrations yet. It's dialed mostly it was beautiful when it came to
04:21learning my craft fine art in photography
04:26But expressing myself with the textures that they had I found it so limited
04:30Specula's work has been displayed at galleries sold online and printed into a coffee table book
04:36I love her pieces. I love the black and white. I love that it brings in our African aesthetic
04:42I do some interior work as well. And I see that I'll also be able to fit it into some of the projects
04:48I'm working on
04:50But I think the store she'll sell a number of pieces from the store as well
04:55Specula seems to constantly reinvent her creative focus
04:59Why does she feel the need to expand the media that she uses to express herself?
05:03I feel like interpreting my works in different dimensions
05:08especially on fabric and
05:12Furniture upholstery. It's endless
05:15it's
05:17The sky is the limit basically and I'm looking forward to
05:21to more growth. Specula is constantly chasing the perfect picture
05:26Sometimes this is moments in time that are captured on the fly at other times
05:31She meticulously plans for and designs every element before she even takes a single shot
05:37What makes the perfect short and everything else is
05:42It's all about belief on
05:45The actual person doing the whole photo shoot. That's me as a photographer
05:51having faith and trust and
05:54That helps in creating a concrete and solid relationship
05:57But Specula's goal of reclaiming narratives goes beyond the images on her prints or fabrics
06:03How does she think telling these stories is impacting young Africans?
06:07What I always tell people or even the people I mentor
06:11I always tell them to not actually restrict themselves from creating just keep on creating and
06:18You'll figure it out. Were you actually alive out of doing all creations that actually
06:26That you actually find yourself into never limit yourself
06:31The art of African photography is evolving from portraits
06:34Which would be taken by the local street photographer to brave new photographers like Specula Sabanyoni
06:40Who are prepared to break stereotypes?
06:43Backpack across the continent and let people tell their own stories
06:47To be really and truly seen
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