Photo Credit: Amr Alfiky
Gulshan Khan is a South African photojournalist and visual artist. Her work traverses the multiple layers of identity, humanity, memory, transition, belonging; justice and the dignity of people.
She is inspired by the concept of healing through story-telling. Gulshan believes that her work needs to be reflective of the people and the times, in both private and public, as well as institutional spaces, so that we no longer suffer the erasure and blindness of representation inflicted on us by our oppressive pasts or the present. Through such considerations, she hopes that we can build a more just and equal world. These are the themes which continue to direct her visual reflections of the human condition and the world around her.
Gulshan is a National Geographic Explorer, a 2022 FOAM Paul Huf Award Nominee, the recipient of the 2020 HIPA Emerging Photographer award, was selected as one of the “100 Heroines” in 2019 and is the first female South African Canon Ambassador.
In 2018, she was one of six photographers selected for the inaugural World Press Photo 6x6 Talent Program, Africa Edition, and is a 2020 Joop Swart Masterclass participant.
A former stringer for Agence France Presse (AFP), she was the first African woman to be regularly assigned by the agency in 2017.
She has published in the The National Geographic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian among others and regularly works with NGO’s.
In 2016, Gulshan completed the Market Photo Workshop Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Program in Johannesburg, South Africa where she now sometimes lectures.
Her work has been acquired by the Iziko South African National Archive, Gallery and Museum.
While working on multiple projects, Gulshan has slowly been developing a long term project about her community of contemporary Muslims in South Africa. This personal documentation aims to engage with ideas of how faith is something that we carry with us even when we cannot carry anything else. It speaks to ideas of (re-)establishment of communities around acts and spaces of worship and prayer, and the transformations of physical and social landscapes through faith, with a special interest in the perspective of women.
The project also aims at remedying the historical lack of visual representation that such communities suffered, due to the dislocation and erasure cause by colonisation and apartheid in Africa and aims to be something that generations to come can look upon as a source of history and memory.
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Iziko South African National Gallery and Museum, Cape Town
SOLO EXHIBITION
2019 - Gulshan Khan / National Geographic Women of Impact, Johannesburg, South Africa
EXHIBITIONS
2022 - Rumi Nations, Maryland, USA
2022 - Into the Blaze, OATH / The FOURTH, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 - New Stories and Horizons, Everyday Africa, Cairo Photo Week, Egypt
2020 - Eyes on Main Street, Wilson, USA
2020 - Everyday Africa, World Press Photo - Schloss Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
2019 - Say Shukran - Casa dei Diritti - Milan, Italy
2019 - Native Agency, Territory, Grün Berlin, Berlin, Germany
2019 - Bronx Documentary Centre - Transitions: South Africa New York City
2019 - Photoville L.A. - MFON: Alter Prayer, Ritual and Offerings Los Angeles
2018 - 2019 - Not the usual suspects - Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town
2018 - Johannesburg Art Gallery, Art Market Budapest, Budapest
2018 - Unstill Life, Photo Kathmandu
2018 - World Press Photo 6x6 Talent Africa Exhibition, Kutching, Malaysia
2018 - “Foreseen: New Narratives from the African Photojournalism Database” - Nuku Photo Festival, Ghana
2018 - Photoville NYC - Forseen: New Narratives APJD , New York City
2018 - Photoville NYC MFON: Alter Prayer, Ritual and Offerings , New York City
2018 ‘Foreseen' World Press Photo / APJD - LUMIX - Festival for young Photojournalism
2018 - "A U F B R U C H" - Liebenroder Kultur Ambulanz LKA, Liebende Germany
2017 - [CROP] Project (Creative Resistance & Open Processes) , Johannesburg
2016 - Woke - Wits Theatre, Decolonising Feminism Conference, Johannesburg
2016 - Woke - Goethe-Institut. Part of the Grada Kilomba artist talk, Johannesburg
TALKS, WEBINARS and PODCASTS
2022 - Remixing the art of social change: Telling stories through photos, Words Beats and Life - WBL Annual Symposium
2022 - CANON Miraisha / African Women in Photography Masterclass Student Exhibition
2021 - 'The Power of Women in Photography' - Webinar - IWD - African Women in Photography / Canon
2021- Grey Matters Capital - Inspo 60 - Speaker
2020 - "The year that changed us all" - Podcast - Canon Shutter Stories
2020 - Photojournalism in Africa - Webinar -Market Photo Workshop, Photoform Africa
2020 - National Geographic Storytellers Summit, Speaker, Washington DC, USA
2019 - Women in Photojournalism, Panelist, The Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg, South Africa.
2019 - "The Impact of a Story on an Individual", Presenter and panelist, World Press Photo Festival, Amsterdam
2018 - Roshnee Photo Club, Speaker, Johannesburg
2018 - Debating the role of photojournalism from South Africa to Zimbabwe, Panelist, The Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg South Africa
2018 - Speaker - African Studies Palaver, Department of African Studies, Centre for African Studies, Howard University, Washington DC
AWARDS, MASTERCLASSES, WORKSHOPS & REVIEWS
2022 - American Photography 38 Winner
2022 - Recipient of the Kweli Journal Scholarship - KWELI Color of Children's Literature Conference
2022 - FOAM Paul Huf Award Nominee
2022 - Magnum Counter Histories Nominee
2021- Canon Miraisha African Women in Photography Storytelling Masterclass - Trainer
2020 - (Hamdan International Photography Award) HIPA - Emerging Photographer award
2020 - World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass
2019 - New York Portfolio Review, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, New York
2019 - Blink Connect Portfolio Review, NYC
2019 - IWMF Women's Media Leadership Bootcamp, Naivasha, Kenya
2019 - National Geographic Women Photographers Seminar Saturday, Attendee, Washington DC
2019 - National Geographic Seminar and Storytelling Summit Attendee, Washington DC
2018 - Runner up at Lagos Photos / National Geographic portfolio Review, Lagos, Nigeria.
2018 - Women Photograph Workshop and Portfolio Review at Photoville, New York City
PRESS
The Devi Show - ENCA - S07 - EP 09
South African Muslims: Gulshan Khan in the National Archive
Jozi Photographer Gulshan Khan 'finds the epic' in modern muslim life in SA
Homes to policing: Lockdown Photos show South Africa Inequality with photographer Gulshan Khan - Thomson Reuters Foundation
20 Rising Female Photojournalists - Artsy
2018 Top 100 Photos - From the Editors of Time
The Washington Post - Voices of African Photography: At the intersection of identity power and belonging
World Press Photo Witness - Four to Follow #1
Odd Mag Artist of the month