gulshan khan

Gulshan Khan is an independent South African photographer based in Johannesburg.

Her work is focused on stories related to social justice, identity, human rights, transition and belonging and the dignity of people; the multi-layered effects of everything from  access to water and sanitation, safe housing, equal education and healthcare, gender based violence to plastic pollution, climate change and migration. These are themes which continue to direct her visual reflections of the human condition and the world around her.

A stringer for Agence France Presse (AFP), she was the first African woman to be hired by the agency in 2017. She has published in the The National Geographic, The New York Times,  The Washington Post, New Frame, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Le Monde, The Financial Times, El Pais, The Wall Street Journal, among others. Gulshan has worked with various NGO’s including the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the African Women's Development Fund.

Gulshan is the recipient of the 2020 HIPA Emerging Photographer award. 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.  In 2016, Gulshan completed the Market Photo Workshop Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Program in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is a National Geographic Explorer, a member of the World Press Photo's African Photojournalism Database (APJD), Native and Women Photograph and is an Everyday Africa contributor.

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, Cape Town


EXHIBITIONS

15 February -  8 March 2020 - Everyday Africa, World Press Photo - Schloss Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

September 21 - 28 2019 - Say Shukran - Casa dei Diritti  - Milan, Italy

August 2019 - Native Agency, Territory, Grün Berlin,  Berlin, Germany

April 19 - May 26 2019 - Bronx Documentary Centre - Transitions: South Africa  New York City

April - May 2019 -  Photoville L.A. - MFON: Alter Prayer, Ritual and Offerings Los Angeles

04 October 2018 - April 2019 - Not the usual suspects - Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town

11-14 October 2018 - Johannesburg Art Gallery, Art Market Budapest, Budapest

12 October 2018 - 16 November - Unstill Life, Photo Kathmandu 

29 Sept - 28 October  2018 - World Press Photo 6x6 Talent Africa Exhibition, Kutching, Malaysia

18 Sept - 24 October 2018 - “Foreseen: New Narratives from the African Photojournalism Database” - Nuku Photo Festival, Ghana

13 Sept - 23 Sept 2018 - Photoville NYC - Forseen: New Narratives APJD , New York City

13 Sept - 23 Sept 2018 - Photoville NYC MFON: Alter Prayer, Ritual and Offerings , New York City

20 June - 24 June 2018 ‘Foreseen' World Press Photo / APJD - LUMIX - Festival for young Photojournalism

05 May - 09 September 2018 - "A U F B R U C H" - Liebenroder Kultur Ambulanz LKA, Liebende Germany

November 2017 - [CROP] Project (Creative Resistance & Open Processes) , Johannesburg

26 August 2016 - Woke - Wits Theatre, Decolonising Feminism Conference,  Johannesburg

27 August 2016 - Woke - Goethe-Institut. Part of the Grada Kilomba artist talk, Johannesburg


PRESS  

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


TALKS, WORKSHOPS & REVIEWS

15 January 2020 - National Geographic Storytellers Summit, Speaker, Washington DC, USA

14 September 2019 - Women in Photojournalism, Panelist, The Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg, South Africa.

13 April 2019 - "The Impact of a Story on an Individual", Presenter and panelist, World Press Photo Festival, Amsterdam

30 March 2019 - New York Portfolio Review, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, New York  

28 March 2019 -  Blink Connect Portfolio Review, NYC

25 - 30 January 2019 - IWMF Women's Media Leadership Bootcamp, Attendee, Naivasha, Kenya

January 2019 - National Geographic Women Photographers Seminar Saturday, Attendee, Washington DC

January 2019 - National Geographic Seminar and Storytelling Summit Attendee, Washington DC

07 December 2018 - Roshnee Photo Club, Speaker, Johannesburg

22 November 2018 - Debating the role of photojournalism from South Africa to Zimbabwe, Panelist, The Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg South Africa

08 November 2018 - Speaker - African Studies Palaver, Department of African Studies, Centre for African Studies, Howard University, Washington DC

03 November 2018 - Runner up at Lagos Photos / National Geographic portfolio Review, Lagos, Nigeria.

22-23 September, 2018 - Women Photograph Workshop and Portfolio Review at Photoville, Attendee, New York City