Leeroy Jason - Part I: Everything Must Fall

13 Nov

ADVISORY: In this episode we talk about issues of domestic and sexual violence

If you’ve been listening to this podcast at all you’ll hear me talk a lot about South Africa and you’ll also know that I’m half South African. I love South Africa it is home for me as much as London is my home - yet I feel like I fully belong and I’m a foreigner all at once. I often say South Africa is a place of extremes, the good things are incredible and the bad things are terrible and it seems to me that this is the place South Africa exists, beautiful and harrowing, inspiring and exasperating. When I think about my guest today, photographer Leeroy Jason, his work so well encapsulates these tensions - beautiful painful, frightening yet you can't help but stare…an image comes to mind of a man being sprayed in the face with teargas - the image is brutal yet Leeroy captures it in such a way that the movement in the picture gives it an elegance that makes it feel like a dance.

Leeroy started taking pictures at the age of 11. With a famous war photographer father who covered the apartheid struggle, the Rwandan genocide and the war in Kosovo (he’s also responsible for that iconic picture of Lady Diana shaking hands with Nelson Mandela) the realities of war and the effects of PTSD turned Leeroy temporarily away from a career in photography but it would seem the pull was too strong to stay away but I’ll let him tell you about that himself.

Leeroy has a way of giving voice to ideas in a way I had not previously considered and then using photography to articulate those ideas. Days after our discussion I found myself revisiting some of things he said. Leeroy’s photography challenges, it provokes, it causes you to question, it is art, it’s also journalistic, he has a way of merging those extremes I was telling you about. We recorded this episode in September and at the time of airing, South Africa still has the highest rates of rape in the world (according to a report by the South African Medical research council 25% of SA men have admitted to raping a women and of that 25% nearly half said they have raped more than 1 woman) the numbers are disturbing especially when we know that a lot of rapes go unreported and that these aren’t numbers they are real people - Leeroy’s work seeks to address the issues around gender based violence or GBV not only from the perspective of South African women to quote Leeroy ‘taking their power back’ but he also challenges men, African men, South African men (starting with himself) to look at their own behaviour, to reconsider their understanding of their masculinity of African masculinity and sexuality and he does so with his photography.

Leeroy was open, honest, vulnerable, he got us talking about things I didn’t expect. And it’s why I decided to divide this conversation into 2 parts. I tried to end the conversation like I always do, talking about music, about the music he was listening to, but our conversation, steered by Leeroy took a different turn and we kind of wandered down an unexpected creative road so that Leeroy ended up interviewing me - as I said, not what I expected! You’ll have to tune in to part 2 to listen to that- but for this episode know that we talk about the police and citizen responses to Covid-19, Leeroy’s journey into photography, the work he explores in what is known as ‘the fall’ generation and his photography series Everything must fall. We talk about trauma, about violence about masculine identity and sexuality and we try to talk about music!

Guest: Leeroy Jason

Title: ‘Everything Must Fall’

IG: @darealclickclak

Mental Health Charities & Organisations in South Africa: Gender Justice, SADAG

The Carroll Shaw Memorial Centre (rehabilitation for abused men) website is down but there is an email: info@csmc.org.za & tel: 011 416 6080

I asked a South African psychotherapist friend who studied and trained for many years in South Africa she advised that for those who are on medical aid, you may be able to apply for up to 15 therapy sessions.

UK therapy for men: The Calm Zone, We Are Humen, Therapy for men in London, In South London

Black, African & Asian mental health charity: BAATN

Black men's mental health for 16-30yr olds: Hood Mentality

Guest User