Research an artist – Roger Ballen

Roger Ballen (1950 – ?) – born in New York but lived in Johannesburg, South Africa since 1974.
Ballen completed a psychology degree and PhD in mineral economics. He establish himself as a geologist in early 1980s.
As a geologist, he always travel around the home and residents of white people in South Africa’s rural area with photograph shoots. He started to publish and display these photos since 1990s.
Ballen’s photograph is like a screenshot of dreams. It is compelling, inspiring, intriguing with sense of montage, exquisite and black humor. His work indistinct the boundaries between the documentary and conceptual photography – it is a powerful social statement as well as a complex psychological study.

Use dark / dirty background with a lot of funny face to present our world? Use Juxtaposition to present two different situation / class. The bottom kid with cartoon mask represent the bottom class people in the society. Carton mask = life is a joke / game?

Roger Ballen’s photos use a lot of semiotics to represent something meaningful.

Rat sit of the top of a frame – upper class people / rich people – they are bad but in-charge (frame is our society / system)

Dove mean peace.

Hands represent what people wants / wishes.

Body bag on the bottom – sacrifice.

The top human face and animal face represent the normal relationship between human and animal.

The real human head and dog represent a real situation / relationship of human and animal – we cage them to observe them or for fun, but who is master, who is pet? who know?

Human mind is twisted and complicated.

Something is happening to human race?