Nudity and Sally Mann

Sally Mann

Robynne Peatfield (Robz), a darling of a human being who is able to capture beautiful and often intangible moments with a camera introduced me to photographer Sally Mann. Before I read up on Mann I want to first share what her work signifies to me and how it has affected me mentally and spiritually.

(Man, oh Mann! <-- I know how cheesy this sounds :-) )

As we went through her work, Robz gave me interesting facts and insight ngoMann and further sharpened my "photographer's eye" by picking up detail which a novice such as myself would not recognise. My eyes and heart were captured, I was left breathless! She is a mother of three and would use her children as subjects in many of her seminal work. She simply captured bits and pieces of their daily rhythms with a simple yet rare camera. Yho! I used the word "beautiful" appropriately for the first time in a while in relation to photography. In a world were we are inundated with pictures and colour, I looked at these black and white and some sepia-ish (hello novice) pictures and kept asking myself a series of questions and with these came an overflow of revelations, one being about nudity and how it has been forced to elude to sex annd sex alone.

In many cases I have defined sex and its purpose inaccurately, I attribute my failure to many things namely: sex being a capitalist tool to fuel consumerism (which I cannot avoid being a part of), the psychological implications which came with being molested as a child and thirdly, not having an honest and knowledgeable person sit me down to talk about sex. This then made me see the body, in its greatness, beauty and complexity as primarily an object for sex. I am utterly grateful to God for allowing me to study Drama Arts because it is through this art form and constant communication with God that I began to see the body, my body and other peoples bodies differently.

Through the lens of this art-form the scales of ignorance and narrow-mindedness began to slowly come off my eyes-the imagery is rather disgusting! I began to see the body not for what it is but what it can be. I am of the opinion that God's fullness has not been fully revealed to us, this including the full purpose and capacity of the body. The reductive nature which comes with the economic rationale of "the triple bottom line" has made us see even the most complex things in a reductive manner. Karl Polanyi calls all things natural (not man made) fictitious commodities, ngoba nyani how can one put a price on something or someone who was not conceived through the imagination of man? Nudity, because of this thinking, has been reduced to a sexual stimulus which explains why we get uncomfortable and shy when we see bare bodies even if they were not intending to "excite" the viewer. Heeee, let me tie this in with Mann...

There have been accusations leveled against Mann saying that her work is child pornography. Here is my problem, what would give a person such an idea? The obvious answer would be seeing a child nude, but what does nudity symbolise? This is an issue of subjectivity. Pornography (from my understanding) ought to be sexually stimulating, so it is not the naked body alone but what that naked body is doing, the energy of the individual who is naked, the location and the environment the body is in plays a part in making the visual more stimulating. With these factors in mind, I see no association between Mann's work and child pornography.

In my struggle with understanding what sex is and understanding what the body is, Mann provided a lot of simple answers. The body is many things and it ought to be celebrated and accepted for that. The body is strong yet fragile, it possesses a kind of divinity which we only get a glimmer of when it is bare and the most vulnerable-when we are naked. I see so much freedom displayed by her subjects in this naked state, a type of freedom which comes from within and illuminates beautifully and powerfully through the naked body. Through her pictures I get to see how nudity is not jarring but is a part of other important organisms which create art from God's gaze I believe. Our bodies, our nakedness is part of a greater nakedness, leaves aren't clothed with superficial coverings which create a false by hiding the "true self"- no! We were born nude, naked, bare and a wonder. Mann's works takes me back to the "first self", the self which was loved, appreciated, admired for what it is and not what it can be.

Mann, oh man. Your work is beautiful

Mathabo Tlali